[3830] CQWW SSB P40T(VE3DZ) SOAB Classic HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB - 2022

Call: P40T
Operator(s): VE3DZ
Station: P40T

Class: SOAB HP
Class Overlay: Classic 
QTH: Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 40

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   11     5       10
   80:  403    15       59
   40:  574    23       63
   20: 1257    32       99
   15: 1635    27       87
   10: 2043    28       94
------------------------------
Total: 6023   130      412  Total Score = 9,653,562

Club: Contest Club Ontario

Comments:

Thanks to Ben DL6RAI for letting me use this station.
I booked way in advance, but since I initially booked it, a lot of things have
changed and I was thinking about cancellation (like I cancelled my planned trip
to VP2M for CW), but finally decided to go mostly because my tickets were
non-refundable.
The station and and antennas were not maintained since the start of pandemics,
and the noise, which was already terrible in 2019 when I operated from here last
time, didn't go away, but I was warned about it, so no complaints here. About a
week before my departure I received an update on antennas: only 2 of them were
working: one of the Skyhawk Tribanders and 160 m dipole. So, initial plan was to
go SOSB, either 10 or 15 meters.
However, upon arrival I couldn't resist from trying to repair whatever was
possible. First I started with fixing 2nd Tribander, and when it was done I
continued with 40 and 80. The 40 m Beam was non-repairable so I ended up with
fixing a 40 m dipole which John W2GD put up a couple of years ago for one of the
renters as a temporary antenna. It broke and fell onto 80 m dipole, so repairing
it was relatively easy. By Friday morning I was operational on all bands, so I
decided to go with plan B and do All Bands. I knew I would have troubles hearing
on Low Bands, but I didn't have time and guts to go through the cactus field to
fix receiving antennas.
The start of the contest was disastrous for me. I decided to go on 40, but
couldn't get anything going. 40 m dipole worked as a dummy load as compared to
40 m Yagi. On a top of that I spilled full coffee on myself, and had to quit for
a few minutes to go change in the bedroom. As a result, only 1 QSO in the first
4 minutes.
Later I managed to calm down and switched back to 20 m which allowed me to
finish 1st hour with a decent rate of 190 Q's.
It wouldn't be bad at all, if not for the noise. There were 2 sources of
constant noise, one being regular power line noise and another some sort of
broadband router or digital switch noise. They were peaking at 330 degrees
(U.S.A. direction) and stayed 24/7. There were at least two other types of noise
which would come and go.
To be able to work U.S. I had to turn my antenna almost 60 degrees away so I
could at least copy someone through the S9 noise.
So, my feelings about this Contest are pretty mixed: on one hand I was happy
that I managed to fix almost all antennas and was able to be on all bands, on
the other hand with conditions like that I feel that I could make much more
under different circumstances...
With all that it was really difficult to motivate yourself to stay awake the
whole Contest, so I slept both nights (of course, overslept a bit on the 2nd
night).
By the way, it was really nice to see 10-meter band packed with signals all the
way from 28300 to 29000. It was quite a few years back when I saw something like
that.
It was great to have a post-contest dinner with P40L guys on Monday. They had a
great time operating M/2. Also my congratulations to Rich, N6KT and Randy, K5ZD
on their outstanding scores.
Thanks a lot for all the QSO's and see (hopefully) from sunny and warm Zone 2 in
the CW part.


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