[3830] CQWW CW W3HKK SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2019

Call: W3HKK
Operator(s): W3HKK
Station: W3HKK

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: ohio
Operating Time (hrs): 25

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   70    14       41
   80:   86    19       55
   40:  224    27       91
   20:  211    25       79
   15:   37    13       30
   10:    0     0        0
------------------------------
Total:  628    98      296  Total Score = 677,680

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

Antennas : 	-1/4 wave Inv-L's (52' vert leg) for 160/80m (24x100' radials)
		-Two el phased verticals for 40/20/15m
		-SAL-30  rx antenna for 160-80-40m.
		-N1MM+
Note: W3HKK  is an all wire antenna station. 

Soapbox : Bottom of the sunspot cycle.  K=4 geomagnetic cndx. How bad can it
get?  Not bad at all! 

95% s&p. 5%  running on 40m  the last two hours.  Last qso was logged at
0000z  so the contest robot  made me delete it.

Great fun bouncing from band to band trying to catch new mults.  though sitting
and running would have been much more productive, but a lot more hectic on this
77 yo body.  My station is set up with three keyboards (I can hear some of  you 
laughing...) One is dedicated to the 7610.  One for the logging computer. And
one for  an outboard CW Buddy  keyboard keyer that plugs into the 7610.  So I
have to remember which keyboard does what, and when!  THAT makes
"running" more of a challenge than it needs to be. Sure wish the 7610
could do keyboard cw.

Here near Columbus,  10m had sporadic signals but no Q's.  15m was good for
mults.  Polar paths were weak but otherwise plenty of activity, even to northern
Europe on 20-40-80m.  160m was affected but still a good number of  Euros were
to be had. It seemed to  bounce back Sun night but time ran out. 

Asia was well down. ie Not many JA's heard, tho got a few on 20-40m.  Missed 
nine CQ zones,(18-22-23-24-26-28-29-34-40.) in per N1MM+ 25 hrs operating filled
with numerous breaks, a concession to being 77 yrs old. 

Band noise was low, even on 160. Good number of semi-exotic stations  from
Africa and the Indian Ocean. I worked  95% of the stations called. 

Spent most time  patrolling 160-15 for mults. No  qsos on 10 though heard a few
weak ones, including K8AX who I called but no response. 15m was fun from 10-5pm
with scattered dx entities but  no big sigs and few massive pile ups. It was
like shooting fish in a barrel even with a 20m 2 el vertical phased array, which
seems to work fairly well.  40m beat out 20m by a few Q's, zones & 
countries. 

Lots of Canadians!  Wkd KL7RA memorial station on  20/40. (Met KL7RA himself at
Dayton when we both sat down next to each other to take a break. Listened to his
bear stories while doing antenna work  with antenna analyzer and shotgun, for 45
enjoyable minutes.

Worked  a handful of stations on 160-15, many more on 80-15, and many more still
on three bands. 

Never heard more African stations than in this  years  CQWW!  Europe was the
mainstay.  SA was  ok but no big PY opening.  Pacific was  present from
scattered places plus VK/ZL regulars. Hawaii was  good.  AK just KL7RA.  Asia
poor, maybe 10 JAs worked all tolled. The Caribbean and C.A. were  well
represented.

Overall, QRM  was down due to lower Sig levels,  but still very solid copy on
all bands. 160 had been terrific leading up to the contest but was  badly
damaged by the  GMD.

Summary:  Considering where we  are in the cycle, the 2019 test was great fun,
showing once again, that  the cndx are usually good to somewhere, and by 
working the bands there were plenty of surprises to be had.


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