[3830] CQWW CW ES1WST(WS4T) SOSB/80 QRP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: ES1WST
Operator(s): WS4T
Station: ES1WST

Class: SOSB/80 QRP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 18

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:  435    57       10
   40:                    
   20:                    
   15:                    
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total:  435    57       10  Total Score = 35,845

Club: 

Comments:

I had a really wonderful time in this contest with my 80m QRP effort. I had big
plans after spending last winter reading the ARRL Antenna Book and the ON4UN
lowband book and was intending to build a 4-square in the countryside for 40m.
But I let myself get distracted and spent the Estonian summer working on VHF
and UHF yagis and portable masts. By the time September rolled around, I
realized I had once again missed the core of the antenna building season.

Still, I had ordered an 18m mast from Spiderbeam and hoped I could devise some
interesting antenna at least for a single-band effort. Fast forward to Friday
before the contest. Vertical is lying on the snow, ready to raise. Local sunset
is at 3:30 PM. It's now 2:00 PM with fairly windy conditions and a temperature
of -2C. Worst of all, my helper (= XYL) keeps finding reason after reason to
not go outside and hold the mast while I guy it up. But finally, we get
outside. I'm a little nervous since I've never raised such a large mast and our
yard is small. But it goes up easily. 

Unfortunately I cut it a little short and the SWR is at 2.2 at 3.5 MHz. No time
for corrections in the dark. So my expectations were low going into the contest.
But I woke up at 2.00 UTC on Saturday and wow wow wow. This 1/4 vertical works
like gangbusters on 80m! More than 20 North American contacts. I never thought
that could happen without a better ground system, and time had been too short
to work on elevated radials. Saturday night conditions were unfortunately not
as good. Only one contact with NA, and few stations heard.

I did two things in this contest that every QRP operator should consider:
- Turn on attenuation
- Lower RF gain

The radio was a lot easier on my ears that way, and it seemed like I could work
most stations I heard.


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