[3830] CQWW CW N7WA SO(A)SB40 HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: N7WA
Operator(s): N7WA
Station: N7WA

Class: SO(A)SB40 HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 32

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:                    
   40:  845    34      122
   20:                    
   15:                    
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total:  845    34      122  Total Score = 362,544

Club: Western Washington DX Club

Comments:

I decided to operate as Assisted this year. I can't remember doing that before
as a single-op. Friday operations seemed normal with plenty of Caribbean, SA,
and some Europe to keep me awake until the JA's came on after midnight. I
couldn't stay awake for the last couple hours of the morning so I didn't try to
test the long path options.
		  
After a few hours sleep, I started checking the 40M path to Europe and found it
was possible to work Europe long before dark, getting better as darkness
approached. However, as night fell, the path to Europe disappeared and the
stations that could be heard were way down in strength. That made for a long and
slow second night at which, again, I could not stay awake for the early dawn
hours. I know there was stuff I couldn't hear when Dan W7WA called. I thought he
was calling me for a zero pointer. Heck no, he was calling somebody under me.
Never found out who it was. I got the hint and moved on. <sigh>
		  
Again, after a few hours sleep Sunday morning, I could work Europe, picking off
an occasional station as the grey line approached. It really got good towards
the end and I could run 40M while picking off multipliers as they showed up. Too
bad the test ended when it did.
		  
A couple other observations. Lots of Chinese stations this year and a definite
uptick in VK's as well (for me anyway). I can remember not working a single VK
in some past years. This assisted operation came with it's own learning curve
for me. I initially was using a mouse to click on the band map. That sucks - too
many hand operations. I quickly learned the keystrokes for walking up and down
the band map. Don't trust anybody's spots either. Too many bad spots which I
would frequently repost with the correct callsign. This was my first major test
with the K-pod. I found it useful.

I had fun. Nothing blew up. 
cheers, dink


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