Category : SINGLE OPERATOR ALL BAND, ASSISTED
Equipment: Alinco DX-77T (50W), MFJ-1796 Loop Antenna (Indoors)
BAND Raw QSOs Valid QSOs Points Countries Zones
___________________________________________________________
20CW 49 49 119 34 17
15CW 113 112 303 55 18
10CW 135 134 357 67 23
___________________________________________________________
Totals 297 295 779 156 58
Final Score = 166706 points.
My goals in this contest were to have fun and increase my band/country
count, especially on 10m, where I was still short of 100 worked. I had a
blast and worked 35 new countries on 10m to push my worked count to 106. If
I can get all of these confirmed, that leaves only 81 countries on 80m to go
(when I move into a house) to achieve 5BDXCC. I think conditions were the
best I have heard since the peak of the last cycle.
Random Musings:
Total DXCC countries worked: 89, (remember this was using 50W and a loop
antenna in the corner of my bedroom-CW Rules!)
To 10 Biggest thrills:
1. Working 5X1Z, 9G1TB and PZ5JR(on all 3 bands) for all-time new ones
2. Catching KH8/N5OLS alone on 10m Saturday morning at 17:31Z before the
masses did.
3. 10m
4. 10m
5. 10m
6. 10m
7. 10m
8. 10m
9. 10m
10. Did I mention 10m?
This was the first time I had used packet in a contest. I am not sure
whether this is much of an advantage for a little squirt station. Since so
many people are using packet, once a spot was posted, unless I was on the
same band and could get to the spot's frequency in a few seconds, the
massive pileup generated by the spot would make it impossible for me to make
it through. Often I found it easier to come back 15 minutes or so after the
spot had been posted to allow the big guns to all work the mult. I would
guess that 85% of the mults I worked, I found myself without the use of the
cluster. In fact, I often found myself hoping that stations I found all
alone would NOT be spotted until after I worked them.
I had the flu all weekend and was running a fever and coughing up a lung.
Still, condx were so good I couldn't leave the radio. My wife is now
convinced that I am an idiot ("Now let me get this straight, you aren't
doing this for money and you won't even win a certificate for all of this?
This is fun to you?"). Still, she was kind enough to keep me stocked with
orange juice, caffeine and Tylenol Flu medicine. Magically, the flu went
away after the contest-perhaps it was RF induced.
Looking back at my logs, I missed a lot of easy EU and other country
multipliers on 15 and 20m because I found it hard to leave 10m. 10m was
addictive. Everytime I would tune the band, I would fine more goodies to
work.
Most of the really good stuff on 10m was between 28.050 and 28.150.
Stations worked on all 3 bands: 5V7A, 6Y2A, EA9EA, J6DX, OH2U, P40W, PZ5JR,
TI1C, ZF2NT
