[NCC] Fwd: CQWW CW HI/K8MR SOAB Classic QRP

[Jimk8mr at aol.com]

Quite an experience. Thanks to all the MRRC/NCC guys I worked; too bad for  
all those I called many times but did not work; and AAARRRRRGGHHH to all 
those I  worked who did not spot me (on the first day when I could have used 
the  spots).
 
CU all at the Parties on Jan 4.
 
 
73  -  Jim  K8MR
 
 
  
____________________________________
 From: webform at b4h.net
Reply-to: jimk8mr at aol.com
To: 3830 at contesting.com,  jimk8mr at aol.com
Sent: 12/2/2013 9:36:51 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj:  CQWW CW HI/K8MR SOAB Classic QRP


CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: HI/K8MR
Operator(s):  HI/K8MR
Station: HI/K8MR

Class: SOAB Classic QRP
QTH: Punta  Cana
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
Band  QSOs   Zones  Countries
------------------------------
160:   0     0        0
80:    4     2         3
40:   29     5     17
20:  110    15     38
15:  286    16     34
10:  238    13     43
------------------------------
Total:  667   51      135  Total Score = 297,414

Club:  North Coast Contesters

Comments:

I noted a comment from some  zone 8/9 guy about how much work it was doing 
the
contest from a DX  location. Quite the opposite for me.

With CQWW coming before  Thanksgiving this year, I talked my wife into 10 
days
of sun in Punta Cana,  which just happened to include the contest. For the 
first
7 days we indeed  had lots of fun and no work. I did get on for a couple of 
hours
in the LZ  DX contest the weekend prior, just checking out the radio stuff 
from
the  beach, and spent a few hours one day during the week making some WARC  
band
qsos. But otherwise no radio. Then Friday afternoon I put up a 43 foot  wire
vertical outside the veranda of our room, and after yet another great  
dinner
started the contest.

The room location turned out to be quite  noisy, and the KX3 wasn't exactly
crushing rocks. Mostly I worked other  zone 8/9 guys. But the next morning 
at
sunrise I was up to take the radio  and an MFJ telescoping vertical out to 
the
beach for the real  operation.

Being 100 feet from the ocean made for much better signals  and much lower
noise. Also a much better view!  Once I got spotted I  had a great 10 meter
pileup from EU, until I tried to engage the RIT and  somehow moved off my
frequency. (The radio was in a ziplock bag to protect  if from the 
elements, so
it was not easy to see what I was doing).

I  kept at it during the day, minus breaks for breakfast and lunch (which  
also
served as battery recharge time). Unfortunately I was having a lot of  
problems
sending CW with the K9LU Bulldog paddle. I suspect that the time  on the 
beach
earlier in the week had led to some corrosion, making the  paddle contacts
unreliable, and making me sound like a severely drunken QLF  lid. The 
problem
continued or got worse through the day. At sunset I packed  up the antenna, 
left
the beach and headed back to the room, having made  about 500 QSOs.

After dinner I tried some repair work on the paddle,  but in the end finally
ended up putting the poor thing out of its misery.  That evening I made a 
few
more contacts from the room with the laptop doing  all the work, but had to 
face
the facts: I was up the creek without a  paddle. So what to do the 
following day:
give up and return to normal  resort life; operate from the room; or do pure
S&P from the beach,  using only the WinKey with programmed messages. I ended
up doing the  last.

So after breakfast Sunday I was back on the beach, with my  sending limited 
to
"HI/K8MR" (in two versions, one with extra spacing) and  "TU 5NN
8". Having no idea who I had worked before (I was recording the  beach
operation for later transcription, which had been OK'd in advance)I  had 
some
dupes with those I guessed wrong about, and passed up a lot of  folks who I 
had
not worked. Not great, but the best I could do under the  circumstances.   

The paddle problems were certainly a  downer, but the concept of QRP from 
the
beach was still great. I'm not sure  if I'll do this again, as we're not 
likely
to travel outside the country  over Thanksgiving, and simple antenna QRP is 
not
likely to be fun at a  sunspot minimum. But still this all made for a 
memorable
way to operate  CQWW! 


73  -  Jim  K8MR


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