[3830] WPX SSB WW2DX M/S HP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, SSB

Call: WW2DX
Operator(s): W2RE W2RE KB2HZI K2TR
Station: WW2DX

Class: M/S HP
QTH: FN22
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    2
   80:  422
   40: 1142
   20: 1431
   15: 1521
   10:   61
------------
Total: 4579  Prefixes = 1390  Total Score = 19,974,300

Club: Frankford Radio Club

Comments:

The earliest we could leave with our work schedules was 4pm Friday. With Lori
KB2HZI driving the 2 hours to the station we rested and started our game plan
for the weekend. This was fairly easy, just follow the same plan as last year
and that was focus as much as possible on the 6 pointers and let US call us off
the back of the beams. We arrived at the station a little after 6pm and we
thought the test started in 45 minutes. We ran around making sure the all the
antennas and equipment was working properly. Around 6:30 Murphy stopped by
without permission and decided to "hide" the microphone for the 2nd radio.
Scrambling through boxes we could not find one. Lori and I made a run to Radio
Shack about 20 minutes away in Cobelskill, I picked up a Radio Shack special
600ohm Mic, 8 pin Mic connector or as Radio Shack calls it "Ham Connector"
grabbed a pizza and headed back to the station as quickly as possible. Ray
started the contest before we got back at 7pm and about 7:01 I got a text that
someone kindly reminded Ray that we had another hour to go :) YAY! Talk about
emotional roller coaster! 

	Ate a couple slices of Pizza, wired up the Radio Shack special to the 2nd MP
and we were not done yet, the soldering iron we had at the station was
damaged.....Lori ran back do Radio Shack while we started the contest. I will
post a pic of the mic connector and how we started the contest later on my
site. About an hour in I finally got the mic soldered in and now things seemed
to be all good in the world. 

Conditions were .. OK Friday night, I would say average at best. 80m was better
Friday night and not very good at all on Saturday. 20/15 opened very early which
was nice on both days so we could get some nice time in on those bands and with
some nice runs. We hit the 2nd Radio as much as possible and ran up and down
the same band as the run op picking away at queue's trying to keep our 100/hr
average. 

After 6 hours we hit 1m points and 592 q's and 408 mults, 4 hours later 2m
points 1000q's 514 mults. Last year we hit 16m points at the 36 hour mark, this
year we had only 13m so I think this was because we never got an Asia opening
like last year which was unreal. We did however get one in the last 2 hours on
Sunday when 15 really opened up to JA and we really racked in the mults with
all those great JA prefixes, talk about adrenaline!  We also had some nice AS
mults call us in the mid day hours on 15m and 20m which was a real nice
surprise, E21, VU and a handful of others which would have been during around
midnight their local and this was with the stacks to EU. Also worked JT5DX
(Krassy) on 15m and I think 20m as well and he was very loud here. On 10m we
never got the EU opening but a few EU was worked. While working the SA
stations, It was neat listening to SA run EU on 10m and we could hear almost
every EU pointed to the south. Never worked AS and I don't think we worked
anything into PAC on 10 either.

Last year we had 19% US and 81% Outside, this year it was 25% US and 75%
Outside. Additionally, last year we had 6% AS this year only 2.5%. 

Sunday around lunch we had a surprise visit from Fred K2TR which was perfect
timing! I gave Fred a quick once over on the antennas/rotors and like a pro he
went to work hitting the Mult radio then making a great run on 20. Was a
pleasure being able to sit and rest the eyes :) Thanks Fred! 

In the end we were very happy with the station and how well it performed. It's
still in its infancy and there is still a lot of work to do. We really tried to
beat last years score but not having those great conditions like last year it
just wasn't going to be in the cards but we were close.  

WPX is my favorite out of them all, thanks to the sponsors and thanks again to
all who worked us.

Thanks to Lori KB2HZI for keeping us well fed, giving us breaks while taking on
the mult radio and of course driving the 4 hours! Fred K2TR for adding some
excitement and grabbing some nice mults while also getting a good couple hours
in on the run radio. Ray for making this all possible and making another
memorable radio weekend.

SH5 Breakdown:

http://www.ww2dx.com/Contests/2012-CQ-WPX-SSB-WW2DX/index.htm

73 Lee
WW2DX and the W2RE Team.

More pics and story to follow later today on WW2DX.com and W2RE.com.


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