[3830] CQWW CW N2WN SOAB LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: N2WN
Operator(s): N2WN
Station: N2WN

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Grainger Co., Tn.
Operating Time (hrs): 38:13

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   57    13       26
   80:   59    14       30
   40:  239    27       83
   20:  262    30       96
   15:  444    27       95
   10:  317    23       86
------------------------------
Total: 1378   134      416  Total Score = 2,120,250

Club: Tennessee Contest Group

Comments:

What a ride...

Friday night started out so-so at best. Nada heard on 15 or 10, 20 was ok, so
started on 40. Murphy was hanging out there and I discovered a sporadic
frequency dependent RFI issue that caused the computer/rig to lock up and spurt
out mixed messages and garbage. Rebooting the rig fixed the issue but I'm sure
caused some "huh"!" moments on the other side of a few Qs. My apologies to
anyone who dealt with this. It limited my ability to try and run too. 40 was
still productive and was pleased with the "easy" Asian QSOs, particularly with
Japan. I may very well have worked more JA stations this past weekend than in
all of my other CQWW CWs combined.

As it turned out Friday night was THE 160 night here. Saturday was pretty poor.
80 wasn't much better. QSO count was up on 160, but multipliers down compared to
2011. Everything was down on 80 and 40.

15 was the place to be for runs versus 10 last year. Felt like my rates were a
bit better too. Hopefully my error rates are lower, we'll see.

Probably the biggest excitement was non-Russian Asia. I worked THREE Chinese
stations, heard Korea (they kinda heard me) and ran a few JAs. It's a part of
the world I have a lot of trouble working from this QTH.

Conditions were all over the place from S5 noise, flutter, flash QSB, nothing
heard to the band wide open and it didn't matter where I pointed the beam I
could work 'em. The latter was most noticeable on 20 late Sunday. 20 turned
into a multiplier fest the last 6 hours.

Probably the weirdest thing was never even hearing anyone in zone 16 on 10.

Six banders included: D4C, DR1A, HK1NA (mega signal everywhere), KH8LC, PJ2T
(way to go Gene!) & VY2TT. Many 5 banders...

Zone 40 was out in force too. It can be tough. Was tickled with a couple of
JW5E QSOs.

Only constructive comments would be: 

1) PLEASE don't sign /QRP. Seriously folks, it can be hard enough to pull you
through without adding to the confusion.

2) Station IDing, this is actually humorous the stations with amazingly brief
calls don't ID very often and the stations with remarkably long calls ID after
every QSO. I can understand someone not IDing after every Q running a pileup,
but there should be some common sense involved. I generally passed on un-IDed
piles, a waste of time. Most of them will be begging for QSOs by the end
anyway.

3) Pile handling, I also can understand if you're a tough double multiplier
going split, but make the instructions clear "u4" doesn't quite register
immediately. Some of the other techniques required the folks in the pile to be
awake AND actually listening to the pileup. It really SUCKS that there are
folks repeatedly pumping their call into a pile and not listening, particularly
when the station keeps coming back to you. Frankly, I'd like to see a penalty
for that kind of behavior.

4) OK, I'm blowin' in the wind on all of the above, cause this has been going
on as long as I have been contesting. Well maybe maybe SDR will change some bad
practices... OK some I'm a dreamer too.

Thanks for all the patience, QSOs, effort both before, during and after the
'test. It's always interesting and happy to work both old friends and
newcomers.

Best wishes to all for the Holiday Season.

73,
Julius
n2wn

Station:

Elecraft K3/100 loaded
4 element StappIR at 15m
80m inverted Vee below the yagi
160m Tee
newish 40M vertical raised about 3m above the ground.
N1MM


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