[CCF] ARRLDX CW OH8X(OH6KZP) SOSB/20 HP

[Kim Östman]

                     ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: OH8X
Operator(s): OH6KZP
Station: OH8X

Class: SOSB/20 HP
QTH: Arcala
Operating Time (hrs): 33
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
  Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   160:
    80:
    40:
    20: 1411    57
    15:
    10:
-------------------
Total: 1411    57  Total Score = 241,281

Club: Contest Club Finland

Comments:

Well this was .... different! I mostly do all band operating, so a single band
effort requires some different thinking and self-motivation. I tried to keep
busy and emulate all-band SO2R operating by doing S&P on the second radio, and
I think I managed to add some extra QSOs in that way.

The polar-path opening in the beginning was nice, providing about 270 QSOs up
to 0330z on Saturday morning. The subsequent rates during the day were lower
than I expected. Still, fortunately the band again stayed open until 0330z or
so, and before the main Sunday opening (11 UTC ->) I was up at about  
1075 QSOs.
The daytime opening turned out to be extremely poor, with rates of only 10-15
Q/h for 5 hours. Fortunately things eventually picked up a bit and ended on a
high note, although for some reason the DC and NF multipliers both  
eluded me to
the very end. The other missed ones, namely LB, YT, NU, and NT, were  
apparently
missed by everybody else too.

It was very nice to see the growing live scoreboard participation on
cqcontest.ru; I think the indicated number of on-line users was often  
something
over 300, and there were probably over 100 stations posting their  
scores. We had
a fun three-pointed local battle between OH8L, OH8R, and OH8X.

I had minor technical problems, including a prime-time power outage of some
minutes on Saturday. More frustrating, though, were the numerous times that I
lost my run frequency to stations that could apparently not hear my  
frantic QSY
requests but who were louder than I was in North America. Well, the  
band giveth
and the band taketh away, but in the heat of the moment on a nice frequency it
easily makes you boil over :)

Many thanks to the Radio Arcala team, particularly to OH8NC and OH6KN for the
hospitality and the support! Thanks to all for the QSOs.