[3830] CQWW SSB VE7XF SOSB/15 HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: VE7XF
Operator(s): VE7XF
Station: VE7XF

Class: SOSB/15 HP
QTH: CN89, near Vancouver
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:                    
   40:                    
   20:                    
   15:  921    38      115
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total:  921    38      115  Total Score = 348,075

Club: ORCA DX and Contest Club

Comments:

Wow! Pretty good condx, eh?

I had thought about SOSB-10m, but didn't think the band was ready. Maybe it
is.
In spite of the K3's magic tricks, and the extra space compared to 20m, the 15m
big signals were hard to separate, and whenever I ran, I felt that I was hemmed
in by bigger, stronger signals, making copy of all but the strongest
difficult.
Was it better on 10m?

N1MM seemed unstable - it couldn't tell the difference between countries and
zones, and kept switching them back and forth, so I wasn't sure of where I was,
total-wise. So my score might change when the Cabrillo reader gets at it.
And it didn't like my using it to key the DVK on the K3 - it kept trying to
send  .WAV files, and making me close an unwanted window after every CQ! Maybe
I'll go back to a previous version, which worked well (if I remember
correctly).

I quit Saturday night with 37 zones. Considering what I'd already worked, I
hoped to be able to catch the needed three between the band's opening here
about sunrise, and closing on the other side of the world where the missing
zones were. I set my alarm (for 6:30am) without my glasses, and fortunately the
cat woke me up for breakfast at 8:00!!! Oops - I'll never do that again. I might
have made a clean sweep. Good kitty - she got a double helping for breakfast.

Being un-assisted, I use the extra space on the monitor to run DX Atlas (tnx,
Alex!), watching the RF creep across the distant parts of the globe with the
grayline. Unexpected highlites were JT1RF, 8Q7DV, VU2PAI and 5R8A for the
difficult zone mults. I missed 21 and 37. Probably nobody on from there
anyway.

I used the new KPA500, giving up a few db to see how it worked in a contest.
Sometimes I wanted those few db back, but for the most part, I'm happy with its
performance. It's kinda like a mini-87A - turn it on and forget it.

I'm seriously considering SOSB-10 for the CW section, if I don't get to the
N9ADG multi-two operation, with my ex-VP5W buddies. Come on, sunspots!

Ralph, VE7XF

K3, KPA500, 3 el SteppIr, N1/2MM


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