[CQ-Contest]
KQ2M 2003 CQWWDX PHONE SOABHP UNASSISTED Score, Summary and Writeup
Robert Shohet
kq2m at earthlink.net
Fri Nov 28 09:48:48 EST 2003
CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 2003
Call: KQ2M
Category: Single Operator
Power: High Power Unassisted 41.4 hours ON
Band: All Band
Mode: SSB
Country: United States
Zone: 5
BAND QSO QSO PTS PTS/QSO ZONES COUNTRIES
160 17 29 1.71 5 9
80 283 800 2.83 17 73
40 189 527 2.79 23 87
20 762 2027 2.66 33 116
15 1475 4192 2.84 36 124
10 981 2791 2.85 29 109
---------------------------------------------------
Totals 3707 10366 2.80 143 518 => 6,851,926
All reports sent were 59(9), unless otherwise noted.
Equipment Description:
Club Affiliation: Frankford Radio Club
This is to certify that in this contest I have operated
my transmitter within the limitations of my license and have
observed fully the rules and regulations of the contest.
Signature _________________________________
MAILING ADDRESS:
Robert L. Shohet KQ2M
51 Scudder Road
Newtown, CT 06470
Comments:
Contests are becoming a luxury for me to operate these days. With 4
businesses, a young and
very active daughter Melissa, age 4, and two ill parents, it seems that all
my time is spoken for.
I guess it is that middle age "life" stuff that most of us find ourselves
embroiled in sooner
or later.
Wednesday before the contest, I decided to put an end to yet another 100+
hour
work week (yes, 7 days a week, 14+ hours /day) and attempted to put up my 3L
40 meter wire beam
and other wire antennas that had fallen down. A well-know Top-ten guy and
friend who once told me that maintenance on wire antennas was "easy" and
"Wait and see what kind of maintenance problems you have with
beams and towers" is an IDIOT! :-) Each year my 13 yagis require
about 5 - 10 hours of
maintenance and my 4 wire antennas require many DAYS of maintenance. So
much for trees..... At least they
provide shade. :-)
After killing an entire Thursday on the wire beam with slingshot and fishing
line and rope in a
howling wind, Friday was for taking the trees off the beverages, hooking up
the station again, etc.
By early Friday afternoon I was exhausted from the "work" and my real work.
The thought of
staying awake for another 40+ hours until my Sunday morning "nap" was
laughable.
I ran some EU stations and and N6TJ called me. I told him that I was not
planning to do anything
real serious. We chatted and I went back upstairs to do my real work
again. At 3 PM,
I said "What the hell", I will do it and then just plan to sleep Saturday
AND Sunday - something that
I have only done once or twice in a SO AB DX contest in the past 25 years..
I figured that with all the
flares and absorption, a few hours off at the right time wouldn't matter too
much. Such are the things
you can get away with in a Phone DX contest, CW affords no such luxury!
I thought to myself that we should pioneer another SO category..... SOLM
Single Opr. Last-Minute :-)
N6TJ and I joked about that after the contest.
It seems that SOLM iis the category that I will be operating in for the
forseable future.
On to the contest....
Given all the flares, ridiculous A & K indices and auroral flutter, I had
pretty low expectations - I think
that most of us did. I decided to try some new strategy and operating
techniques at the start on 20, and
they paid off with lots of q's and a bag full of mults. My first hour was
102 q's with 85 mults!! I knew that things would
go down hill from here and they did after 02z. By 0259 and working both
radios hard, I had 256 q's and
154 mults. Then it was basically 40 and 80 after that. My signal SUCKS on
40 ssb. Running
was impossible for me so I focused on 80, which still had not really
recovered from the flares and
absorption. It was a grind. 80 was a welcome respite from 40, but it was
not a big boost to the score.
I was lucky to have 80, the guys in the Midwest and elsewhere didn't even
have that! For the next 6 hours
I slugged it out on 40, 80 and 160, with an occasional short burst of weak
VK/ZL on 20, and prayed
for an early 15 meter opening.
I took off for about 60 minutes of resting in bed without sleeping and then
felt a but "refreshed" and ready to
deal with the morning EU run. I got back on about 1030z but struggled.
