[3830] CQWW SSB VA7ST SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: VA7ST
Operator(s): VA7ST
Station: VA7ST

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: BC
Operating Time (hrs): 29

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   14     2        2
   80:  149    13       19
   40:   54    18       32
   20:  614    27       74
   15:  249    13       27
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total: 1080    73      154  Total Score = 559,101

Club: British Columbia DX Club

Comments:

* FT-2000 + SB221 (SO1R, unassisted)
* N1MM Logger with DVK
* 3 ele. tribander @ 45'
* 2 x 40M half-squares
* 2 x 80M verticals
* 160M Inverted-L (75' high/60' horizontal)

2008 opening bell -- SFI=68 A= 1 K= 0
2007 opening bell -- SFI=67 A=14 K= 4

Flux about the same as it was last year, but A and K indices were much better.
Friday evening 20M was good for the first hour and dead as a doornail after
that. 40M was horrible.

80M was bleak early-on Friday night, with VE5, VE7 and a W6 the only stations I
worked on my first visit there in hour 2, but opened wide later. By 0837z (1:40
a.m. Saturday morning), I had 103 in the bag on 80M, with 12 countries and 10
zones -- vs. last year's total of 23 Qs, 6 countries and 7 zones.

In the 0900z hour I had a great time picking off loud 40M Caribbean and SA
stations. 

I never expect much from the first night. Went to bed at 0949z with 169 qs, 42
countries, 33 zones and 27,300 points. Tied last year's total score at 2100z
Saturday -- 348 Qs and 123,877 points, with 101 countries and 50 zones, vs.
last year's totals of 97 and 54 respectively.

Solid European openings on 20M both mornings. Band opened almost abruptly
around 1500z. This Mosely Classic-33 set for CW is useless in the 20M phone
band and I'm getting pummelled score-wise. I must have lost out on 30 or more
juicy mults -- I'd call and call them, but no results. Gotta get something
better before the sunspots show up in earnest. I see VE6EX and VE6CNU both had
stellar outings on 20M and 15M, so I have heaps of room for improvement.

Sunday afternoon, around 1 p.m. Pacific, I pointed at 60 degrees on a hunch
that an African or two might be looking back at me. Worked a pair of ZS
stations in a row and felt like king of the world :) I just LOVE seeing double
mults pop up in green letters in N1MM Logger. Alas, unless EU is open you can't
get much action below the U.S. phone band so I had to sneak up and work what I
could in the "frenetic" zone above 14.150.

I really enjoyed 80M -- I reconfigured my twin verticals' phasing box slightly
on Friday evening (out in the stormy woods at 11 p.m. with a flashlight) and it
seems to work even better. I cannot rave enough about the value of the short
Beverage antenna. I hear East and West with it, and it makes contacts possible
when I can't hear through the noise on the vertical array.

I did not enjoy 40M at all. The splits make me cross-eyed. I heard maybe a
dozen European stations all weekend but only managed to work one each of S57,
F, OK, I and ON. From Africa, I worked D4, EA8 and ZS (!!!). Truthfully, I am
not sure the F contact will hold up, as after I repeated my report I heard him
call CQ so the "ack" was either missed or he didn't give it. A painful double
mult reduction (plus) if I'm not in his log. Fingers and eyes crossed, hi.

All in all, it was a really satisfying contest. Last year I made 350 or so
contacts and this year I wanted to make 1,000. I did that with a bit to spare,
and also put in 29 hours (I figured 30 hours would allow me to say "I tried
pretty hard").

I wanted to quit a few times, but Livescores.org kept me going. Ed VE7EAR and I
were neck-and-neck for a long time. It was tremendous fun to see us
leap-frogging -- me with more Qs, Ed with more mults, yet we were in a dead
heat score-wise. Then Ed with his effective new antennas would dart way out
ahead and I'd say to myself, "OK, that's it for me then." But I stuck in there,
struggling to catch up. 

I seemed to have good rate, but as usual I missed a lot of mults that other
western VEs were finding. I must have been running too often, and not hunting
enough, but even when I did an S&P pass I wasn't finding many mults.

Finally, with mults not jumping out at me, by mid-morning on Sunday I figured
the only way to catch up to VE4EAR was to run as many stateside 2-pointers as I
could and hope he took a mid-day nap. Best runs were 167 on 15M and 217 on 20M.
Perhaps not top drawer, but pretty cool from this little station. QRM was
horrendous and I know you guys had to work to hear me, so my thanks for your
efforts.

After I hit my goal of 1,000 Qs, I decided to see if I could fill in some of
the missing 20M multipliers. I turned to Asia in the final couple of hours and
worked lots of JAs, and it was quite productive mult-wise. DU, BY, JD1, YB.
With the beam on Asia, I popped up to 15M and bagged double-mult KH6, though no
JAs at all. Back down to 20M and RZ0 called in for a Zone 18 mult, and then I
just ran as many of my JA friends as I could until the close.

Year-over-year comparison:

        Qs    Zn   Cty   Score
2008: 1080    73   154   559,101
2007:  349    54    97   123,367

Despite the clearly uncompetitive low tribander, I'm ready now for SS CW, WAE
RTTY, SS Phone, and the one I love the best, CQWW CW. Yikes. Talk about time on
task. Thanks for the contacts -- it was a pleasure to work so many new-to-me
calls on phone.

73, Bud VA7ST


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