[3830] CQWW CW WX0B(AD5Q) SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: WX0B
Operator(s): AD5Q
Station: WX0B

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Dallas
Operating Time (hrs): 46.25
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   61    15       28
   80:  241    23       64
   40:  968    35      101
   20:  595    34       96
   15:  749    30       89
   10:  490    28       73
------------------------------
Total: 3104   165      451  Total Score = 5,275,424

Club: DFW Contest Group

Comments:

The first day was really intense. I used to love it when the EU's would pile up,
but nowadays they are all zero beat. They often call out of turn when we try to
dig out a single call, and this keeps the rate from really unwinding. So I need
a new strategy. I also need a working strategy for 2nd radio mults, as I feel I
am sweeping the wrong bands at the wrong time and working too hard at it (at
the expense of rate). There is a "nuclear option" which I
will NEVER
do (stealth RBN), so gradual improvement in mult totals is what's intended
here.

I spent the first couple hours on 10/15 JA's, then settled in for the 40M EU's
which were very good. The JA's were also good on 40, but I finished the first
night weak in 80/160 mults and spent more time on the lowbands the 2nd night.
Jay had built a prototype of a bigger SAL down by the lake, and I needed to
build confidence in it by running EU's & JA's. Yowza! It works really
well.
I hope you don't buy one.

It worried me that I hadn't taken ANY offtime in 32 hours, not even 5 minutes.
Last year I really messed up by taking a short break when I needed a longer
one, and I was out of focus for much of Sunday. This time I set my alarm for a
90 minute break at 0738z and awoke before the alarm. I was fine, and went to
work on the 40M JA's. The morning runs on 10/15 were again intense, and brain
fog didn't settle in until about 1830z. I dared not sleep, fearing total loss
of momentum like last year. I did a lazy 20M run on auto-pilot, but with good
rate & mults. I barely understood the sequence of buttons to push to
make a
simple contact, and went an hour without tuning the 2nd radio. Then I
cautiously
worked SO2R back into the routine as the fog started to lift, and also moved to
15 for running JA's. By then end of the contest I was back in focus, and
finished strong on 40 EU's. They mugged me again.

There were hardware issues. Lightning had disabled both of the side mounted
rotors on the 20/40/80 rotating tower, which means these antennas were always
pointing in the same direction. The 2nd problem developed during the contest:
the radio A/B switching was failing in the SO2R box. Initially everything was
working smoothly, but then control kept flipping back to the run radio during
2nd radio contacts (before, during or after the callsign was sent). I would
usually NOT hear the station come back to me. We use one of the original legacy
SO2R Masters, which I modified years ago to support automated headphone
switching and the LPT stereo pin from N1MM. It's not a problem, since I have a
2nd one like it. But for the rest of the contest I had to switch the 2nd radio
contacts manually, with LUA scripts modified to NOT send on the run freq after
calling on the 2nd radio (because this would have also been sent on the pileup
freq).

So I am satisfied with my score this year, and see the need for further
strategy tweaks. My goal is to eventually place in the Top-10 in this contest,
and I don't think I have far to go.

Roy -- AD5Q


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