[3830] CQWW CW W8AV SO(A)SB80 HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2020

Call: W8AV
Operator(s): W8AV
Station: W8AV

Class: SO(A)SB80 HP
QTH: OH
Operating Time (hrs): 2344

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:  507    26       81
   40:                    
   20:                    
   15:                    
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total:  507    26       81  Total Score = 138,351

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

I decided to give 80 meter single band/assisted one more serious effort before
the the new sunspot cycle makes operating on the higher bands (and getting the
W8AV multi crew back together) more fun. Given the bitching about band
conditions that I saw and heard on the lowband chat list and on 80 meters by DX
stations before the contest, I wondered if I had made a serious mistake and
maybe should have chosen to go on 20 meters instead.  Butt I figured what the
hell, if conditions were that bad, I would get a lot of sleep this weekend. 
Besides the solar flux was 106 before the contest and that cemented my decision
as well for one last shot

The first night proved the naysayers were right.  80 was extremely noisy and
many stations were incredibly weak necessitating several listening tries to get
callsigns right. It also appeared that there might have been some aurora in
Northern Eurpoe since there were very few Scandinavians, LY, YL and Russian
stations heard on the band.  Getting any kind of a run going on 80 was next to
impossible, so I spent most of the night doing S/P to get QSO's and mults.  It's
rough to hear a Eurpoean station that is S-9 calling CQ who could not hear me. 
It got better as the evening wore on but the QSO totals were pretty pitiful.  I
stayed up until 1124 UTC on Saturday morning and I decided to catch about three
hours of sleep before the sunrise opening to JA.  First day totals were 202
QSO's, 66 Countries anddd 23 Zones.

Given the poor conditions during the first 24 hours, I decided that if things
were going to be that bad on Night Two, I would throw in the towel in the middle
of the night here.  Night Two started out about the same (I would maybe say
worse) than Night One.  I got down to the shack around 2200 UTC tuned around to
work some of the stronger stations that were starting to appear and waited for
it to get dark in Wayne County.  I picked up a few stations and spent severl
hours doing S/P to work as many EU station as I could.  Around 0330 UTC, I
decided to try CQing since the noise started to subside a bit and I had the
filters screwed up really tight on the K3 to pull out the weaker stations.  It
paid off since I could finally get a decent run going on the band.  I clocked a
56 hour which was not great but better than I thought it would be and there were
a lot of Eastern EU and Russians that made it into the log.  I knocked off after
EU sunrise, around 0730 after running out of new stations to work and got about
four hours of needed ZZZZ's.  I returned to the radio around 1200 UTC for about
an hour or so to try to pick up some JA's (which I had heard but couldn't work
earlier) to get the country and the needed Zone 25 mult.  I worked a handful of
them some by S/P and some that answered my CQ.  RT0C also called in for a new
QSO but I already had the zone from working RM0F the day before, but hey I'll
always take another Zone 19 station.

I was back on at 2230 UTC to round up as many QSO's as I could to achieve my
goal of making 500 QSO's.  Last year I had 556, and was hoping to get close to
that number.  When the bell went off at 2359, I had 507 QSO's in the Log with a
total of 81 Countries and 26 Zones. for a total score of 138,351 (Last year was
567/27/106 for 184,737).  So given conditions I felt that I did well enough in
roughtly 23.5 hours of operating time.  No Murphy visits this year as the 80
meter antenna performed flawlessly.  I had replaced a balky matching capacitor
in the NE element when the weather was warmer and also a UHF bulkhead connector
at the input to the SE element which got cranky a couple weeks ago.  Note to
self:  cover the bulkheads on the outside of the element matching networks with
a cap plug in the summer months to keep the Mason Bees from trying to build a
cocoon nest in the center of the connector or bury the feedlines and leave them
connected year round.

Observations:
Despite the conditions, I felt that activity from various DXCC entities was down
this year due to COVID-19.  There were operations that I thought would happen
that may have been scrapped.  Some of the more common ones like ZS just weren't
there.  Nice surprise was working Jeff, TZ4AM with a really good signal although
he said on the air that he wasn't in the contest.
Zones that were spotted that I missed or never heard: 18,21, 22, 24, 30.  Never
heard the A7 (21), 8Q (22), or BY (24).  Some of those were West Coast skimmer
spots.  I called VK2CCC several times but he could not hear me in Zone 30 and he
didn't stay around very long.  I briefly heard and called a station in Zone 18,
don't remember the call, but couldn't get him to hear me. 
Countries missed:  4X, 8Q, 9H, BY, ZA, IS0..  I called all of them except for
the 8Q and BY but either could not break through the East Coast wall of they
simply were too weak and could not hear me.
QSO's by Continent:
NA - 137 (a ton of VE's)
SA - 11
EU - 341
AS - 9
OC - 8

Despite the things mentioned above, I still had fun and that is what it is all
about.  That's my story and I am sticking to it.  See ya next year..

73...........de Goose, W8AV


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