[SCCC] K0XP AA CW Test Results

[Steve]

I originally hoped to do an all-bands effort, so started off on 21 
MHz Friday afternoon. Nope, nothing heard, not even easterners or 
other W6s. 20 was much the same with maybe a couple RW9s squeezing 
through now and then and several W6s, who seemed to be working scads 
of JAs that I couldn't hear at all. I listened to one of them for 
awhile but never heard a peep outta the JAs. Phooey on both 20 and 
15, then: I'd just have to do a single-bander 40m. So I took a nap for awhile.

At sunset, the far eastern Asians also were not to be heard on 40m, 
so I ate dinner. Sigh... it was gonna be a night of JAs, hopefully 
some UA9/0s, Cambodians, Thais, Vietnamese, etc.. I finally started 
hearing schtuff around 09Z, just a few weak JAs; obviously, 40m 
wasn't in a very good mood. The band and JAs gradually strengthened 
as the morning wore on, then THERE THEY WERE... XV1X, 3W1T, XU7AMG, 
several Siberians, and Chinese galore, etc. The JA pileups were 
incredible, however, and I decided to bide my time until the piles 
died down some. I managed to run a bunch of JAs after realizing I was 
hearing more of them than some of the W6s who had to be using yagis, 
but the other Asians were tough to get (except 3W1T, who replied 
after just a couple calls). XU7AMG and XU9D had fantastically-strong 
signals, but I quickly found out why nobody was calling them: they 
were stone-cold deaf!! They seemed not to realize they could work 
US/VE as I never heard either of them reply to any westerner, just 
scads of weak JAs. The Chinese weren't quite as deaf but working 
BY1OK and CY was an exercise in futility. I heard BD3GNI and IAY but 
with the QSB, they were just too weak to copy their ages, at the 
speed they were sending. So it went until the sun rose Sat morn. I 
wound up with about 59 Qs and 30 prefixes by sunrise.

Sunday morn was much like Saturday morn but I decided to seriously 
run the JAs as long as I could, taking time from time to time to hunt 
down both new JA prefixes as well as looking for XU7AMG and XU9D 
again. JU1DX showed up and quickly faded away, leaving me short zone 
23 once again. Only heard several UA0s and nothing from zone 18 
(which I also need). So here are the final numbers:

Rig: FT-991A
Ant: 49' wire sloper in pine tree
Pwr: 100W
SOSB 40m LP (there are no power categories for non-Asians in the AA, however)

Band       QSOs      Prefixes
40m          111             57
Final Score: 6,327 pts.

This was my  first "serious" attempt at the AA. For years, when I 
visited my high school buddy, WB6VVO (whose father was K6SVL), I'd 
listened to his dad running JAs and all manner of other Asians on the 
higher bands on SSB up on Palos Verdes. On the Hill, Asia was just a 
hop, skip and jump away and working zone 18 was no sweat on 160, 80 
or 40; I did it a lot of times, never dreaming that one day, doing so 
again would become a goal, and not a reality, from another SoCal QTH. 
K6SVL would pile up far-eastern Asians on SSB like mad in the 
evenings on 15 or 20 whereas back then, I was hard pressed to find 
even one down on CW. That's still true here in Mission Viejo, unfortunately.

Steve, K0XP