[3830] CQ WW RTTY W6QU(W8QZA) SOAB QRP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: W6QU
Operator(s): W8QZA
Station: W8QZA

Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: San Diego, CA
Operating Time (hrs): 34.3

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  State/Prov  DX   Zones
------------------------------------
   80:    5        4       2     3
   40:   29       16       4     5
   20:  107       29      34    24
   15:  225       42      48    25
   10:  142       31      30    21
------------------------------------
Total:  508      122     118    78  Total Score = 328,494

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Comments:

Rig:

 Xcvr: Yaesu FT-817 - 5 Watts

 Antennas:
   10-15-20: 3 ele SteppIR up 10 Meters.
   40:       DX-LB Trap dipole up 10 Meters
   40-80:    Butternut HF-2V Vertical with 3 radials
----------------------------------------------------

I am a recent participant in RTTY contests since they added the QRP category to
the CQ World Wide DX RTTY and the CQ WPX RTTY contests about three years ago.

The remarkable thing about RTTY contesting over CW or SSB is that it seems to
be much less fatiguing to me because there is almost no typing. It is all point
and click which is very nice. Dupes and potential mults show up immediately in
the color coding of the print out. That is fantastic and I makes the contest
much more fun for me.

At age 74 I slept 4 hours the first night and 6 hours the second night. Other
than that I pretty much stayed at the rig and N1MM showed an op time of 34.3
hours.

The flux was around 180, but that did not seem to show up in the propagation on
15 and 10 Meters from out here in San Diego. How I do in Europe is my best
indicator of conditions, and I had trouble getting past the far western
countries. There were a large number of eastern Euro countries I never worked
like OK, OL, YO, LZ, UA, UB, and others.

However, the high flux did show up in over night propagation on 20 Meters and
around midnight I was able to work many of those Eastern European countries
fairly easily. But in the end, only 17% of my Qs were into Europe which did not
help my score very much. 

On 10 M I managed to work 3D2, ZR9C, 5W, and VK6IR. On 15 M I got ZD8, a couple
Zone 18 Qs, EA9, and C37NL. On 20 M I got KC4AAA at the South Pole who was
giving out Zone 39 (of his many choices!),TF for a rare contest Zone 40, and
ZS. On 40 M I worked mostly states, and on 80 M got KH7XX.

I tried CQing in the afternoons when east coasters were more likely to have
their beams pointed toward me. I made about 10-12 Qs this was. But the biggest
thrill was when FG5LA came back to me on 20 M!

I had a total DXCC of 67 (after removing IT9) and WAZ of 29.

So my RTTY score was a bit lower than last year (about 5%). After three years
experience with RTTY, I am surprised that my RTTY scores are almost as good as
my SSB or CW scores.  

See you in the SSB weekend!   Bill Parker  W8QZA - W6QU


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