[3830] CQWW CW M6W(G3WW) SO(A)SB20 LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2022

Call: M6W
Operator(s): G3WW
Station: G3WW

Class: SO(A)SB20 LP
QTH: Staffordshire
Operating Time (hrs): 34:00

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:                    
   40:                    
   20: 1291    35      111
   15:                    
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total: 1291    35      111  Total Score = 345,436

Club: 

Comments:

Usually around a month before a major contest I keep an eye on the 27-day 10.7
cm radio flux and geomagnetic outlook. This often influences which band I’ll
concentrate on. We’ve still got some way to go before cycle 25 peaks, so 10m
or an all-band entry is out of the question right now, at least for me. It
seemed to be either 15, 20 or 40 and I went for 20m as it’s been 10 years
since I last did single band 20 and set a G record in 2012 with just a HF6V.
Over the years the score had been surpassed a couple of times so I had some
motivation and targets to aim for.

Over recent months I’ve been experimenting with various wires on 20m,
half-wave wave verticals, bi-squares and dipoles and my mate Steve, G0DCK/G2X
who is 7 mile aways from Stafford has been helping me compare RBN reports
against his Hexbeam with my various wire configurations. I was quite impressed
with the 20m bi-square, but the position of my house relative to the antenna
attenuates signals coming from a westerly direction. In the end I went for a
wire dipole hoisted up around 30-40 foot in some trees. It clears the house
roof, fires east/west and was not a lot down on Steve’s Hexbeam.

I’d set a target of around 1,350 QSOs or 370,000 points, 30+ Zones and 100+
DXCCs and prepared a breakdown of where I needed to be every few hours
throughout the contest.

I thought 20m was generally in great shape both days, that said, the first day I
only worked 2 JA’s which wasn’t altogether surprising with JA being almost
off the ends of the dipole. By 0600 UTC I was up to 50 QSOs with a mix of South
America, Indian Ocean, Asia and VK through the small hours. Once local daylight
arrived here in G, VU, VK6 and YB were all very strong and fairly easy to work
Saturday morning, although no ZL logged. Some of the pileups were quite big and
on day 1 I tended to ignore them and not get sucked into the melee. Just before
local noon, when 20 opened properly to the States, the band continued to deliver
and I felt my signal was ‘strong’ getting in almost first call each time. I
didn’t really bother running as I could never find a decent spot below 14.070
MHz, occasionally I’d try high up the band for short run but search and pounce
seemed more effective. The period 1400-1600 UTC is very frustrating as many
all-band entrants migrate to 15 or 10m leaving 20m short of 3-pointers yet 20 is
still very much open between EU and NA as the RBN verifies.  After 1600 UTC, the
US and VE started to appear once again in numbers for a couple of hours before
the band closed around 1930 UTC for me.

At the end of day 1, my QSO total was 785, slightly below my half-way target of
800 and I knew that Sunday I had to be totally focused on keeping the score
going and to hoover up any mults I’d neglected the first day.

Unable to sleep properly, I was back at the radio by 0330 UTC, although didn’t
make my first contact until 0600 on the Sunday. During Sunday morning I had much
more success with JA and China. Whilst the JA’s were mostly quite weak with
me, many heard my call which encouraged me; they clearly had good ears. The very
strongest JA’s were arriving both short and long path and with my dipole I had
no means of mitigating this effect but it was a sign conditions were good. I
managed to find a ZL on Sunday morning along with the Philippines and around
local noon plenty of workable close-in stuff like ON, PA and GM. The local stuff
appeared to be skywave not back-scatter. There’s clearly enough ionisation now
for 20m signals to be refracted back at quite high angles, but not so for 15 or
10m. I was amazed though not to find neighbouring GW all contest as Wales is
only 30-40 miles from here.

Breaking briefly for roast chicken Sunday lunch with the family, I had reached
around 1100 QSOs and still felt my goal was within reach but couldn’t afford
to ease up. Around 1700 UTC the band was already beginning to close, earlier
than the previous day then picked up two hugely needed double mults from KH6 and
KL7. After finding those two I only worked a handful more stations and 20m very
frustratingly seemed to run out of steam leaving me around 50 QSOs short of my
target to be comfortable so it really lies in down to the log checking if I have
reclaimed the G record. Either way it was a super-fun weekend and we’re
already looking forward to the next one!

FT-1000MP, 100 watts
Dipole @10m
Win-Test 4.45


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