[3830] WPX SSB N8II SOAB LP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, SSB

Call: N8II
Operator(s): N8II
Station: N8II

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: wv
Operating Time (hrs): 17.3

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:  144
   40:   79
   20:  382
   15:  111
   10:   48
------------
Total:  764  Prefixes = 452  Total Score = 845,240

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

It was not much fun. The work everyone format results in a lot of unheard calls
from me in both EU and SA with EU working EU and SA working/beaming EU. I would
have to say my unsuccessful calls percentage was probably at an all time high
this weekend. The ARRL DX even on phone was much better. You can definitely tell
who are the careful listeners vs. those who leave only about 1 to 1-1/2 seconds
between endless CQ's.
Things started out well with some strong signals to the south on 20 as well as a
couple of loud JA's. Then, at 0153Z I started up after a 1 hour WVU basketball
break on 75M and conditions were actually about as good as they could get into
EU. Even at 04Z, EU was louder than the west coast. A few EU answered my CQ's
along with lots of USA and some of those valuable 4 point Canadians. In total
about 35 EU were worked. The skip zone was long enough to lose a lot of the East
Coast. 
The next morning, 20 was a sea of EU to EU QRM. 15 opened slowly, but only as
far north as Morocco, not EU Saturday. The afternoon was no fun, the snow melt
always seems to worsen line noise which was high enough to drown out weaker
signals on 20 and 15 and EU signals on 20 were poorer than expected. Around
2030Z I had a nice USA run on 20. Saturday evening skip shortened to less than
100 miles on 40 as a disturbance was starting. Because of the usual crowding, I
could not get a run going, did try above 7200 also. 75M was a shadow of itself a
day earlier, so I called it a day early.
Sunday morning was very poor, could only hear about 10-20 percent of the EU
stations on the band at 12Z, no one in the USA was running well on 20. I tried
40, no OC DX worked, heard ZM3 and 5W1 working an unreadable station back to
back. 15 opened slowly and everyone from the south seemed to be beaming EU, most
of them already worked. All, day Sunday was no fun. The only highlight was
working Sicily and Portugal on 15 skewed path peaking at 150 degrees (usual skew
is about 110 deg). 10 did open to SA and YV/HP, but not until around 18Z.
There was some pretty horrible audio. Argentina wins the country prize for bad
audio, and an EW wins the trophy for a decent score which could have been much
better if you could only understand his number without repeats. There was also
some terrible operating, stations struggled too much to copy weak stations at
times (helps people like me, but decreases final score) and others listened very
poorly or spoke very poorly. Give me a CW contest please!
Thanks mainly to those who picked me out of the noise and QRM, 36 or 48 hours of
this could easily fry your brain. Thanks also to the 160 or so which answered
CQ's.
73, Jeff


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