[SCCC] CQWW CW W4EF SOAB(A) HP

[Michael Tope]

                     CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: W4EF
Operator(s): W4EF
Station: W4EF

Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: 03
Operating Time (hrs): 25:00

Summary:
  Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
   160:   18    10       10
    80:   61    21       36
    40:   89    25       39
    20:  161    31       70
    15:  208    32       71
    10:  276    33       76
------------------------------
Total:  813   152      302  Total Score = 1,021,954

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Comments:

Rig:   Ten-Tec Omni 6+ / Drake L-7
Antennas:   10/15/20M Spiderbeam @ 50'
             40M Inverted-V @ 43'
             40M 1/4-wave vertical
             80/160M 56' Top-Loaded Vertical
	    80/160M Homebrew Rx 4 Square


I had a planned to do a serious effort, but by Friday I was pretty wiped 
out from working all week on some home remodeling stuff, so I ended up 
sleeping through the start of the contest. I didn't make my first 
contact until ~0900 UTC on the first night (HK1AA on topband - what a 
signal!). I had a browser window open to DX Summit underneath N1MM which 
I looked at a few times (hence the assisted status of my entry). Mainly 
I wanted to make sure that I worked zone 2 on 20 meters. Believe it or 
not this was one of three zones out of the 200 that I still needed for 
5BWAZ (got em!). I also wanted to keep an eye out for zone 21 on 80 
meter longpath in the morning (zone 21 is one of the other zones I am 
still missing). For the most part, however, I decided to ignore the 
cluster, so I could actually exercise my DXing skills (thinking of 
N6TJ's admonishments) and keep my stress level low.  Mostly I just tuned 
up and down the band working what I heard. About the only running I did 
was to JA.

Hardware wise, everything worked fine except for the direction indicator 
pot in my HAM IV rotor which decided to give up the ghost at the 
beginning of the contest. It came back a few times during the contest, 
but the celebrations were short lived as it only worked for maybe 5 
minutes total during the ~25 hours I was in the chair :-) :-) 
Fortunately, if I leaned over in my operating chair I could see the tips 
of the Spiderbeam's fiberglass cross arms out the shack window. I am 
really glad I put those strips of white tape on the tip of the cross arm 
that lines up with the main lobe of the antenna. That saved a lot of 
grief.

Anyway, not a stellar score, but I had fun, worked a bunch of DX 
(including zone 2 on 20 meters), and got some much needed R&R.

73, Mike W4EF.................