[3830] CQWW CW 7J1AAI(W1NN) SOSB/20 HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: 7J1AAI
Operator(s): W1NN
Station: JH1GTV

Class: SOSB/20 HP
QTH: Tokyo
Operating Time (hrs): 30

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:                    
   40:                    
   20: 1161    37       96
   15:                    
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total: 1161    37       96  Total Score = 425,334

Club: North Coast Contesters

Comments:

Many thanks to JH1GTV for hosting me yet again at his fine station in Tokyo’s
western suburbs.  I have operated many contests from his station for more than
20 years and it is very generous of him to put up with me for so many years.  

This year Shige put up a new 36 meter Luso motorized crankup tower.  He has a 3
element 40 meter yagi at the top and a 4 element yagi for 20 under that.  I have
operated 40 SB a number of times in recent years so I wanted to try 20 this
year.  Considering the conditions, I probably would have done better on 40, but
it’s too late to change that.  

When I heard that 10 and 15 were wide open just before the contest, I thought
it would have a negative effect on my 20 meter operation, and I was right. 
Almost everyone started out on the high bands leaving 20 nearly a ghost town. 
The first day was painfully slow.  What’s more, conditions were really
strange with a lot of flutter and very strong echos on some signals.  Add to
this some local man-made noise and it was a pretty rough first day, yielding
only 477 contacts, just over 40% of my total for the two days.

Fortunately, day two was better.  Evidently more SOAB stations tore themselves
away from 10 and 15 to put in a little time on 20, so activity and my rates
picked up.  I still suffered from some really huge echos on some EU stations,
and from time to time local manmade noise practically wiped out the band, but I
think conditions improved and overall it was a much better day, producing 684
contacts.  

Maybe it is because I am accustomed to operating 40 meters from Japan, but I
was really surprised at how long the skip was and how many Zone 14 and Zone 5
stations I worked.  I expected to work a lot more Zone 3 stations than anything
else in NA, and for EU I expected that Zone 16 would dominate, but it turned out
quite differently.  Here are the totals for NA and EU:

North America:

Zone 3 184
Zone 4 132
Zone 5 197

Europe:  

Zone 14 190
Zone 15 141
Zone 16 122


Overall, I have to conclude that Shige’s new antenna works quite well.  I was
able to get through most pileups with little trouble, the main exception being
the V55V pileup.  He was loud but was ignoring the hoards of JA stations
calling and was working only EU and NA stations.  I can’t blame him, as
working JA stations surely takes a lot more time.  (I wonder if we will ever
see shorter calls here.  That would probably do a lot to improve JA
participation.)  I missed Zones 34, 37 and 38, always tough ones from Japan.  

Thanks to the contest sponsors, volunteers and participants.  This is a great
event.

73, Hal W1NN & 7J1AAI


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