ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2021
Call: N4SS
Operator(s): W5MX
Station: W5MX
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: KY
Operating Time (hrs): 38:37
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 93 34
80: 320 55
40: 520 74
20: 1406 89
15: 197 57
10: 49 26
-------------------
Total: 2585 335 Total Score = 2,569,785
Club: Kentucky Contest Group
Comments:
Well, big improvement over last weekend was I knew what contest I was getting in
to! Good news is that none of my antennas were damaged from the ice storms that
came through recently although I did have SWR issues on some until Sunday late
morning local time when most of the ice melted off. Nothing the trusty old Drake
MN2000 couldn't fix!
I used the local contest club call N4SS, first big CW contest with it since
receiving it in January. The ss seems to stand out in pileups, quite a few times
during pileup I got a ss? I officially like this call more than my own on CW
:-)
Conditions were so/so to decent in my opinion, certainly not terrible. Definite
space WX impact on condx. Apologies for the repeats as the rapid QSB made copy
difficult on some Q's Sunday. Growing up in WA state, I was used to the watery,
over the pole sound of the EU stations - I definitely heard it on northern EU
stations Sunday. Been 25 years since I lived in WA, but you never forget it.
Pretty minimal out here in the eastern US as you a lot less frequently working
area over the pole (far east, central Asia). I don't know how the stations in
the FAR north deal with that and Aurora frequently - hats off to those ops!
20m was by far the big EU money band both days. It opened very early both
mornings. The first night I set the radio up on 20m when I took a nap as I knew
that's where I would go in the AM. Apparently I left the volume up pretty loud
(noise floor so low in this FTDX101D and my location I didn't notice). I woke up
to loud cw (sleeping in next room). Took me a second to wake up and I looked at
the clock and it said 05:30 local. I listened to the calls and hear deep EU.
Jumped out of bed, warmed some coffee and straight to the radio for several
hours of fantastic running. The rates were so good I did not QSY to 15m until
quite late in the morning. Sounds like I was too late and missed the best part
of that opening. Good JA opening late on 20m.
Sunday was decent on 20m, opening early again but 15m was not good at all to EU.
Only a very few southwestern EU heard. 10m was good both days to SA and
Caribbean. 40m was pretty good as to be expected. 80m and 160m were so/so. I
could not get on 160 the first night much as antenna SWR high and no tuner for
160m (The MN2000 is 10-80 of course).
I did notice some intentional QRM several times, pretty bad as others have
pointed out. What a shame. But usually I worked straight through it. Contesters
get an ear for separating signals from QRM, only when the intentional is zero
beat to callers it becomes debilitating.
I got bored Sunday so changed from non-assisted to looking at spots on the cell
phone so changed to Unlimited. Not sure it was a good move that late in the
contest but oh well. I am not going to win the thing anyway, but I am sure going
to have a little extra fun when bored :-)
Thanks to all for the Q's. it was a blast!
Lots of fine ops around the world, contesters are awesome!
Bryan
W5MX
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