WP2AHW CQWW-CW score and comments

WD5N%mimi at magic.itg.ti.com WD5N%mimi at magic.itg.ti.com
Thu Nov 30 15:34:35 EST 1995


from: wd5n at msg.ti.com
 
subj: WP2AHW CQWW-CW score and comments
 
    Callsign Used : WP2AHW
         Category : Single Op, Low Power
         Operator : WD5N
             Name : David Harper
          Country : US Virgin Is.  (St.Croix Island)
        Team/Club : Central Texas DX & Contest Club
 
   BAND   Raw QSOs   Valid QSOs   Points   Countries   Zones
 ___________________________________________________________
 
  160CW       41          41         85        10         5
   80CW       95          95        196        16        11
   40CW     1388        1378       3377        70        25
   20CW     1298        1290       3147        76        27
   15CW     1400        1390       3349        74        20
   10CW       16          16         45        12        10
 ___________________________________________________________
 
 Totals     4238        4210      10199       258        98
 
    Final Score = 3,630,844 points.
 
 Setup:  FT-1000 (no amp), Force-12 C4-XL for 40-10, Carolina 160 Windom,
         80M dipole with balanced feedline, all on single 40' tower on
         ridge 900' up overlooking north shore.  Old 286 laptop running
         TRlog 5.52.
 
 Comments:
----------
Problems: Planned on 4.5 hours sleep total (okay, I'm a wimp) but slept
6 hours due to missing alarm clock.  Yagi was pointing 75 degrees off due
to storm earlier in week but I didn't notice until second day (no wonder
those Europeans all seemed to be skew path!).  Lost 30 minutes trying to
get 20M RFI out of computer.  Altogether 7 hours or so of off-time, which
kept me about 1/2 million points below 9X5EE's record from last year.
I may have set a record for Low Power QSO total (anyone know what the
record is?).  Didn't do too well on mults as I didn't S&P much and didn't
move enough mults.  HC8N is the only station worked on 6 bands.  Did very
little on low bands; I think the lack of an amp hurt here more than the
higher bands.  Not sure why, but only had 4 QSO's total from Oceania.
 
Highlights: Lots of good mults calling in.  10M opening to Africa Sunday
morning for 5N0, 3B8, 7X7, 7Q7 in short order.  Great view of surrounding
island out the windows.  Most people who encroached my run frequency
QSY'd when I sent "QSY QSY TU".  Also, grocery stores there DO carry
Dr. Pepper.  I told my friend Lora that I didn't have time to eat real
meals, but she kept putting food in front of me (bacon, eggs, steak,
spaghetti) and somehow I found time to eat it. Good thing it was a CW
contest, and I'm getting pretty good typing with one hand.
 
Altogether very pleased with my first serious effort as a single op in a
48-hour contest.  Regarding the identification thread, with a callsign
like WP2AHW (Island Villa Contest Club callsign) I tried to up my rate
by signing less when the running was fast, but ALWAYS signed at least
every third contact, and more often when things were slower.  However,
still got lots of "?" sent to me, even seconds after signing my call.
These "?" were usually loud and therefore wiped out the call I was picking
out of the pile, requiring extra time to recover.  I ran at 32 or 35 wpm
most of the time, with the exchange bumped up about 6 wpm faster since
everyone knows what that will be (one station out of 4000 asked for a
repeat on the zone  :-) .  Unfortunately, at 35 wpm WP2AHW can sound like
WP2ASW, and I am sure some people busted my call but since very few sent
my call while I was running, there is no way for me to know for sure.
Also, seems I had a problem sometimes when I would correct someone's
callsign, and TRlog was configured to just send the corrected suffix or
prefix, followed by "OK" and his name if available.  I thought "OK" was
pretty universal, but had a number of folks who misinterpreted it when
I corrected their prefix.  Example: I copy XX4XX as XX3XX, and when
he corrects me, I then send XX3 OK WP2AHW, or XX3 OK JOHN WP2AHW, but
then he thinks I am changing his call to XX3OK, and he tries to correct
me again while the pileup ensues.  Guess I'll change "OK" to "QSL".
 
TRlog rate window got up to 198 a few times, but I just couldn't get it
over 200, as suddenly the pile would die out or something.  QRATE says
my best minute was 5/minute, best 10 minutes was 37/10-min., and best
hour was 188.  Best over-all "run" was Saturday from 12Z-20Z with 1100
worked in 8 hours on 15 and 20.   Never even unpacked the TS-690 spare
rig.  I had enough work just using one radio :-)
 
This is definitely the best contest!  C U from VP5 next year.
 
73, Dave  WD5N     wd5n at msg.ti.com

>From john.devoldere at eunet.be (John Devoldere)  Thu Nov 30 21:33:23 1995
From: john.devoldere at eunet.be (John Devoldere) (John Devoldere)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 21:33:23 +0000
Subject: ON4UN CQ WW CW  - MORE (refined)
Message-ID: <199511302131.WAA14676 at box.eunet.be>

After cleaning up the log, here are the final results:

CATEGORY: 80 m single op , unassisted
BAND: 80

QSO: 2,280
QSO POINTS: 4.346
PTS/QSO: 1.91
ZONES: 35
COUNTRIES: 118

SCORE: 664.938

STATISTICS:
NORTH AMERICA:  803 QSO'S (34.1 %)
SOUTH AMWERICA:  11         0.5 %
EUROPE:        1274        54.2 %
ASIA:           229         9.7 %
AFRICA:          20         0.9 %
ACOANIA:         15         0.6 %


US/CANADA break-down:

AREA       SATURDAY   SUNDAY     TOTAL     %

ZONE 5       221       183       404      53
ZONE 4       197        88       285      37.5        
ZONE 3        54        17        71       9
ZONE 2         2         2         4       0.5


Despite relatively poor conditions to the West coast, 10 % of the
North-America QSO's were into the West coast. The second day was clearly
worse than the first day. 

These details are provided, because some West Coast stations asked me to
look especially for West coast stations in the fuuture... I tried hard,
believe me.

Thanks to all who provided reports on our signal strength on 80 meters. Much
appreciated.


73, and CU next weekend on 160!

John, ON4UN


PS. Does anyone have the results for LX4B??? 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
john.devoldere at box.eunet.be  
Call us in all major 1995 contests: OT5T or ON4UN
John Devoldere (ON4UN-AA4OI)
POBOX 41
B-9000 Ghent (Belgium)




More information about the CQ-Contest mailing list