CQWW WPX Contest, CW
Call: VO1AU
Operator(s): VO1AU
Station: VO1AU
Class: SOSB40 HP
QTH: Newfoundland
Operating Time (hrs): 21
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80:
40: 1176
20:
15:
10:
------------
Total: 1176 Prefixes = 578 Total Score = 3,559,902
Club: East Coast Canada Contest Club (ECCCC)
Comments:
This was great fun: conditions were very good, there was loads of activity,
almost no QRN and I beat an old record to boot!
A few days before the contest, Gus VO1MP, Wayne VO1TA and I raised two new 40m
antennas: two quad loops fed in phase and a 3el wire yagi. The loops favour
Europe, while the yagi is pointed towards JA and eastern VK. As well, I had a
vertical dipole to fill in between the other two.
The new phased loops array really performed well, consistently 1 to 2 s-units
better than the vertical dipole to Europe. The vertical dipole, however was the
better antenna to NA, SA and the Pacific. The yagi only really played well to
KH6. With the direct polar path to JA/Eastern VK in daylight, the yagi was
useless to those areas. I heard no opening to JA, but I worked several VKs on
the vertical that must have been long path or some crooked path.
As always in WPX, from North America, working Europe is essential, and the
Europeans were out in droves. Here in eastern Newfoundland, we are only 3,000km
from EI and we can hear Europeans 24 hours per day on 40m. Sadly, the
propagation is strictly one-way, so in May, it's not normally until 1900-2000GMT
or so that Europeans can hear us. Even then, it's an all-daylight path. I can
hear and work Europeans until my local sunrise, about 0700GMT this time of year.
Europeans provided 60% of my log, NA about 34%.
My time was divided between fatherly duties (my wife was away) and the contest,
so I chose a category (40m single band) that would allow me to be at my
daughter's beck-and-call, yet still allow me enough time on-air to put in a
competitive score. I was very pleased to beat the old Canadian 40m HP record
set by VE7SV (as CY7A) eight years ago, but only by 7%.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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