[3830] CQWW CW K5AF SOAB LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: K5AF
Operator(s): K5AF
Station: K5AF

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Texas, USA
Operating Time (hrs): 30.0

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:    3     3        1
   80:   37    12       19
   40:  210    25       70
   20:  206    25       77
   15:  294    25       81
   10:  196    22       65
------------------------------
Total:  946   112      313  Total Score = 1,109,250

Club: 

Comments:

First, let me vent my spleen over two irritants that just won't seem to go
away.

Irritant #1:  With all our technology and smarts, how is it that key clicks
seem worse every year?  I started out contesting in the early 60s at a time
when most "big" amps were home-brewed and we used cathode keying, but I never
remember such bad clicks.  Running 1.5KW today, even if key clicks are 20dB
down from the transmitted signal, they still raise havoc with nearby stations
trying to copy the low power and QRP stations.  We have pan displays and
digital o-scopes and all the tools we need to identify and resolve this
problem.  It impacts the quality of the contesting experience.  Come on guys,
we can do better! 

Irritant #2:  If you're a sought-after station and you really like an unruly,
riled-up crowd around your frequency, as well as a lot of dupes, then just
don't bother to ID yourself more than once every few minutes.  I guess some
folks just like the power of holding a captive audience on their frequency, but
the rest of us would rather be contesting than being bystanders.  While there
seems to be some improvement with this area recently, failure to ID causes
unnecessary delays that hurts competition.

Despite the irritants, this is still a great contest.  Conditions were a little
flakey at times, but the bands held up reasonably well.  I'm experiencing raspy,
pulsing noise that made 80 and 160M almost unusable at times, but conditions
were good enough to allow me to pull some mults out of the noise.

40M was full of surprises.  The Scandinavian polar path was available beginning
in the early afternoon, and Europeans were easily workable over an hour before
sunset.

I had a short music gig Friday night, but was able to put in my longest effort
in several years.  Lots of cobwebs in the multiple relays that control my wire
antennas, and a few in the brain also, but it was fun to break the 1M barrier
in a part-time effort.  Thanks for the Qs!

Equipment: Two K3s, low wires

Cheers,

Paul, K5AF


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