[NCC] Fwd: CQWW CW 7J1AAI(W1NN) SOAB Classic HP

[Hal Offutt]

A great weekend.  Lots of members worked.  Thanks!

73, Hal W1NN


CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2023

Call: 7J1AAI
Operator(s): W1NN
Station: JH1GTV

Class: SOAB HP
Class Overlay: Classic QTH: Tokyo
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160:        4      1           1
80:        42    10        12
40:     207     28        43
20:     325     28        44
15:     564     28       52
10:     345     29       58
------------------------------
Total: 1472  124    210    Total Score = 1,277,721

Club: North Coast Contesters

Comments:

Thanks to Shige Ohsawa JH1GTV for allowing me to use his fine station in the
western suburbs of Tokyo. This was my first operation at his place since 
2019
thanks to the interruption of the pandemic. Shige is the perfect host,
providing me with hot coffee throughout the weekend and a great sushi dinner
Saturday night. He even put up a temporary dipole for 160 for me. 
Unfortunately
I could not hear much and only worked four JAs.

Shige's QTH is a 35 minute subway/train ride from my apartment in 
downtown Tokyo
so getting to and from his place is very easy. On Saturday night he even 
drove
me home so I could get a nap in my own bed.

The equipment and antennas worked well. The station is very efficient and I
didn't have to touch anything but the radio's knobs. Unfortunately, I cannot
say the same thing for the logging software. I prefer Win-Test and a few 
years
back I purchased a second copy to use at Shige's QTH. In the meantime he
changed computers but Win-test makes it extremely difficult to move its 
software
to a new computer and after fooling around for a couple of hours, I had 
to give
up getting it to work and fire up N1MM. There are lots of minor 
differences and
having to cope with N1MM's quirks throughout the weekend was very 
annoying. And
moving the file from his computer to my own computer to submit the log 
after the
contest presented a whole new set of problems which I won't elaborate here.
Win-test makes everything so much easier (except when you want to move 
to a new
computer).

The contest started with a rollicking 123 Q first hour on 10 meters but 
the rate
dropped to 70 in hour two. 10 was in great shape and in addition to the 
morning
US run, I had several good hours running Europe in the afternoon. But 15 
and 20
were in terrible shape on Saturday and not knowing what conditions were 
going to
be like on Sunday, I spent a lot of time on 15 and 20 working hard to 
put some
contacts in the log. Signals were weak and the noise level was high. 
Fortunately
conditions improved greatly on Sunday so much that I spent very little 
time on 10.

Zone 5 signals on 20 were as loud as I have ever heard them.
Low band conditions throughout the weekend were surprisingly good too but
activity was understandably low with everyone focusing on the high bands.

The real problem I had was my call sign. I had forgotten just how hard it is
for many ops to copy. This made S&P operation very inefficient. With my own
call in the US, I can S&P very effectively but not here. About 15% of ops
catch my call the first time. The rest need several repeats, occasionally as
many as six repeats at 25 wpm. I like to operate at 35-40 wpm but QRQ just
makes it harder, so I had to keep the speed down below 31 and sometimes much
lower to get through. A few ops simply ignored my calls, I guess 
preferring to
work some with an easier call to copy. US ops are considerably better 
than EU
ops in my experience. Interestingly, the Chinese ops did not have much 
trouble
with my call. Perhaps they are more accustomed to calls beginning with
"7". As someone else mentioned in their comments, the skill level of
Chinese ops seemed much better to me than a few years ago. The Southeast 
Asians
are coming along nicely too!

All in all it was one of the best contests ever! Thanks to all of you 
who make
this contest possible.

73, Hal W1NN & 7J1AAI


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