[3830] CQ160 CW LX7I(DF1LON) Single Op HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW

Call: LX7I
Operator(s): DF1LON
Station: LX7I

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 30

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1681  State/Prov = 46  Countries = 73  Total Score = 1,202,376

Club: Rhein Ruhr DX Association

Comments:

What a great contest. Goal was to reach 1.400 QSOs, 120 Multiplier and a 6
points average to have a score over 1Mio points. Like in 2008 I used two 160m
dipoles, two beverages (NA and JA) and additionally an L-antenna for 160m. The
vertical part of the l-antenna was support by one of the towers so that the
wire was just two meters away of the steal. This resulted in a very broad SWR
on the 160m band and maybe even a strange radiation. But nevertheless I used
the l-antenna the first night only and could make 866 QSOs with a lot of NA
contacts.

The second night I hoped to get some JA stations and tried to find a free spot
in the JA window (which is nearly impossible). I also noticed a slightly
getting worse SWR on the l-antenna which I did not pay much attention. I only
could hear JA7NI who gave out some points. No other JA. The rates were still ok
so I continued to call CQ. But contrary to the first night, nearly no NA
stations were heard. Between 2UTC and 4UTC I had rates fare below 16 Qs/h and a
lot of frequency fights. Seems to be a new sport. If you lose the QRG to a weak
DX station that is still ok, but if someone calls right in the middle of your
CW filter with S9+20db CQ, that is something different. So we both made no QSOs
for 10min, than the station left the QRG, I could make a couple of QSOs, and
than the next one tries to steal the QRg. So I looked for a new place to stay
and after 15min… (grrr)

I found some nice pileups where I never heard the DX station. V31YN was heard
only once within a 10min period when I stayed on his QRG. The remaining time
whole EU was calling without even to have a slight chance to hear the DX. I
never found 6W/DL2RMC, but I think I found his pileup. Luckily he called in a
couple of hours before contest end.  A nice surprise as KL7HBK who called in
and was very difficult to copy. There is no beverage pointing to north so had
to copy his signal on the TX antennas with all the QRM.

In the very early Sunday morning hours the SWR was real worse on the l-antenna
and the rates were so unproductive that I decided at 05:30 UTC to make a last
attempt or go to bed early. I choose a place on the upper 160m band and used
the stackmatch to reduce the SWR (or to move the high SWR away from the PA to
be able to have more output..) and was rewarded with a two hour NA run like in
the first night. On Sunday morning I had 1525 QSOs in my log.

On Sunday evening the SWR was so bad on all three antennas that I was not able
to transmit above 1830 anymore. What had happened was very simple: I had
temperatures just below 0 degrees, a slight wind and fog. This mixture created
an ice shell on all wires (0,5cm). The dipole designed to the upper 160m band
luckily still had a SWR around 2 on 1825 so I used this one for the remaining
hours. Like on Saturday evening I could find no JA stations on 160m. Luckily
JH3PRR called in for my JA multiplier.

At the end I made 1681 QSOs, plus 40 dupes, and 119 multi’s. 
17% (295 QSOs) DL, 15% (260 QSOs) W, 7% (122 QSOs) UA


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