[3830] CQWW CW WO1N SO(A)AB LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2020

Call: WO1N
Operator(s): WO1N
Station: WO1N

Class: SO(A)AB LP
QTH: Massachusetts
Operating Time (hrs): 38

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   40    11       20
   80:  135    15       50
   40:  205    22       69
   20:  325    23       78
   15:  274    23       78
   10:   31    10       15
------------------------------
Total: 1010   104      310  Total Score = 1,167,894

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Station: FTdx5000, C3-SS at 38', 40MDipole at 60', 80MVertDipole, 160MInvL, N1MM  

Soapbox : 

Pre-contest this season included a lot of support for the local contest
community including N1RR, AA1ON and K1IR. So, my final score includes
a portion of all of their scores ;-).

At my own station, now newly retired, I had time to set up the 160 INV-L,
first time since 2013. I also was able to work with a local pizza shop
owner and solve a very bad cheesy LED rope light 15KHz switcher problem
that was wiping out 80M. These LED rope lights are now all the rage
with the local small business owners. I found when it was blinking
and changing colors it was screaming in an on-off-on-off pattern
corresponding with the changing LED colors. The pizza shop owner
was happy to set it to a fixed color. That solved the issue at
my station. 
 
The bands, especially low bands, seemed awesome all week. I
felt they were a bit noisier and suppressed during the contest.
Not bad, just not as good as they were in the week prior.

Ready to go at the start. The only goal I had was 35 hours operating
time. It took 12 minutes before I could make my first Q. Aargh.
This is a tough contest for low power/low antenna stations.

Hacked at it until 0900Z (4AM local) and took a sleep break. 162Qs
in the log. Was up and making contacts by 1114Z (6:14 local). This
is where I made a commonly repeated mistake of falling into DXing/
Tuning mode. Basically missed all run opportunities on Saturday
because of this. I estimate I left 150-200Q's on the table as a
result. I did attempt 2 runs 33(20M)/32Q(15M), late in the opening
(15/16Z) both were not productive other than the initial skimmer
burst. 436Qs in the log after 24 hours.

Saturday evening "at-the-fights" was tough. 40M is verging on
chaos, all the easy stuff was worked on 160M the first night
and 80M was just so-so. Though I did manage a 30Q run at 3510KHz
somehow. 523Qs in the log at the 2nd planned sleep break.

Back at it by 1122Z. Swept 80, then 40 and on 20M by 1143Z.
Rediscovered the narrow filter setting on the FT5K and an
"elbows out" mindset and found myself a hole at 14024, good
for 114Qs during the 12Z hour. Headed to 15M with the same
headset and ripped off 172Qs in about 1.5hours.

Those two runs made 1000Qs possible, so that was one source
of motivation. The online scoreboard provided another.
I was watching K1TR, a local also in the low power category.
At one point he had me by 200Qs. I managed to make that up. But
he then was able to recover and stretch it out a bit. Overall,
the club wins as it kept me BIC. He bested me by 100Qs and 100K
points. 

All in all this was a fun contest for me. I felt the InvL was
performing well with about 2000 feet of random radials. 40M is
still my weakest band with the simple dipole, though I did get
it a bit higher in the air this year.

N1MM shows Qs in 40/48 hours though real time was more like 37
or 38 hours as I did take a few 15 minute power naps. Also, I
have all day Monday (and Tuesday and Wednesday...) to recover. 
Hadn't done that kind of effort in awhile.

73,

Ken - WO1N


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