[RSM] CQWW 2017 VE4VT recap - Long

[Ed]

I look forward to this contest every year. However this year murphy seems to
have struck at least three times.

Propagation seemed to improve as the weekend went along. I saw a weak
opening to Europe on 15m Saturday morning and Sunday morning it was much
better and longer.

 

Saturday there was a short and weak opening to Argentina and Chile on 10m.
Sunday, the opening was much stronger and included Brazil and a couple weak
Carribean stations. 

 

This contest is about balancing mults (zones and Countries) with rate. When
you get a chance to run Europe, take it. My attempts this weekend didn't
work well. Every other Canadian was stacked below 14.150 and the guys out
east got there first. You would start rung only to discover there was
someone on the same frequency already there. DX stations were calling the
"hidden" station.

 

I always advocate a complete contest  check of all the stations operating
features several day before the event. I completed my check last Tuesday and
Thursday. So I was surprised that when I flipped to 80m, I was greeted with
total silence. No antenna. I ended up spending an hour Saturday afternoon up
on the tower  replacing the jumper from the antenna switch to the feedpoint
of the 160/80m sloper.

 

Murphy had actually struck earlier in the week when I was setting up my
winter vertical. I install a SteepIR vertical in the backyard and run 40+
radials all around it. Went through all the effort only to discover that the
antenna didn't tune. I suspect that the spindle that holds the copper tape
has broken.

 

The third Murphy event occurred with three hours to go Sunday afternoon.
Suddenly the lights started to flicker and the flourecent tube burnt out
plunging the shack into darkness. So right in the middle of a 200W/hr run, I
was left typing by the monitors glow. 

 

So my lessons learned:

1.       Check 10m from time to time. An SDR and spectrum scope is handy for
doing this quickly

2.       Just because the sun has come up and all the world east of you is
on 20 (or 15m) don't forget to check 40m. I picked up some real good mults 2
hours after local sunrise.

3.       Point north around noon local time. There is often some strong
Asian stations to be heard. This year it was a VU, and AH0 that were the
surprises.

4.       Check 40m about 2 hours before sunset. Often you will find good
conditions to EU and less competition from other NA stations

5.       Work as many Zone 7,8,9,10 stations on 20m in the morning as you
can find. Just a 20m is opening, these zones start to pop open. Most US
stations are aimed at Europe .Less competition and good conditions. The
other reason you want to work thjem early is that when Europe closes in the
afternoon, all of NA is searching for new signals. All the cluster shooters
will be creating very deep pileups for these stations.

6.       Just before the European sunrise, watch for a bump in propagation
on 40/80m. Signals suddenly appear several dB stronger and many are now
workable.

7.       Just because the European signals are 20/9, don't give up when they
CQ endlessly in your face. Apparently QRM is high in Europe on 40m.

8.       and most importantly, no matter how good the band is, never, ever,
ever, start calling CQ on a frequency between K3LR and W3LPL. These power
houses, despite being fierce competitors, don't like anyone else muscling in
on their frequencies. They seem to separate themselves with a nice guard
band that gives them a QRM free environment.  A SSB signal should be between
2.8-3.0 kHz wide.. So when these two stations are 5.6 kHz apart. There
should be room for one station in between them. Apparently not!. How upset
they were when they turned their beams from Europe to point at Asia and
little old me has his beam pointed at the North East USA. Despite all 3 of
us coexisting for over an hour, an antenna change on their part now made me
the enemy. Their coordinated QSY's slowly moved their frequencies  together
destroying my run. By the time I threw in the towel, These two stations were
now 3.4 kHz apart. I think I can still hear them laughing. 

 

Personally this was my worst performance in this contest since 2009. Without
80m Friday night, I slept 3 hours. Saturday night after European sunrise, I
couldn't find anyone to work so slept another 3 hours. With the repair of
the antennas, and the light, plus 20 minutes watching the end of the bomber
game (what a waste!), I was well rested by the end of the contest.  As we do
a tailspin on propagation in this sunspot cycle, the next couple of years
will be a challenge as 20m becomes crowded and 80/40 will become more
important.

