CQ World Wide WPX Contest 1998
Call: AA4LR Mode: CW Class: SOAB TS (with no T) LP
Band QSO QSO PTS PTS/QSO Prefixes
160 0 0 0.0 0
80 0 0 0.0 0
40 28 90 3.2 26
20 59 93 1.6 55
15 15 24 1.6 13
10 7 21 3.0 6
===============================================
Totals 109 228 2.1 100 => 22,800
All reports sent 599. Total Operating Time: 7.3 hours
Equipment Description:
Venerable TS430S running 80 watts.
R7000 at 8 feet (20, 15, 10)
125 foot doublet at 15 feet (40)
Club Affiliation: South East Contest Club
Comments:
Squeezed in a little operating time whenever our youngest child (2 yrs)
was asleep, so that's a couple of hours friday, saturday afternoon,
saturday night, and sunday afternoon. CW keeps improving with each
contest. Still needs a lot of work, but I'm now copying in my head.
Overall rate nearly 15q/hr may not seem impressive, but it is far better
than last year's rate of less than 10q/hr.
Propagation didn't seem completely awful. I worked just about everything
I could hear. Even called some CQs and got some answers.
The score of 22,800 doesn't seem like much, but it is a personal best! My
previous best score for WPX CW was 2,700 pts, an eightfold improvement.
Most everyone got my hand-sent CW OK, except for K4RO who insisted I was
K4LR. He finally got AA4LR. Part of that was probably my fault.
Most embarrassing moment happened Saturday night, when I tuned across
W4AN on 40m, calling CQ. A quick check verified that I didn't yet have a
W4 multiplier. Now, I know that WPX CW is Bill's event. He's going to be
in the top 20 in the US, top 3 from 4 land, and that's in a bad year.
Besides, he's a fellow SECC member. So I listened to see if Bill had a
run going. If he did, I would have tuned on. But no, some CQs were going
unanswered.
So, I go to call him:
Me: "AAVMQ <error> AA4EF <error> AA4...."
W4AN: "?"
My hand has betrayed me, and now I'm too embarrassed to call again.
That's OK, since someone else answers Bill. I listen for a while, he
works a couple of Qs, then more unanswered CQs. In the meantime, I figure
out exactly what sequence number to expect (well maybe, he could work
something on the second radio). I call again, and this time complete the
QSO. Bill sends me a greeting, I think, because I catch "... BILL" at the
end. Oh well, time to work on my CW some more....
Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL Mail: aa4lr@radio.org
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
-- Wilbur Wright, 1901
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