[3830] CQWW CW K2PO SOAB(A) LP

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CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: K2PO
Operator(s): K2PO
Station: K2PO

Class: SOAB(A) LP
QTH: Oregon
Operating Time (hrs): 42.5
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   27    10       11
   80:   69    17       23
   40:  450    30       72
   20:  455    32      103
   15:  142    26       60
   10:   26    12       13
------------------------------
Total: 1169   127      282  Total Score = 1,285,896

Club: Willamette Valley DX Club

Comments:

Good times, despite impaired conditions, and occasional tedium (7 clock hours
with single-digit QSO counts).

My score is less than half of last year's score.   15m and 10m QSO counts were
down: from 436 to 142 on 15m, and from 206 to 26 on 10m.  Mults on the lower
bands suffered commensurately (although my zone count on 160m was up by two).

48% of my QSOs were JAs (296 on 40m, 203 on 20m, 28 on 15m, 23 on 80m, and 2 on
160m).

Coincidentally, 48% of my QSOs (i.e., 554) were by CQing.  Of those (excluding
no-point US QSOs), 84% were JAs.

My shorty-80m dipole was lame for the contest (20:1 SWR in the CW band), but
conditions on the low bands seemed good - at least to Asia.  I recently
installed a Red Pitaya-based skimmer (thanks W2NAF), and hooked it up to a
ground-mounted Cushcraft 80-10m vertical.  Mid-way through the contest, I
newly-configured it to skim 160m - although the antenna doesn't work there. 
But it worked great (e.g., providing 6 of the 7 160m skimmer spots for SOSB/160
BA4TB on Sunday).  Watching its spots provided a diversion when things got slow.
 Every few minutes or so it spotted a JA or BY on 40m until after well after
local noon - stations that would have been workable with low power if they
hadn't already been in the log.  (The first 40m JAa went into my log at 8:23 pm
local time on Friday - hours before their usual appearance.)

Europe, however, was a different story.  On 40m I missed such obscure EU
countries as Germany and France.  And on 15m I managed to work only CU4DX.  (No
European worked on 80 or 10.)

Usually, the difference between working a station on 5 bands, instead of 6, is
160m.  This year it was 10m.  Except for ZF2MJ, I worked no Caribbean station
on 10m (and I missed Dan on 160m).  So the 6-band QSO roster is exclusively
Hawaiian: KH6J, KH6LC and KH7M.  (Honorable mention goes to fellow WVDXC
club-member K7AR, whose suitcase-based DX-pedition provided 5 band QSOs from
FO/K7AR in the Austral Islands.)

Thanks to all - especially those who helped activate obscure DXCCs.

73,

Bill, K2PO
Portland, Oregon


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