The spots and solar flux were high but so was the absorption at 11z.
20 meters was not working for me and there was no JA/Asia for me to work.
15 was marginal and not
to many EU were there. So where were they? With high MUF and excellent
short skip (remember they
can work each other in CQWW!) they were on 10 of course. So I gambled that
with all of the US on 15
and all of Eu on 10, 10 was the place to be. I went there VERY early, at
1200z, and the band was quiet.
I picked a good run freq. and was rewarded with an AMAZING run of super weak
EU. NO RUSSIA or
anything interesting up North. The polar paths were totally shut down. But
I was working 5, 6 even 7 q's
per minute and got the last 10 rate up to about 430 and the last 100 rate up
to over 300! The freq. was
clear, the EU's were weak with QSB but copyable with the FT1000MP preamp on
and I made the most of it.
I had a peak hour of 237! to EU. It was my best ever from stateside! At
times I felt like I was a Caribbean
station. Another 190+ hour followed and then 10 really started to shut
down. 15 didn't really open well
until about 1700 with some Russians and I had a 175 hour on 15 with 16 q' s
on 10 on the 2nd radio for
a 17z hour of 190 q's and 20 mults.
One of the odd things about this weekend was that most of the time, there
was only ONE band to run on, in
fact, often only ONE band was open to EU or Africa. With one band open, it
meant that you had to focus
on rate and take it all while it was there. No time for good second radio
work. The end result was that I passed
VERY FEW mults all weekend - there was either no time or no propagation. Of
course, passing mults
split on 40 to split on 80 or vice versa is not a thought that you seriously
entertain! With only one inverted L on 160, (I didn't
have time to put it back up) and barely working beverages, 160 was, for me,
a total waste of time. Fortunately
in CQ Phone, it is not a big band, but on CW you better have a good sigmal
for the weak Eu/African stations.
After a lot of jumping around on 10, 15 and 20 and trying to work EU
wherever it was, I went to 20 before
20z and had a BIG 163 hour. Unlike most years, the rate was VERY focused
this year. If the band was open to EU
and you were loud enough and there at the "right" time, you had BIG rate for
those one or two "good" hours.
If your timing was off, you had much slower hours and lost your chance!
There was a brief but decent opening to JA on 15 at 23z and I grabbed what I
could and a few skewpath JA's on 10 on the 2nd radio. On 15 when I started
to call CQ, I got lucky and a BV, BY and HL called in. THAT WAS IT! I
never heard them again! In the fall, JA openings are VERY tough from
Western New England with marginal cndx. The high Solar Flux
made it possible, but the high absorption meant that you had to be actively
looking for that 2-3 minute "window"
on 10 with the antenna pointed the right way (WSW) to be successful.
With the intermittent Auroral noise and occasional rain static, I worked
HARD for every qso up North!
At 01z it was time for a nap as 40 was an incredible snakepit of crud and
qrm and I was not able to stay awake.
05z saw GREAT 80 meter cndx, some of the best ever, and I had a good run.
It was fun! Then 80 went away (for me)
and I struggled with great futility on 40. 20 just died even though the
flux was high and the absorption was down. The 20 meter EU sunrise opening
that I hoped for was nowehere to be found. My guess is that all the EU
stations were on 15 working the JA's an working each other via the excellent
high muf short skip.
I got up about 10z (my third contest "off-time"!) and was ready for 15 to
open. I was expecting a good run and lots of Russians since I had worked
almost none. 15 DID open decently and I had a great 12z hour of 161! This
was a rare Sunday treat! I was beginning to evision a chance for 4,000 q's
and 600 countries but then 10 just wouldn't open for me! Even at 13z, I
could not run guys on 10 - the same 10 meters that had been SO GREAT the day
before! With absorption down and the flux high, this just didn't make
sense! Finally at 1400z, I could run again for about 2 hours and lots of
Russians called in - but no UA9! In fact I missed ALL the UA9/0 zones on
10. I was Just too far North I guess.
At 16z I hit the wall. Cndx were very good now, but I could not run on 10
which was still open. I went to 15, my "magic" band, and absolutely
struggled. I had all the antennas and all the right angles, and I could not
get anything going. It was pretty frustrating! With 20 shut down and 10
too marginal, there was not much that I could do. 17z saw an improvement
and then 18z was even worse than before with NO 20, thanks to the flare and
SID. All the bands went away but I knew that 15 would return since the
solar flux was so high. So I kept calling cq and occasionally working an Eu
station. With lower flux and an SID like that, it would have been time to
go to sleep!
