[CQ-Contest] wpxms AJ4Y @ W1CW - 11% domestic

[Jim White, K4OJ]

...thanks to AJ4Y for his nice call...Paul even came over and operated for a
while on Saturday!

.the equipment worked well this weekend, and propagation was pretty damn
good....but where were 10 and 40 meters.   In the past this contest has been
attacked with a stay on 40 as long as you can philosophy due to the
increased value of a QSO on 40 and down...with improved propagation it seems
that fewer wanted to go low when things were so good on the higher bands.
At least that is the feeling we got - 40 just didn't pl,ay like it has in
the past in this contest.

The last serious WPX CW multi single effort was 1994's victory when we had
use of WC4E's call - Jeff hadn't built his house and station yet...that
score was 3.1 million.

It is 5 years later and we more than doubled that score...under the old
scoring (more on that below) only to see at best a second place finish -
congrats to the K3WW crew...

The first night was incredible.  I have never experienced all night prop on
15 meters....it was awesome...best I had thought we could hope for was all
night 20 meter propagation.  Like I said with 15 and 20 so good it was tough
getting things going on 40 - I will be interested to see the single band 40
scores - suspect they are not that different!

After about an hour into the contest we realized we were running an older
version of CT, which did not reflect the 1 point domestic QSOs.  What was
satisfying was seeing us break the old multi-single record (6.256M/NB1B-'96)
under the old scoring in the last hour....at 00Z we had 6.282M under the old
scoring.....

Now that I am back at home I have the enhanced score, which is
6.972M...neat......that is about an 11% increase thanks to 1 pointers.
I would be interested to see if others witness similar percentages as a
result of the new rules...this was a hot topic on the contest reflector last
year.

This was KS9O's first DX contest form Florida...Kevin says it isn't like
this from the Black Hole...he appears to be glad he has relocated here to
wonderful Florida - land of year round antenna work.

We only lost about an hour due to lightning in the area Saturday...this is
the other thing that Florida is famous for....besides the Floirda QSO Party.
In perfect form, W1YL served dinner during the storm time so we enjoyed a
delicious break from running Europe :-)

15 meters was always there...whenever we couldn't get anything else
percolating we went back to 15....it was so hot I am surprised 10 wasn't
open like in last fall's WWCW.....oh well....mebbe next year! 100 hours at
0800 on 15, I love it!

Tnx W1CW/W1YL as always the perfect hosts...

73,

Jim, K4OJ
k4oj at tampabay.rr.com

Special thanks to everyone who operated in the 1999 Florida QSO Party 1999,
hope you had as much fun as we did!


The Florida Contest Group sponsors the Florida QSO Party, check out the FQP
website@:
http://home1.gte.net/wd4ahz/fcg/ssqp.htm

Proud member of the Florida Contest Group - visit our website at:
http://www.4w.com/deemer/fcg.htm



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