[3830] WPX CW WX0B(AD5Q) SOAB HP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: WX0B
Operator(s): AD5Q
Station: WX0B

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Dallas
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    2
   80:   71
   40:  712
   20:  972
   15:  499
   10:  158
------------
Total: 2414  Prefixes = 755  Total Score = 3,944,120

Club: North Texas Contest Club

Comments:

The WPX CW is a unique contest, propagation wise. Since the SSB version is in
March, it is the only major contest that occurs during the annual peak in
nightpath MUF's. At the peak of the solar cycle it is the only contest where we
can enjoy 24 hour propagation on 15 – running, for example, EU and JA
simultaneously. At sunspot minimum, it is the only time that 20 stays open well
after sunset – open over the pole. As I especially love polar runs, I
typically start this contest with a big run on 20. Something else we can count
on at this time of year is a high noise level on 40 (Oops!).

Actually, the noise level was high. But it was mostly within the shack, which
is cooled by a very loud window unit. This didn't bother me at first, as my
pileup was also loud. In the initial hours, most callers are stateside 1
pointer's, and I try to get them in the log as quickly as I can in order to get
to the layer of DX callers that lies beneath. I noticed an all time personal
high rate spike (per 10 QSO's) of 271/hr, but this was bittersweet because my
previous high of 255 was during a CQWW on weak EU's. When I finally worked the
pileup down to the weak DX callers, I couldn't copy them well. I got up and
turned off the A/C, and also the loud box fan to my rear, leaving only the
amplifier blower noise. I also wrapped a bandana around my forehead to keep the
sweat out of my eyes.  This is the way I did the rest of the contest. It felt
like Field Day.

Now the bands were quiet, like a winter's night. 40 sounded like 20, and
(unlike a winter's contest) was wide open to Europe. As I have been dogged by
thunderstorm activity in every contest over the past year, this was welcome. I
finally started running on 40 at 0449z, and as “fresh meat” the rate didn't
drop below 80 until 0700z where I took a 2 hour break before the JA run. As I
expected the high bands to open slowly, I kept running on 40 until 1325z. I
should have done that both mornings.

20 and 15 had good rate during the day, with gradually improving DX signals. 10
was open both days, but I only went to it as a run band when I couldn't find
rate elsewhere. 15 was mostly 1 pointer's also. I returned from an afternoon
break to find 20 wide open, for what turned out to be the only really good
opening to EU – and it was brief. 

The bands were noisier the 2nd night, so I again stayed on 20 late – copying
numbers from JA's through the static crashes. On Sunday, I had lots of off time
to take. The remaining op time was allocated during the expected DX peaks, which
weren't as good as the day before. Sunday was a disappointment.

There were glitches (excuses) – one that has been biting me for several
contests, which I used to think was a software bug. The callsign and QSO
information on Radio-A disappears while I am in QSO, often requiring that I ask
the station for repeats of everything after I have sent his call correctly.
Sometimes they are gone, and always they are confused. This happens about 4-6
times per hour, but about 5 times during the contest the transceiver frequency
additionally jumped over 100 Khz and the amp tripped out. The software even
logged one QSO to a frequency in the Citizens Band. Bug? No: Maybe some RFI is
getting into the CI/V doodad for the Icom and its frequency is being misread or
set. It is normal for the software to clear the QSO info when the frequency
changes. This is the current theory. Also, Radio-B is throwing out a lot of
phase noise, which gets into Radio-A when the latter on the higher band. As
there are rumors we may change radios again, these problems could all go away
soon.

My hat's off to the local competition. N3BB was right in watching points/hr in
his software. I once had this, and more, in the homebrew software I used from
1981 thru '93. Originally written for CP/M, it displayed a screen full of
statistics, needed mults, and little else. There was a prompt line along the
bottom for the entry of QSO info in any order into a single field, which was
parsed nearly identically to the method used for the SS exchange in TR years
later. For statistics I tracked the time spent on each band, and was therefore
able to compute points/hr and mults/hr on each band for a formula that
displayed, in real time, the relative score value of each band's activity as a
number above or below 1.00. Mults/hr were assumed to taper off exponentially.
This display told me what bands to give priority to in any particular context,
and I still miss it. To this day, I still believe I was the first to log, dupe,
breakdown calls into country and continent; determine QSO points, and compute
score and rate – all in real time at competitive rates (ARRL CW 1981). The
data entry was very smooth. My software did NOT do SO2R, multi-op, packet or
even send CW. During those years, all my sending was with the Brown Bros.
paddle – no memory, not even for CQ's. 

Roy -- AD5Q

As always, the opportunity to use the WX0B station is very appreciated.


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