[3830] CQ WW RTTY AA5AU SOSB(A)/20 HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: AA5AU
Operator(s): AA5AU
Station: AA5AU

Class: SOSB(A)/20 HP
QTH: LA
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  State/Prov  DX  Zones
-----------------------------------
   80:                           
   40:                           
   20:  954      54      98    32
   15:                           
   10:                           
-----------------------------------
Total:  954      54      98    32  Total Score = 345,000

Club: Louisiana Contest Club

Comments:

Things were going well for the first 36 hours then the last 12 hours included a
5-hour shutdown due to weather. That killed any hopes for a new USA record.
Sunday was obviously the better day of propagation, however, signals from Asia
were still not very good. Heard 9M2TO and 9M6XRO but they were weak and watery
and could not get through. Same for BH7PFH. Thus I missed zones zones 24 &
28, as well as zones 2, 22, 23, 34, 36, 37 and 39. I did hear FR4NT but he was
calling VK6VAX at the same time I was. Just before sunrise Sunday morning, I
found both VK6VAX & KH2L for new zones and the only signals on the bands. I
got plenty of sleep both nights even though I got up about every hour to check
the band. It was open all night the second night but with only weak EU signals
that I had already worked.

The biggest disappointments was finding VO2NS in zone 2. He gave a report to
the station he was working and I was ready to pounce. The station he was
working gave a report and VO2NS never came back to him. I waited ten minutes
before calling him, but he was gone. Never saw him spotted the rest of the
contest. Also missed VU2LBW, 4K6FO, V73YL, VU2LBW, EK3GM and DU1JM. I also
missed states/provices VT, GA, AR, LB, NS, NU, NWT and YT.

Did not meet any of my goals, especially my attempt to break the USA record. 

Used the RTTY skimmer spots for the first time and it was amazing to watch them
fly in. I'm not convinced it's a great thing yet. I kept seeing my call spotted
on S&P frequencies and that was happening to just about everyone so you get
this bandmap full of calls which is basically useless because most of them are
S&P or busted calls. For the most part, the busted calls showing up in my
new multiplier packet window was not a problem except for one skimmer station
that obviously was having problems decoding. I will contact that person
directly to let him know there was a problem. Seems like the idea is quantity
of spots when they should be (and hopefully are) working more on the quality of
spots (less S&P stations being spotted and less busted calls). Luckily I was
using my new fast computer for this single band effort because the packet spots
were coming in at such a high rate that it rendered my XP machine nearly
useless. I did figure out how to limit the spots to only RTTY because the 
beacon stations at 14100 kept getting spotted by the CW skimmers. That was
annoying until I figured how to filter the spots to RTTY only in the comments.
Also noticed that HK1T kept getting busted because they didn't have a space
after their call in their messages!

Even though it wasn't the result I was looking for, it was a learning
experience and I did enjoy my time at the radio.

73, Don AA5AU

Equipment
Icom IC-756 PRO III


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