 

On the positive side, worked all 40 zones, just not on a single band. Also
got a single band DXCC with 101 countries on 20m. Worked 114 unique DXCC
which is not great for this contest.

Hope everyone had fun and continued to learn.

 

The rest of this is just boring statistics so feel free to stop reading and
hit  Delete now.

 

Ed

 

  Band    QSOs     Pts   ZN  Cty  Pt/Q

   1.8       8      15    5    4   1.9

   3.5      94     182   10   14   1.9

     7     287     622   23   56   2.2

    14     953    2120   31  101   2.2

    21     389     980   24   82   2.5

    28      35     100    8   10   2.9

Total    1766    4019  101  267   2.3

Score: 1,478,992

1 Mult = 4.8 Q's

 

Maximum run rates

6.0 per minute  (1 minute(s)), 360 per minute 

4.5 per minute  (10 minute(s)), 270 per 10 minutes 

3.6 per minute  (60 minute(s)), 218 per hour 

 


Zone

1.8

3.5

7

14

21

28

Tot


1

0

1

0

2

1

0

4


2

0

1

1

1

1

0

4


3

1

18

28

93

67

0

207


4

4

23

94

191

36

1

349


5

1

38

78

365

35

0

517


6

0

0

2

1

4

0

7


7

0

0

1

8

9

1

19


8

1

3

19

18

22

1

64


9

1

1

13

18

22

1

56


10

0

0

2

2

2

3

9


11

0

0

7

17

31

7

62


12

0

0

2

5

9

5

21


13

0

0

3

12

22

16

53


14

0

3

7

82

58

0

150


15

0

0

11

80

30

0

121


16

0

0

4

20

0

0

24


18

0

0

1

1

0

0

2


19

0

0

0

1

0

0

1


20

0

0

0

8

6

0

14


21

0

0

0

4

0

0

4


22

0

0

0

2

0

0

2


23

0

0

0

1

0

0

1


24

0

0

0

1

0

0

1


25

0

0

2

5

1

0

8


26

0

0

0

1

0

0

1


27

0

0

0

2

3

0

5


28

0

0

1

0

0

0

1


30

0

0

1

0

4

0

5


31

0

1

3

4

8

0

16


32

0

0

1

3

0

4


33

0

5

5

5

11

0

26


35

0

0

0

1

1

0

2


38

0

0

0

0

3

0

3


39

0

0

1

1

0

0

2


40

0

0

0

1

0

0

1


Total

8

94

287

953

389

35

1766

 


CountryPrefix

Tot


4L

1


4U1V

1


5B

2


6Y

7


8P

5


8R

1


9A

3


9Y

5


A3

1


A4

1


A6

1


A7

1


C6

3


CE

21


CE9

2


CM

11


CN

11


CT

6


CT3

5


CU

4


CX

7


D4

2


DL

18


E7

1


EA

26


EA8

8


EA9

2


EI

8


ER

2


ES

3


EU

4


F

26


FM

3


FY

4


G

17


GD

1


GI

2


GJ

2


GM

4


GW

1


HA

5


HB

4


HB0

1


HC

5


HI

7


HK

11


HP

1


HR

3


HS

1


I

39


IT9

7


J6

2


J8

1


JA

8


JT

1


K

1021


KH0

3


KH2

2


KH6

16


KL

3


KP2

3


KP4

6


LA

4


LU

46


LX

2


LY

4


LZ

6


OA

4


OE

1


OH

10


OH0

2


OK

5


OM

4


ON

8


OZ

2


P2

1


P4

8


PA

4


PJ2

3


PJ4

10


PY

60


PZ

3


S5

15


SM

10


SP

3


SV

3


T7

1


TA

1


TF

1


TG

3


TI

8


TK

2


UA

13


UA2

3


UA9

3


UR

5


V2

3


V3

4


VE

54


VK

5


VP2M

3


VP5

2


VP9

3


VR

1


VU

2


XE

7


YL

5


YO

2


YU

7


YV

11


ZF

8


ZL

3


ZP

2


ZS

3


Total

1766