CQ 160M CW 2002
Call: OT2T
Station: ON4UN
Operator: ON4UN
QSO count: 1087 valid QSOs
DX countries: 69
Sections: 37
Points: 737,654
Comments:
Conditions: very poor to the East both nights. Heard one JA on the second
night, but impossible to break the Eastern European pile up (what a
difference from 5B4AD -C4A- who worked 66 of them)! But of course I worked a
few more NA stations than he did. The conditions to North America and
results were roughly similar to last year (about 280 NA stations worked) ,
with conditions being equal the first night and much worse the second night.
The first night was very interesting as the skip really moved like a
spotlight to the South, mile by mile! The second night the spotlight moved
in a very erratic way, good lighting for 5 minutes in one area, the nothing
the next 10 minutes, and then another area.
I enjoyed the contest, like every year.
My best experiences: being called by VK3IO with a really good signal.
Getting out as far West as N7JU on the first night and working K0HA and
AA0RS. Being called by V47KP, YV1DIG, PY0FF, W3DQ (DC!), and many others you
normally have to go in a pile-up to get!
The bad ones: OK2KJU had (for hours on end, the first night) a signal that
spread about 10 kHz. The bad thing is that I could find nowhere his "real"
transmit frequency. He was calling CQ all the time, nobody, even if the
wanted knew where to answer! A real disaster! The second night he apparently
had cured the problem. His "noise signal" was S9 in the 1830-1835 window for
hours on end! . The other really bad signal (and it has been very bad for
many years) comes from OK5DX, who has terribly noise sidebands and spread
more than 5 kHz wide. I asked him about 25 times to check or QRT, but no
avail. I have told him for years, but he just does not want to listen. He
was on 1829.5, spreading his noises right up to 1833, which made 1830 to
1833 totally useless for working DX here in Europe. Someone should make him
understand his signal really IS very bad! Then , of course, there are the
usual guys that try to steel your running frequency, like S57M and UR5EAW,
who refused to understand they came on a busy one: just very stubborn!
I want to spend a few words on the DX window. I must say it probably helps
us (somewhat) to work the US but I do not really understand how it should
work. For the NA guys, we are DX, so they should stay out of the window. For
us, here in Europe, NA is DX, and WE should stay out of the window. So,
nobody should be IN the window.. This does NOT make sense. There should be
TWO DX windows (if any), one the NA stations should stay out of, and another
one where Europeans should have no admission. Maybe there would need to be a
third one for Asia? But the way it is now, it just cannot work (very well),
I think. My (standard) definition for DX is "a station which is not from
your own continent". By that definition guys like V47KP, VP5, VP2, etc
should NOT be in the ("North American") window, as they are very loud in NA
and we have a hard time from them trying to work NA-stations. If we had 2
windows, one where NO North American stations are allowed to RUN, and one
where no Europeans are allowed to RUN, that would probably be better. Let's
think about it, guys. What say?
73, John, ON4UN (OT2T)
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