CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: DL3YM
Operator(s): DL3YM
Station: DF2PY
Class: SOAB HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 345 13 55
80: 599 24 78
40: 927 30 98
20: 1012 31 83
15: 548 27 89
10: 57 15 40
------------------------------
Total: 3488 140 443 Total Score = 4,104,320
Club: Rhein Ruhr DX Association
Comments:
This year`s CQWW marks my first ever SO2R operation, and I had a blast!
In an outstanding all homebrew engineering effort Wolf, DF2PY, upgraded the
setup and implemented the filtering, antenna switching matrix, new wiring plus
tons of other stuff which all performed flawlessly. This took months as
unfortunately both of us have a job besides contesting, hi. We had a lot of
fun, though, discussing details of the implementation in the mornings this
summer via VHF on our way to work!
First night went pretty well and I found I could easily run on 80 while picking
up juicy mults on 40 with the second radio. Being called by KH7X on 80 was cool,
unfortunately I didnâ??t work into zone 31 on any other band. Had a nice run
into the US on 160 without making it into zone 03. Saturday a.m. was mainly
spent on 20 with good signals from Oceania and East Asia. Upon arriving on 15 a
problem with the linear of the main radio developed. Fortunately this could be
fixed on the run, but I was pretty much limited to one radio and had to stay
away from 15 for over an hour. This might at least partly explain my overall
poor performance on that band. Used the time to improve my mult total on 10 by
working mainly EU and a little loud DX like from Asia, Africa and South
America. HC8N was the loudest of them all! Ran 20 and 15 Saturday p.m. and
tried to pick up mults with the second radio. 20 closed early, however, and I
didn`t feel the band was real hot the whole weekend. The first evening brought
mostly EU on 40 and a couple of double mults on 80 like JA, HS, ZS and 9M2.
Happy to finally work VK6HD on 80 in a contest.
The second night went by smoothly with the usual combination of runs on the
lowbands. I found that picking up mults on the second radio actually kept me
more alert rather than adding to the fatigue. The Sunday sunrise on 160 was
excellent and brought in a row KP4US (mult), TI5N (double mult), KV4FZ (mult)
and CU2A (mult). Wow! Went to 20 immediately after sunrise and found the band
wide open to Japan. This was the only time I could run Japan the entire
contest. The opening started long path with lots of echo on signals that were
not very loud. This combined with my tiredness made up for a real challenge. I
was happy when I could turn the beam short path later in the morning. Arrived
on 15 very early and was quickly rewarded with a number of double mults from
South East Asia. I began to realize, however, that while the mult total was ok
the QSO total was not. This didnâ??t change during the afternoon and by Sunday
evening I was convinced I would fall short of my 2005 results. 40 didnâ??t open
to the US early and I decided that actively looking for additional mults was the
only option that was left. Started S&P jumping between 80 and 40 with the main
radio and combing 160 with the second radio. This triple S&P actually paid off
and by 2300 I started running 40 with a finally excellent opening to the US.
Passed the 2005 mark with 15 minutes to go.
I am happy I was able to spend 48 hours straight in the chair thanks to Wolf
and his family who kept me well fed the whole weekend. Thanks also to Win,
DK9IP, for letting me evaluate his EZMaster SO2R box which performed without a
glitch. And, of course, thanks to my XYL and my 2 boys for letting me play
radio.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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