[3830] CQWW SSB AB1J SOSB/10 LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: AB1J
Operator(s): AB1J
Station: AB1J

Class: SOSB/10 LP
QTH: Waltham, MA
Operating Time (hrs): 16

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:                    
   40:                    
   20:                    
   15:                    
   10:  264    22       71
------------------------------
Total:  264    22       71  Total Score = 70,494

Club: 

Comments:

Whoowee!  Nothing beats a nuclear fusion powered DX contest.

I'm not really a phone operator, contest or otherwise, but with the solar
flux way up there I couldn't resist
playing the CQ WW triathelon this fall: RTTY, SSB & CW. This was geat fun and
I
look forwad to the WW CW, the ARRL 10M and the new 10M RTTY contest in
December.

I had other motives too.  I finally hooked up radio control between N1MM and
my
rig and wanted to test it out.  Putting the exact frequency in the log is nice,
but the bandmap was the most interesting and useful new feature.  I was 
unassisted, so I couldn't use clusters to populate the map, but I could use 
my own spots to good effect.  I followed AA5AU's "power S&P" technique
utilizing the bandmap.

Being unaccustomed to phone contesting, I didn't think to set up WAV files.
It occurred to me later that since I was 100% S&P I could have 
used recordings and gone the whole weekend without speaking much.  That would 
have been good since I don't have a strong speaking voice and talking for
hours
is a strain.  Next time, for sure.

Hearing is a problem too.  I'm in my late, late 60s but generally my hearing 
isn't a problem except in noisy, complex environments, like parties, where
there 
are many competing sounds. Maybe that applies to ham radio phone situations,
too.
In any case, with QSB, QRM, sometimes weak signals, many different accents and

often really bad audio, I had a serious problem.  Often I had to listen quite
a
while before I could be certain of a call.  Being all S&P allowed me
to take my time, but running wouldn't. I'm much happier in CW and RTTY
contests.

It would have been easiser to run assisted and rely on the cluster or to
determine
the call in tough cases, assuming the spotter was correct, which often isn't
the
case.

CU in the WW CW in a couple of weeks.

73,
Kermit, AB1J


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