[3830] CQ WW RTTY W6QU(W8QZA) SOAB QRP

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CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: W6QU
Operator(s): W8QZA
Station: W8QZA

Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: San Diego, CA
Operating Time (hrs): 30.7

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  State/Prov  DX  Zones
-----------------------------------
   80:   18      11       3     4
   40:   54      22       6     7
   20:  156      32      41    23
   15:   97      10      35    22
   10:    4       2       3     3
-----------------------------------
Total:  329      77      88    59  Total Score = 144,256

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Comments:

STATION:

Radio: Yaesu FT-817, 5 Watts.

Antennas:
  10-15-20 Meters: 3 el Stepp-IR up 32 feet
  40 Meters: DX-LB trap dipole up 30 feet
  40-80 Meters: Butternut HF-2V Vertical with 3 radials
 
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The conditions are steadily getting worse, and it is easy to see in my score
compared to last year.  Despite 5 more hours of op time, my Qs dropped from 341
to 329.  This is a 3.5% drop in Qs, but this was accompanied by a 20.7% drop in
score!  This is because the quality of the Qs dropped as well as the number of
Qs. For example, the percent of my European Qs dropped from 20.8% to 8.5%!  And
the percent of North American Qs increased from 47% to 59%!

Well, I'm sure it is bound to get worse before it gets better!

It is clear to everyone that there was some sort of solar storm which virtually
shut down 15 Meters on Sunday morning. (10 M was already dead!) 15 M seemed
normal an hour or so after sun rise here in San Diego. An hour later it was
dead with only one or two sigs on the band!  It recovered a lot in the last
couple hours of the contest. But for most of Sunday there was only one band
operating: 20 Meters!!!

On the other side of things, on Saturday night 15 was as open as I have ever
seen it to the Pacific. I worked stuff like 9M6's, T88ON, YB, DU's as well as
the usual KH6, VK, and ZL. I usually can never work this stuff with my QRP.

As far as problems go, I had a remarkable one that ruined the first 1 1/2 hours
of the contest. I found I simply could not work stations that I should be
working. Finally one op told me that I was transmitting about 110 cycles off
frequency! It made sense because occasionally ops would seem to shift their
frequency to work me.  My RIT was off and I could NOT figure any way to check
this out! So I finally just turned off the FT-817 and the N1MM logging program
and turned them back on. It seemed to fix the problem and I was never troubled
by it again.  But what the %#$@&!!!!

DXCC was only 55 and WAZ was only 25. In 2012 I was 67 and 27, so the drop is
not really dramatic.

My most unusual Q was on 10 Meters.  I only had 4 Qs on 10 M: 2 were local
backscatter and one was CW4MAX who seemed to have a signal on for the entire
contest despite the horrible condx on 10 M!

However, the fourth Q on 10 meters was like science fiction.  After checking 10
M ever hour or two and finding it dead all Fri and Sat, I suddenly found YC9GWR
with a strong sig on Saturday evening and worked him in one call.  I can never
work stuff like that on 10 Meters, let alone on a dead band.  

The other cool Q was finding D66D calling blank CQs on 15 M near noon on
Saturday. He was not strong but easy to work on one call. 

I also found VK9NZ on 15 M in the last minutes of the contest and despite the
fact that he was VERY weak, he had no callers and I got him.

So it is stuff like that that keeps us contesting, ....even near the bottom of
the cycle!

See you next month for the CQ WWDX Phone contest! This is the one that keeps my
family up at night with "Whiskey Six Quebec United" echoing in the
house, although the digital voice recorder has helped that a lot!

...Bill   W8QZA - W6QU


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