Rudi's

Update 3/4/2025:

The results were released for the 2024 CQ WW DX CW contest. I managed to reasonably well but, as expected, it would need a serious effort to compete with stations in Europe and North America as they are simply so much closer to lots of DXCC entities. Running QRP makes it really difficult to be heard in Europe and North America when the bands are so crowded. But it was still fun, maybe I will do it again in 2025.

Here is my certificate.

At least I managed #1 in Africa and South Africa as well as setting new country and zone records.

Original report below:

CQ WW CW time again!

Last year I struggled a bit, I still managed to win country, continent and zone and set new records for all of them but ended up only in 31'st place in the world. I realized that it is very difficult, if not impossible to compete, with QRP, against stations in Europe and North America or at least stations close to those concentrations of stations. When you are far away (at least 8000km) running 5W it is not easy to penetrate the high power "wall", the result is that you cannot really call CQ, the EU/USA stations do not hear you above their local noise so they call right on top of you. You loose your calling frequency very quickly. The result is that you can only really work stations with "Search and Pounce", this keeps your rates down and ultimately your final score.

With this in mind I had decided (at the last moment as usual!) to enter in the QRP all band section, this allowed me to have fun and hopefully add a few QRP DXCC entities to my totals. I decided to not really worry about number of contacts or contest placing and just enjoy it!

My report is below, I will update this page with results when they are available.

Day 1, Saturday 23 November 2024

I woke up around 2am (local time) Saturday morning, it was contest start time but I decided I will only start around 4am. As it turned out that was not a good decision! At 2:45 local I was still awake so I decided to go into the shack. I switched on the radio and I could immediately hear lots of stations on 40m, I should have started earlier!

I quickly realized I had a technical issue, every time I transmitted for more than a few seconds my computer keyboard (USB) went crazy, opening browser tabs and even shutting down the computer. And this running 5W? It had never done that before!

I added a few clip-on ferrite chokes to the cable, that helped but it was still not perfect and it messed up/lost a few contacts. A quick check showed that the other bands were fine. I then replaced the USB keyboard with a Bluetooth one and all was fine. Then the fun started!

As per usual on 40m it is not easy to work stations running QRP till closer to sunrise but I did manage to work a few stations, mostly from North America but also a few from the Caribbean and central America. Exciting to hear so unusual stations on the air! Also worked a few stations I know and quite a few said hi to me and wished me luck.

By 6am local time, about an hour after sunrise, 40m started closing, by that time I had 40 contacts in the log including some unusual calls, hopefully they will QSL!

I moved to 20m but there were only a few stations I could hear, I managed to work 9 stations on 20m before I gave up since I worked everyone I could hear, the higher bands were still dead so it was perfect timing for breakfast and a rest before the higher bands opened up.

When I got back into the shack 2 hours later 10m had life! I missed out again, I must say I was surprised that 10m opened so early! Initially the rate was slow, most stations were very weak and could not hear me but the total contacts were slowly climbing and more importantly I was having fun chasing some rare DX stations! There is nothing better than hearing your call sign coming back at you between lots of other stations calling!

Conditions were great on all bands, the frustrating part was that conditions were almost too good! The bands were filled from end to end with strong stations. I managed to work many of them running "search and pounce", that was fun but with search and pounce the rates will always be low, to get high QSO rates and thus numbers your need to call CQ. The problem was finding a spot to call CQ when conditions are great! Every time I found an open spot and called another, normally strong station, would start calling CQ right on top of me. He most likely could not hear me as it was usually an EU or US station and the bands on their side must have been hectic, they could simply not hear my little 5W signal!

With the totals slowly building 10m started closing, with signals dropping, by around 8pm local time. I then went to 15m to make a few contacts, 15m was not that busy, before moving to 20m for a few more contacts. After that it was back to 40m to work a few more stations. I also tried 80m but with the high summer static I soon gave up. At around 9:30pm local time I went back to 10m and to my surprise there were still many stations calling! I did work a few more stations but with conditions slightly weaker I soon realized just about all the stations I could hear were already in the log!

At this point I decided to rather call it a day and get some much needed sleep after only sleeping around 3 hours the night before.

I ended the day on 273 QSO's, I lot less than hoped for (mainly because I could not get a run going by calling CQ) but I was still happy that I managed to work some nice DX running only 5W.

Day 2, Sunday 24 November 2024

I started a bit earlier on Sunday morning, around 2am local time. I could hear stations on all bands so I started on 40m and slowly worked my way up to 10m. I quickly realized things were going a lot slower than the day before, the signals were not quite as strong must most importantly most of the stations I could hear I had already worked! As I have experienced in the past when running search and pounce the rates on the second day were a lot slower. I had set myself a target of 400 QSO's but by 10am local time on Sunday morning I was starting to worry that this would not be possible!

Fortunately when I got back to the radio after lunch 10m was buzzing again and I could hear stations I had not worked before! 10m was so packed I worked stations all the way up to 28.200MHz.

The rest of the afternoon was spend mostly on 10m. Even though 10m was the most productive band, I actually think I spent too much time on 10m, often I would run out of stations to work so the QSO rate dropped even further, I should have moved to 15 and 20m more often, lesson learned!

By early evening 10m was still going but I could no longer find stations I had not worked before so I spent time on 15 and 20m again, both bands produced short periods where my hourly rate went up nicely, the bands were not as busy as 10m but at least I could hear stations I did not work before. By jumping between bands more often I briefly managed to hit my highest hourly rate of the contest at 125 QSO's per hour. If I could only call CQ and get a run going I knew I could not only do better than this but also sustain it for long periods! Oh the joys(not) of QRP...

Eventually by around 8:30pm local time my rates had dropped so low (the bands were still open but there were very few new stations I could hear) that I decided enough was enough! With a total of 455 QSO's (451 after removing duplicates) at least I had reached my personal target! Last year I only managed 296 QSO's in this contest so at least there is progress!

Below is the N1MM+ contest summery

Band     QSOs     Pts     ZN     Cty      Pt/Q
7             81         233     13     18         2.9
14           26         76       11     17         2.9
21           38         106     13     20         2.8
28         306         896     26     78         2.9

Total     451        1311    63     133       2.9

Contest summery showing operating times and QSO's per band, 15 hours and 38 minutes total on air.

What worked and what not:

The only technical issue I had was with the keyboard on my logging computer right at the start of the contest. I am not sure why that suddenly happened, it had not done that before but at least I managed to solve the problem only wasting about 1 hour.

Last year I had the terrible QRM on all bands Sunday afternoon, at least this year it did not happen even though I did get a slight increase in my noise floor around the same time. I think the source of the QRM is still there (most likely my neighbor!) but by moving my antennas to the other side of my house and lifting them the effect was a lot less.

The radio, antenna and logging software all worked well.

I have uploaded the log so now the wait starts, firstly to see how many of the "new" ones I worked will QSL and secondly (far less important) we wait for the results of the contest.

Till next year.....