[3830] WPX SSB WX3B M/M HP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, SSB - 2023

Call: WX3B
Operator(s): WX3B WA3AER N3FZ WR3R N8IVN NE3K W3MMM NY3A
Station: WX3B

Class: M/M HP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:   11
   80:  389
   40: 1477
   20: 1651
   15: 1625
   10: 1153
------------
Total: 6326  Prefixes = 1484  Total Score = 22,985,676

Club: 

Comments:

With the two ARRL DX contests in the rear view mirror, the stellar band
conditions, particularly on 10 & 15 meters were captivating my mind for how
things might unfold in WPX SSB this year.

I was dreaming of beating Rick NQ4I’s Multi/Multi record he set way back in
2014, and the bands seemed so good, I figured it was a possibility we might
achieve 2,000 QSOs on each of the high bands if all went well.
Things quickly turned dark on Thursday when the solar conditions became unstable
– however I held out hope of the bands recovering BEFORE Saturday morning.
We had an excellent operating team in place this year including:  WR3R, WA3AER,
N8IVN N3FZ, NE3K, W3MMM, and NY3A.

This was N8IVN Dennis’s first contest at WX3B since he installed his AB/577
with a nice Yagi at 40 feet.  Dennis’s radio life has certainly changed at
home – where his experience is much closer to being at WX3B than it was
several months ago.   Congratulations on your station building efforts, Dennis! 
Dennis enjoyed a longer operating shift than usual and he sampled an array of
different band conditions – always sounding like he was having fun.

Gary, WR3R was welcomed back to WPX post-COVID and he was the only 100% “all
night” operator.  Gary also operated quite a bit during the day, once waking
up from his 4 – 6 hours away from the radios.  The highlights Gary noted were
1) Running JA and Asian stations at night on 15 meters, and 2) doing it again on
40 meters in the morning – where he got some nice answers to his CQs on 40.

Ted, WA3AER gets the award for the most flexibility and “taking one for the
team”.  He committed  to an effort that ended late Saturday afternoon, and
when asked about Sunday, he became the “on-call” expert who actually
returned in the morning and stayed until the end of the contest.  Without Ted,
we would have been grossly understaffed on Sunday.

Bryan, N3FZ took the hot-seat assignment early Saturday morning after hearing
promises of band 15 meter band openings before 7:00am.  Unfortunately, that
never happened, but wait, it gets even worse.  When the band started (slowly)
opening, Bryan was greeted with a new noise:  S9 static all over the bands,
including 15 meters…the dreaded rain static.  This went on for about an hour,
and for those that though we had trouble hearing – we certainly did. 
Thankfully this was the only time over the weekend we were effectively hampered
because of the storms.  Bryan opened the band, enjoyed a good run, and handed me
a very clear and productive run frequency – a real pleasure to inherit.
Geoff, 
NE3K also showed up at an extremely early hour and was hoping the promise of 10
meters would materialize.  It didn’t – and we never had a full band opening
to Europe on Saturday.   What we did have, were loads of South Americans to
work.  Geoff had fun taking turns on different bands during his Saturday
assignment and it was good to see him cranking out the QSOs!

Jay, W3MMM visited WX3B for the first time since he simplified his life and
moved to Frederick MD.  Jay spent an extended period of time (when I was
watching) enjoying a spirited run on 15 meters, which was easily our best band
for high rate this year.  
Steve, NY3A got pressed into service on Sunday and he arrived before 6:00am to
see Jay suffering and not making many QSOs.  Our hope that the high bands would
spring to life early Sunday was also dashed.  It seemed like 10 & 15 meters
took FOREVER to open on Sunday – even longer than Saturday.  But open they
did, and the opening was much better than Saturday’s opening.  

WX3B (yours truly) bounced around the bands giving people breaks, and I
inherited a very good opening on 20 meters Saturday morning that was fun.  I was
excited about doing that again on Sunday but the band was absolutely broken. 
The combination of solar conditions, along with everyone being on 10 & 15,
made 20 sound like a wasteland.  There were wide portions of 20 that actually
had CLEAR FREQUENCIES.  Our rate stayed in the 20’s and 30’s (if that) for
hours.  It finally sprang to life in the early afternoon.

This year I had two minor equipment failures – both minor – and both
indoors.  The first was a wattmeter that lost the OLED display the weekend
before the contest.  I seized the opportunity to buy another, and will have the
old display refurbished.  

The second failure occurred under the most intense part of our Sunday morning 10
meter run:  the radio just died.  After 5 long minutes of suspecting/swapping a
bad power supply, I determined it must be the radio, because swapping power
supplies didn’t help – so I swapped radios only to discover that the new
radio did not work with the “new” power supply I was testing.    This is
happening when we are losing at least 2 QSOs per minute – and the pressure was
on.  I hauled a 3rd power supply over and that worked, leading me to conclude it
WAS a bad (intermittent) power supply the entire time.  The punch line to this
long story is that I never tested the Molex connector that changed the pins from
6 to 4 – though commercially sourced, there was obviously a pin not connected.
 Moral of story, don’t ever store ANYTHING as a “hot swap” that hasn’t
been 100% tested.  (For those actually reading this story – yes – I DID test
the spare power supply – just not that little Molex connector).

There was a significant sub-text in this year’s epic battle:  Dan N6MJ and
Chris KL9A warned me they would be “pushing us” from Tim N6WIN’s
super-station in Arizona (Team ND7K) – with a team of experts from different
parts of the U.S.  

I knew they would likely get a big jump on us Friday night – and I was right. 
I had hopes we could turn things around on Saturday, which we “almost” did. 
That’s when team ND7K poured it on and opened up an insurmountable lead by
Sunday morning – and we remained well behind them for the rest of the event. 


Congratulations to my good friends and competitors from so far west – that is
truly a great accomplishment.   Their team also deserves a good sportsman award,
because WX3B was spotted more by ND7K than any other team – what other hobby
has you helping your competitors as you try your best to BEAT THEM OVER THE
HEAD?  Suffice it to say, we are looking forward to the 2024 re-match, where we
must count on running Europe on all 3 high bands all weekend long to have a good
shot at winning.
  
The entire weekend I was lamenting not besting our own score from last year –
and I had an array of excuses on why this didn’t happen, however  I was
thrilled today to see that we actually DID beat our 2022 score by a few QSOs. 

The competition, texting and #Trashtalk before, during and after the event is
particularly enjoyable.  We enjoyed QSOs with friends all over the world – and
I enjoyed spending time – together – with friends that have been contesting
with me for many years.  This truly is the world’s greatest hobby!

73,
Jim    WX3B


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