[3830] WPX SSB 4O3A(9A3A/E73A) SO(A)AB HP

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CQWW WPX Contest, SSB

Call: 4O3A
Operator(s): 9A3A/E73A
Station: 4O3A

Class: SO(A)AB HP
QTH: Obosnik
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:   12
   80:  505
   40: 1109
   20:  483
   15:  903
   10:   11
------------
Total: 3023  Prefixes = 1179  Total Score = 10,778,060

Club: SKY Contest Club

Comments:

Late submission due to work commitments. Struggling to manage work, family,
travel and contesting, so far I have not given up on any commitments but it is
not easy….
What to say about WPX SSB �" (another) strange contest, at least for me.
Station setup done on Friday before start, we have noticed some background
noise when recording messages on R1, but did not have time for full
troubleshooting or checking, which was a mistake. 4O3A QTH includes also quite
a lot of non-ham generated RF, which now became a main suspect. I am not sure
if that was the reason, but I could not get any decent runs first night and I
did use recorded messages so I can focus also on R2. I had to stick to 40m as I
could not have any runs on 80m with 4SQ. In the morning I was already
considerably behind the local competitors, with rates mainly below 100 during
the first 8 hours. After QSY to 20/15 and working some quite loud JA’s on 15m
I was hoping to have a better rate towards East, but audio problems were getting
worse, so after an hour or so I had to take unplanned break.  Nearly 6 hour
break, changing setup configuration and also category to ‘assisted’, not my
favourite as I am not a ‘cluster’ fan... to no avail. 
Saturday PM hours and whole night I was trying to ‘compensate’, no more
issues with audio but the rates were again far from expected. The best contest
hour 128 tells everything!  
Second night I spent quite a lot of time on 80m working mixed EU/AS/NA. Overall
low band totals seem to be OK when compared to local competition, but high bands
were unbelievable, average on Sunday below 100…. On Sunday afternoon I heard
9A77A working USA, many of those that he got the call at once, I could not
detect at all. Looking at the totals, it seems that’s how it was most of the
contest.
At the end, the difference between 4O3A and the rest of local/non local
competition is huge, despite the fact I’ve done my best to work whoever I
could hear. I have not logged only a handful of stations for which I could not
get either a call-sign or complete exchange �" half of them I had a call
sign but could not confirm the number so I had to remove them from the log. WPX
is quite simple, if you can run, you will have also a good multiplier score. I
could not run, so the score sucks.  I can only congratulate to Braco and Dave
and others for amazing scores �" still trying to figure out what happened
to the rates at 4O3A. 

Thanks to all for calling, my apologies to those who I could not copy or
anybody that was calling to no avail.

73 Ivo I7/9A3A, E73A


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