[3830] WPX CW WC1M SOAB HP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 18
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:    6
   40:  673
   20:  562
   15:  358
   10:    8
------------
Total: 1607  Prefixes = 715  Total Score = 3,780,920

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Only half a contest for me this year.

But at least I didn't miss my 17th year in a row of participating in this great
contest! This is only the second year in that span in which I wasn't able to put
in a full 36-hour effort.

Most of the reason has to do with a major event coming up on Monday, for which
I still have a ton of work to do, but poor conditions the first day made the
choice to do a partial effort much easier. As I get older, I make more and more
choices to reduce stress, and this was one of them.

By the wee hours on Saturday morning I knew it was going to be a slog with the
K-index hovering at 5, and felt better and better about doing a partial effort.
Oddly enough, though, I wasn't doing any worse than my rate sheets showed for
2010 and 2011, which were tough years propagation-wise, too. I worked most of
my hours on Saturday, but during the few hours I operated on Sunday I could
tell conditions were a little better. My sense is that had I been able to go
the distance my score would have been decent. Not a record breaker, but
respectable.

Friday night was challenging on 40, trying to dig very weak signals out of an
increasingly noisy band. My 4-square has an SWR problem, and I think it's
degrading the directivity enough undermine the antennas performance for
diversity reception with my beam. Seemed to work at times, and not at other
times. I decided to knock off at around 0530z, which is about an hour earlier
than when I usually take the first break.

My propagation programs predicted that 15 wouldn't open to EU at all, but they
were completely wrong. There were very good openings both days. That said, all
of the openings on Saturday on 15 and 20 were short, with high rates only for
an hour or two,  and then rate coming and going. Signals were generally pretty
weak on Saturday, stronger on Sunday. It was tough to sustain a really high
rate on any band either day. 10 never opened enough to run, but I got a few
mults on the band Saturday. Didn't even listen on Sunday.

I trust either KC3R or KM3T (K0DQ at KC1XX?) took the contest. Early congrats
to them. They were ahead of me early in the contest, as usual.

Hope to get on for another full effort next year.

73. Dick WC1M


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