[3830] CQWW CW VP2MJA SOAB LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2022

Call: VP2MJA
Operator(s): VP2MJA
Station: VP2MJA

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Montserrat
Operating Time (hrs): 38

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:  100     6       12
   80:  302    11       41
   40:  899    20       64
   20: 1102    27       74
   15: 1104    26       71
   10: 1137    25       79
------------------------------
Total: 4644   115      341  Total Score = 5,021,472

Club: Contest Club Ontario

Comments:

Amazing experience!

First I want to thank Yuri VE3DZ for this opportunity.  He had to give up his
seat at Gingerbreadhill and I was lucky to snap it up. I am sure he will come
here and blow away my numbers anyways.

The trip here was as planned.  No issues with the flight although I had to stay
and extra night in Antigua as the connection to Montserrat was too tight.  This
made my operation a bit shorter and would have to hustle putting up the antennas
and station.

The flight to Montserrat was lots of fun and I sat just next to the pilot. 
It’s only 20 mins so no issue.

The weather was ok but we have had strong winds 80 plus km/hour at times.  
The weather is different than Antigua oddly enough. 

Dave and Clover Lea, owners, are fantastic hosts and I could not ask for
anything more.  They provided their grandson to help with the antennas.
George Briggs K2DM, great guy, manages the station and does some maintenance. 
Unfortunately he has been unable to make it down here recently so I did not know
the condition of everything.  The place it stacked with equipment and
accessories however I ran into some issues with antenna parts.
The CL33 yagi was missing the screws which are used to assemble the elements. 
Fortunately Seth ( my helper) was able to get the screws for his grandpa and
saved the day.  There is not much in Montserrat especially since the volcanic
eruptions!  Less then half of the population now inhabits the island ( 11K to
5K). There is no running to Home Depot! 
We were able to get everything  up in a few hours but could not get 40 working. 
I suspected bad coax and after three different coax replacements I finally got
it working.  With this environment everything has to be checked. 

So the first night I checked things out and ran JA’s til the cows came home! 
Everything is so loud here.  It’s as if the world shrunk signals from
everywhere show up.   Although it’s too bad I did not run an amp I think my
signal was not too bad and heard pretty much everything.   Noise levels are non
existent here. 

It was nice to hear all the VE stations and interestingly enough very easy to
pick out from the pileups.  
I sometimes struggled with the massive pileups and my Icom 7300 settings were
messed up with the filters and for a while couldn’t pick out stations.
I missed my K3! Anyways that was resolved an OSO rate picked up. Averaged about
120 QSO/hr but overslept on Saturday overnight which was a pity.  I could have
done better but nevertheless I truly am grateful for this experience!


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