[3830] CQWW SSB W6YX(N7MH) SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: W6YX
Operator(s): N7MH
Station: W6YX

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 37
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:    0     0        0
   80:   28    11       11
   40:  463    29       55
   20:  335    32       85
   15:  742    33      101
   10:  610    32       85
------------------------------
Total: 2178   137      337  Total Score = 2,820,300

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

I had been planning to help out in a W6YX multi-op this weekend until Thursday
when I realized that we didn't have an organized effort planned.  I mulled over
my options and decided to try SOAB which I don't recall ever having done
seriously in CQWW SSB.

Friday was a work day and the contest starts at 5 PM local time so I left the
office early, arriving at the station a few minutes after the start to find
K2YY at one of the two operating positions running stations on 15 meters using
his own callsign.  I turned on the equipment at the second operating position
and everything was working except for voice keying which I finally gave up on
after spending 20 minutes trying to resolve soundcard issues with WriteLog and
a micro2R box.

One of the two operating positions was occupied by a second club member using
his own callsign for about 25 of the 37 hours I operated.  W6RK and AA6XV were
both active in addition to K2YY.  John, K2YY, was able to hook up a cable to
get voice keying working on one radio but it had the side-effect of locking all
of the front panel controls on the Mark V.  Even worse, when I tried hooking up
the cable it caused the VFO to steadily drift up the band.

I gave up on voice keying and did the entire contest old-school with my own
voice.  I discovered that SO2R is not easy when you're trying to listen to one
radio while talking on the other.  Mostly I tuned in signals while talking and
then listened between my transmissions.  My SO2R set-up was two Heil headsets
overlapping each other on my head, turning down the AF Gain on one radio to
hear weak stations on the other.  I'll have to consult with K6UFO on how to get
around the micro2R issue so that only one headset and computer is needed.

Having the second radio in use mostly affected my band choices.  I was only on
10 meters for two hours on Saturday and spent much of Sunday trying to make up
on 10 meters what I'd missed on Saturday.  I intended to return to 20 on Sunday
for a few more mults but found that 15 was already open to JA and Asia when 20
was finally available to me so I spent the last few hours running on 15 and 10.
 Without a second radio for most of the contest I relied on the second VFO in
the Mark V for S&P while running.  At times my rate on the second VFO was more
than I was working while running.

Our 160 meter antenna broke and my last minute decision to operate in the
contest didn't give me any time to fix it.  I briefly listened on 160 but
didn't hear anything and decided it wasn't worth the effort to use the radio's
tuner to work 2 or 3 zero-point mults on 160.  I struggled on 80 meters and
learned after the contest that our inverted vee had a problem.  The SWR was
higher than normal and I had to run reduced power on 80.  I opted to take my
sleep breaks late at night and missed much of the action on 80, totally missing
some easy zones like 8.

On 40 I wasted a lot of time trying to call stations between 7128 and 7200 on
Friday evening.  Then I went down below 7100 and found that most stations
running split could be worked in a single call.  I slept through most of the 40
meter JA opening on Saturday morning, but slept earlier on Sunday to catch more
of the JA opening and finish with 299 JAs on 40.

Since I mostly do multi-ops it had been a while since I'd operated CQWW SSB
without a spotting network.  I was pleasantly surprised to come upon several
rare mults CQing before they were spotted and got them on the first call.  This
doesn't happen on CW anymore with the RBN providing instant spots after the
first CQ.

On Saturday afternoon I still hadn't worked zone 3 on 15 meters so I called a
well-known 7-land contester to get the zone 3 mult.  He chided me for calling
him saying that I should have worked a VE7 by then for the mult.  I replied
that I hadn't had propagation to VE7 so I still needed zone 3.  I then
requested that he be sure to log the QSO as I lost two mults a few years back
when the one station I'd worked on 160 hadn't logged our zero-point QSO (a
different well-known 7-land station).  He remarked that he usually didn't log
zero-point QSOs after the first few hours of the contest but would log this
one.

I'm proud to say that I log all zero-point QSOs just as any other QSO.  If I'm
called by a recognized contester I'm sure that they must need the mult.  Many
contest beginners and non-contesters don't realize that own-country QSOs are
zero points.  My QSO total includes 125 zero-pointers.

Thanks for all the QSOs.  Looking forward to both modes of SS and CQWW CW.

73,
-Mike, N7MH


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