[3830] ARRLDX CW W3DQ M/S HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: W3DQ
Operator(s): W3DQ W2CDO
Station: W3DQ

Class: M/S HP
QTH: Washington, DC
Operating Time (hrs): 29

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   19    17
   80:  135    57
   40:  290    74
   20:  436    90
   15:  606   101
   10:  266    78
-------------------
Total: 1752   417  Total Score = 2,191,752

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

This was our first effort in the CW 'test since 2012. We Our modest goal was 1m
points. 

This was a "tag team" multi-single effort, with Peter, W2CDO, taking
the morning and early afternoon shifts while I had the evenings and overnights.
While my BIC stamina is getting better after (too) many medical issues, I still
had to take long-ish breaks every couple of hours. A review of the log shows
where the timing and length of my breaks really hurt. I operated 19 hours,
Peter did 10 hours. His rates were significantly higher than mine.

We started an hour or so late and within the first couple of minutes, the shack
space heater blew a circuit breaker. Solid state amps don't generate enough heat
to compensate, so out came the blankets and jackets! Peter was snowed in Sunday
morning and I had slept in, so we missed almost the entire morning. 

As others have mentioned, being assisted had many challenges. Skimmer spots
resulted in everyone seeming to call on the same frequency. What a mess,
especially for a mediocre CW op like me. I only S&P'd. I found that some
(many) of the Skimmer spots were off frequency -- yes, I did spin the VFO knob
quite often. Some the stations infrequently ID'd, presumably assuming that most
were operating assisted and the Skimmer would show their callsign. Another
interesting result of using the Skimmers was that stations were spread out all
over the bands.

The low bands were very noisy Saturday night. 15m was our money band, 160 the
disappointment. Local noise is up as this city's infrastructure continues to
deteriorate. On the other hand, we did manage to work PVRC President KH8/K8GU
on three bands. The late afternoon JA's and ZL's were loud and disciplined. It
was weird to work very loud (but watery sounding) South Americans and JA's with
yagi pointed north. 

In the end, we blew away or previous record by almost 1m points!
(2012 = 1240 Q's, 317 mults = 1,179,240 points)

Next year's goal is 2000 Q's. We think we can do it. 

73,
Eric W3DQ
Washington, DC

Orion 565 & Hercules II amp
F12 C-3SS 
Inv-L for 160/80/40


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