[3830] WAE CW WX3B M/S HP

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                    WAE DX Contest, CW

Call: WX3B
Operator(s): K3WI, WX3B
Station: WX3B

Class: M/S HP
QTH: MDC
Operating Time (hrs): 44

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  QTCs  Mults
-------------------------
   80:   47     0   116
   40:  404   380   126
   20:  804  1067    94
   15:  437   246    92
   10:   13     0    22
-------------------------
Total: 1705  1693   450  Total Score = 1,529,100

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

That was GREAT fun!

Many thanks to Bill K3WI for making the trip and making this a fun multi-single
event.  Bill did the much of the operating, and he did all the grueling night
shift work.  Bill has great ears and he knows how to stay in the chair!

First competitive effort for me in any WAE contest from home - and my first
read of the rules and band selection cost us some points and QSOs.  I love the
fact that in this contest  you can run parallel radios as a multi-single
(multipliers only) but I sure wish it had a multi-two or multi-multi category. 


The bands were fascinating this weekend, and we were somewhat thunderstorm
limited at times.  Took off about an hour Saturday....and bailed about 20
minutes before the end of the contest due to lightning.  

15 meters was like QSO surfing - periods of great signals followed by periods
of dead air.  The band finally had a solid opening on Sunday afternoon, however
everyone had abandonded it.  How do I know?  The reverse beacon tells you
instantly - and it also tells you where what your competition is doing.  

As usual 20 meters is the steady performer here, and there we no surprises this
year.  The band was open way past midnight, and then it opened for real at about
4:15am both days according to reliable sources (K3WI).  Strange thing about the
opening, it starts off ganbusters and then it gets weak until about noon here. 
It's easy to have skimmer envy of folks with big towers and stacks, however at
about noon, the signals start evening out as the angles go high.  

10 meters was written off completely, though K3WI mentioned seeing NY4A and
E7DX skims on Saturday late afternoon.  I immediately dismissed them as second
harmonic glitches.  Maybe not.  Sunday surprised with about an hour(?) opening
and several stations were put in the log, including my good friend and Costa
Rica team-mate Filipe, CT1ILT (CR6K) - for a clean sweep of the 5 bands.

40 meters was in good condition most of the weekend however the static crashes
from nearby lightning activity made it a challenge.  

80 meters was pretty much unusable at my house due to thunderstorm QRN.  I was
relieved to NOT see any DX summit spots about my total deafness on 80.  The
good news is that the band was WIDE open, the bad news was that I couldn't hear
a thing.  It also sounds like I have a brand new noise source (another bad
switching supply or electric fence gone south) on the CW portion of 80 -
however that didn't bother me much, it was well below the storm noise.

There were some tremendous scores out there....N3RD (at N3RS?)...NY4A Team
Howie....K8PO (Paul), of course Jeff VY2ZM, the folks at K1LZ (though I can't
believe Krassy would have made it home from ST0R that fast), AA3B, K3WW, and I
saw some INSANELY loud skimmer spots for KT3Y on the reverse beacon network. 
Phil's station really plays!

At one point on Saturday morning N3RD had a 200+ QSO lead and I believe they
ended the contest over 400+ ahead.  There IS a learning curve to this contest.

Thanks to all the Europeans and the WAE sponsors for making this a fun contest
and I can actually say I am staring to LIKE QTCs.

73,

Jim Nitzberg   WX3B


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