[3830] WPX CW K8CN SOAB QRP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: K8CN
Operator(s): K8CN
Station: K8CN

Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 9.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:     
   80:    8
   40:  113
   20:  159
   15:  130
   10:    5
------------
Total:  415  Prefixes = 290  Total Score = 335,820

Club: 

Comments:

I wasn't planning to operate in this contest, but since I had to miss both CQWW
CW and ARRL DX CW this past season I decided on a last-minute whim just to do a
casual effort amid other family obligations. Looking back through my contest
logs I found my only previous entry in WPX CW was in 2010, and my score that
year was less than half this year's score even though I spent 60% more time
on-air in the 2010 event.  This year's effort was split into about two sessions
of roughly 2 hours each on Saturday and Sunday mornings, a longer session
Saturday night, and a brief final hurrah at the close on Sunday night.

It is hard to comment on propagation given my limited sampling of the bands
this year, but it was definitely better on 15 and 20 meters in the afternoons
than in the mornings of both days.  I could even hold a run frequency on 20
meters for quite a while on Saturday evening.  I kept checking 10 meters and
found only a few PY and LU stations, so that was a disappointment. A most
frustrating surprise was hearing E2X around 0100Z on 15 meters with a good S6
signal, but I couldn't break that pileup given that my fixed wire antenna is
aimed well away from that bearing.

Operating skill level (others, not mine :) ) seemed uniformly high, stations
identified frequently instead of once every 5 minutes as in some DX contests,
and everybody was super-persistent about checking my NR sent given my puny QRP
signal - thanks to all the great ops around the world who work especially hard
to put us QRP folks in your logs!

Bottom line: I had a lot of fun even though my time on-air was limited.  Maybe
I won't wait another 5 years before I try WPX CW again.......

73,
Mike, K8CN
Durham NH

Rig: K3 @ 5W, Lazy-H cut for 20 meters and dangling much lower than it was
originally installed after one support line parted and snagged in a mid-level
tree branch last year, and my trusty Johnson Matchbox.


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