[WWYC] ON5ZO CQWW CW SOAB LP
Franki ON5ZO
on5zo at telenet.be
Mon Nov 29 03:38:47 EST 2004
> CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
>
> Call: ON5ZO
> Operator(s): ON5ZO
> Station: ON5ZO
>
> Class: SOAB LP
> Operating Time (hrs): 40
>
> Summary:
> Band QSOs Zones Countries
> ------------------------------
> 160: 162 7 43
> 80: 439 10 54
> 40: 266 13 60
> 20: 432 20 64
> 15: 252 23 61
> 10: 78 20 36
> ------------------------------
> Total: 1629 93 318 Total Score = 1,095,726
Stuff used:
TS-850 with Microham band decoders and antenna switching and N1MMLogger.
Higher HF: KLM KT34XA
40m: short loaded vertical dipole (ON4BAI design)
80m: inverted V
80m+160m: inverted L (full size for 80m) with a couple of long radials fed with
SG-230 SmartTuner.
Observations:
- I exceeded my target of 1500 QSOs and 1Meg points. Hooray, but this is where the
cheering ends. I could have done better.
- Because my station is still a work in progress and the crank up tower has only been
here for a couple of weeks, I need to finish a lot of work. I could not go for the
full height of about 18 to 20m because I didn't have the time to prepare the low band
wires to be suspended that high. Due to that, beam and low band wires were at about
12m. So this is the first place for improvement.
Nevertheless, it was my very first contest with a beam, and being called on 15m with
stuff that I badly needed for DXCC is a thrill! I'm talking real DX, things I hav
NEVER heard on my wire dipole before, let alone being called by them!
- My reference for 80m+40m is WW CW 2003. I had some real high rate hours then on
40m+80m with loud USA station, 3 point land ;o) Not this year. Either 40m was in
bad shape, or the tower and antennas have destroyed my otherwise killer 40m antenna.
This weekend, I could not get any run going on these bands, so I need to check that:
was it conDX or was it the antenna? In general, I am a bit low on mults but I
squeezed out all I could. Massive shortage of 3 point QSOs. With my 2004 rates and
numbers for 40+80m, and the 2003 number of 3 point QSOs, the score would see a
tremendous boost. On the other hand, 160m was a black hole before, now I snagged 50
mults there and 162 QSOs. I had hoped for 50 QSOs and 20 mults.
- 40hrs... I need sleep, I have troubles sitting out 24h contests, but 48h is
impossible. I woke up on Friday at 04.30 local and couldn't sleep, so the day before
the contest started early. Saturday at 1800z, after more than 36hrs awake, I went
down to have a snack and stretch my legs but I ended up on the couch watching a new
Simpsons episode. Next thing I know is that it's 00.00utc. Yep, I fell asleep and
didn't wake up... I was home alone and the cat didn't alert me, and I missed the new
episode after all.
- UNASSISTED! Yes, truely: NO DX cluster used. I am an assisted operator, but
"assisted" means there is NO distinction in power. QRP, 100W, 1500W, all the same for
assisted ops. This put me in ON4UN's league in 2003 and I wanted to avoid that this
time (did someone hear John at all this weekend?). I needed to hunt for all the
multipliers, which is a pain. I do not have the station nor the location ("callsign
gain") to sit on a QRG, run at 150/h and let the mults come to me. I have a feeling I
missed a lot of mults though I scanned the bands from bottom to (almost) top and
filled the bandmaps myself.
I would rather see the assisted class split up by power too. ARRL DX has this on the
website score database, but in the end the results for "asssisted" are all thrown
together also when it comes to power. Either bend the rules or buy an amp. I'd rather
keep it at 100W. I think this might be a topic for discussion.
73,
Franki ON5ZO
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