[3830] CQWW SSB ND0C SOAB QRP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: ND0C
Operator(s): ND0C
Station: ND0C

Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: Minnesota
Operating Time (hrs): 37.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:    1     1        1
   80:   21     9        7
   40:   61    12       33
   20:  179    23       69
   15:  243    26       77
   10:  493    26       90
------------------------------
Total:  998    97      277  Total Score = 1,053,558

Club: Minnesota Wireless Assn

Comments:

Well...  the sun decided to come out and play this time!  The conditions, as we
all know by now, were unbelievable.  I had been very encouraged in the lead-up
over the last couple weeks, daring to hope that we might see a recurrance of
the 2011 conditions.  And wow...!  Great conditions to run QRP on the high
bands!  

This score is a personal best for me, surpassing 2011.  I was able to hit the
million point mark (prior to log checking) for the first time ever, failing
just short of 1,000 Qs.  And I got an imaginary weekend DXCC again for the
third time in CQWW with a total of 103 unique countries worked.  

Of course 10 meters was incredible, with the band wall-to-wall well above
29.000 MHz.  15 and 20 were also very good, and I had to ration my time so I
didn't just sit on 10 all day!  40 was OK from here and I was able to do
half-way decent (for mediocre antennas in the "black hole").  80 was
pretty much a lost cause - I didn't hear much here, but didn't spend a lot of
time messing around down there.

This was all S&P...  I tried running a few times on 10, but just couldn't
get anything going.  I had 4 hours on Saturday morning and early afternoon when
I averaged over 60 QSOs per hour with S&P - pretty good for with QRP! 

Some of the pile-ups were really big and nasty - some I just passed by figuring
I'd be better off to rack up more Qs elsewhere and come back later when things
had hopefully died down a bit.  - We QRPers have to choose our battles,
consistent with the philosophy espoused by "Dirty Harry" (Clint
Eastwood): "A man's got to know his limitations."  

Obviously the whole packet "thing" has contributed to bigger
pile-ups, and apparently most of the callers know the callsign of the DX from
the spots, since some DX stations would go for several minutes without IDing. 
- Very frustrating.  The splatter situation seems as bad as ever and W/VE is
not exempt.  There seemed to be some ugly signals over here, taking quite a bit
of band-space.  

As always, thanks to the stations that used patience, persistence and good ears
to pull me out of the noise and splatter.

The ND0C "super-station":
  Rig: Yaesu FT-897D running 5 watts
  Antennas: Cycle 24 TX38 tribander (with interlaced monobanders on a common
15' boom) at 40' above ground (I've only had this antenna up a month and half,
but really like it so far); Cushcraft D40 rotatable dipole; inverted vee

73,
Randy, ND0C

"You don't have to be crazy to contest with QRP ... but it helps!"


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