CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST -- 2001
Call: DL3YBM
Category: Single Operator
Power: High Power
Band: All Band
Mode: CW
Country: Fed. Rep. of Germany
Zone: 14
BAND QSO QSO PTS PTS/QSO ZONES COUNTRIES
160 9 8 0.89 2 9
80 261 316 1.21 9 53
40 363 650 1.79 22 76
20 376 692 1.84 26 74
15 449 878 1.96 25 86
10 470 1059 2.25 30 102
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Totals 1928 3603 1.87 114 400 => 1,851,942
All reports sent were 59(9), unless otherwise noted.
Equipment Description: Yaesu FT 920 plus TL 922 linear
3 el triband yagi on 15/15/20
vertical on 40 meters
inverted L on 80 meters (and mis-used on 160)
Club Affiliation: Rhein Ruhr DX Association
Comments:
What a great contest! Preparing for this one took significantly longer than
what I'm used to
due to the fact that Murphy visited just after the IARU contest in July and
made my good old
TS 940 go QRT (and if I can't find a spare digital unit this might be the
final word, so in
case anyone has a spare one, please let me know!). So it was becoming pretty
clear that I
would have to rewire the whole station if I wanted to go with my FT 920, and
that together
with raising the 80 meter inverted L sounded like a lot of work for Friday
when I would
arrive at the contest site. Thankfully Wolf, DF2PY jumped in and offered a
spare TS 930 in
case I would run out of time and as a back-up trcvr. Wolf even offered some
fruits for the
nightdrive to the contest-site plus a bottle of wine as a
post-contest-adrenaline-equalizer.
Now that's ham-spirit, tnx Wolf! As it turned out on Friday, the inverted L
was raised and
tuned in less than 3 hours and the station set up in another 2 hours
including rewiring the
computer and linear. So I was ready to roll by noon. That gave me plenty of
time resting in
the afternoon and taking some time to spend with the family (and introduce
my 3 month old to
contesting, hi). Started the contest on 80 and everything went according to
plan first. I
knew I was in trouble when I moved to 40 and found the band full of fluttery
signals that
were not coming from KL7 but from the US east coast or Scandinavia. So it
didn't come as a
real surprise that 10 and 15 until Saturday afternoon didn't produce any DX
but lots of EU.
Not bad for the country multiplier total, but a disaster for the Q-points.
That's why I changed
strategy and went to 20 to catch what I call the east-coast noon opening. At
last I was ably
to run some DX! As others have noted, condx rapidly improved and by Saturday
afternoon the US
east coast big guns came through. However, I worked most of them beaming 240
dgs. The second
night was real slow (as it usually is, I simply don't produce enough of a
signal to run on 40
or 80 successfully) but provided 2 highlights on 80: working XT2DX as an all
time new one on
CW (in fact I worked them on 5 bands) and working ZD8Z as a new one and a
new zone on 80.
Needless to say I love working those juicy double-mults on the lowbands!
When daylight came on
Sunday I made my way up to ten just to find the band packed with DX. I
started combing the
band and had 110 rates S&P working mostly JA's and other neat stuff from
SE-Asia. I believe
I have hardly heard ten being that hot, and 15 was nice, too. In fact, even
though I became
more and more tired the adrenaline rush kept me going without a break, and I
believe it was
time well spent on the bands. I kept a cumulative Mult / Q sheet for the
entire contest which
clearly shows that right from the start I was behind my last year's score
until Sunday afternoon
16:00 UTC, reaching the break-even point at around 19:00 UTC. I was really
worn out by then and
simply could not go for the 2 million point barrier any more. I just made
shure my raw-score
exceeded last year's and finally called it a day.
Thanks to all who called / heard me. Extra thanks for their help go to Wolf,
DF2PY and
Gil, F5NOD (who told me how to key my linear with the FT 920). And, of
course and like every
year, very special extra thanks to my XYL, my son and my mother who are more
convinced than ever
that I am totally nuts doing this to myself but still tolerate it.
Club Affiliation: Rhein Ruhr DX Association
This is to certify that in this contest I have operated
my transmitter within the limitations of my license and have
observed fully the rules and regulations of the contest.
Signature _________________________________
MAILING ADDRESS:
Prof. Dr. Andreas (Andy) Gissel DL3YBM
Zum Seeblick 36
Haltern 45721
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