19z was a bit better as I continually band-hopped and worked the 2nd radio
HARD! Finally, at 20z I thought that 10 and 15 might be getting ready to
open to the Pacific and even JA.
With the absorption dropping and the flux still very high, I knew that I had
a chance. I also knew that for 10M, I needed to have my antennas in exactly
the right spot and continually troll for that 2-3 minute "Window" of Deep
Pacific stations. If I found that station in the "window" I could work it,
if not, I might not hear it again. With KH0, KH2, YB, and everything else
needed on 10, this was the priority for the next two hours.
I staked out a good run freq.on 20 for the occasional EU station and
African mult, and concentrated on 10 with my antennas split South and WSW.
Sure enough, every so often I got that 2-3 minute window on 10 and first I
picked off a V6. In the next "window" I found KL7. Later in "long" 5
minute "window", I got 5W, ZL and VK. Then the auroral buzz returned and
killed any chance at the YB, 9V1, etc.
Occasionally I would try to work guys on 40 SSB. I think 40 SSB on Sunday
evening was simply the WORST I have ever heard! I spent 20 MINUTES tuning
from one end to the other and could only PICK OUT 10 CALLSIGNS!! That's
right - I could only DISTINGUISH and COPY about 10 callsigns in 20 minutes
of tuning and digging. IT WAS INSANE!
Running on 40 during the weekend was equally "rewarding". Between the Eu
stations not listening for US and the level of crud, qrm, rain static and
other noises, it was just awful. I know that I am not loud enough on 40 to
make it worthwhile, but even the multis suffered this time too!
At the end I decided to go to 160 since I needed everything. I found D44TD
who was LOUD with NO ONE calling him, and I worked him for a double mult. 5
minutes later there was a massive pileup. 5 minutes later and I NEVER would
have worked him. With a few more Q's the contest was over and it was time
to see how "the boys" did.
I really enjoy reading the post-contest writeups and experiences. It was
fascinating to see how different the propagation was for stations all over
the world between Saturday and Sunday. Personally I thought cndx here in
Western Connecticut were considerably better overall on Saturday, but many
of the Midwestern and Western guys thought it was better on Sunday!
I had a much easier time running on Saturday morning but nothing North.
Essentially NO Russians, JA's, Pacific on 10 or 15. However on Sunday, Eu
was MUCH more watery, fluttery and difficult BUT JA, Deep Russia and Pacific
were available on 10 and 15, even if it was in very brief bursts.
Africa was extremely difficult and absent much of the weekend. South
America activity from PY and LU continues to grow and is great to see.
It was a very challenging and interesting weekend and I am glad that I
experimented with some new operating strategies and techniques - that
WORKED! It is pretty neat that 30 years of operating this contest, I am
still learning lots of new things and thinking up new operating techniques
each year. This keeps the challenge everpresent and makes the operating
fun!
I don't know how many SOAB DX Contest efforts I will be able to make over
the next fw years, but I know that with reduced time available, each contest
operated becomes more precious than in years before.
Congrats to all the guys with the big scores and those who bested their
previous efforts. Kudos to W9RE, N5RZ, NN1N (HC8N), D4B, C5Z and many, many
others!
Thanks to everyone for the q's and the qsy's!
Happy Thanksgiving and cu in CQWWCW in the SOLM category :-)
73
Bob KQ2M
kq2m at earthlink.net
Continent Statistics
KQ2M CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST Single Operator 30 Oct 2003 1225z
160 80 40 20 15 10 ALL percent
North America SSB 17 47 42 151 134 98 489 12.7
South America SSB 0 12 18 75 68 66 239 6.2
Europe SSB 0 228 119 459 1149 804 2759 71.8
Asia SSB 0 3 4 38 142 13 200
5.2
Africa SSB 1 9 10 35 18 18 91
2.4
Oceania SSB 0 1 5 37 15 9 67
1.7
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