CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW
Call: W1ECT
Operator(s): W1ECT
Station: W1ECT
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 20.3
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1079 State/Prov = 59 Countries = 51 Total Score = 440,770
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Hi Guys, I hope any of you who participated in the contest had fun. Here's how
my weekend went...
Friday: Conditions seemed to be excellent and the band was jammed with strong US
stations. It took a half-hour to find an open spot for my initial CQ?ing but I
managed a good rate while scanning the band. There was a considerable layer of
Europeans under the US guys but they didn't seem to be working many US stations.
Of course since the band was packed each EU was happily working other EU
stations beneath some US station calling CQ. There were several occasions when
I switched to the SW beverage to reduce the QRM from EU stations calling CQ on
my frequency! My initial run finally came to an end after about and hour and a
half when someone heard A61AJ calling CQ beneath me - after a few minutes of
trying to hold the frequency I bowed to the inevitable and went off to do a band
scan. After another productive search I settled down to another round of CQ?ing
that lasted over two and a half hours. At this point I had logged all states in
the lower 48 (plus DC) and all the Canadian multipliers except NWT, YT, NF and
LAB - quite a pleasant surprise. I then did a band scan concentrating on
building up my DX multiplier totals. I?m sure I annoyed a few US stations while
working DX stations calling CQ beneath them. Before I went to bed at about 3 AM
I had added 2 Hawaiian stations to the log, brought the DX multiplier count up
to 28 and the QSO count to 562. I didn't have any candidate for the most
memorable QSO but the most forgettable QSO so far was my repeated inability to
copy TO0O?s call.
Saturday: Tried setting up a CQ loop at 2:30 since I had managed a 20/hour rate
doing this for the ARRL 160 contest but this only yielded a few QSOs. Once the
band opened I managed a good rate for a while but things slowed after a couple
of hours to the point that I considered calling it quits. Instead I took an
hour off and when I came back I managed to have one of my best runs ? lots of EU
QSOs and new multipliers. I stayed up to 3 AM and spent most of the time CQ?ing
with a few band scans trying to add as many of those 10-point EU QSOs as
possible. While I was CQ?ing I got calls from several guys you would assume
would normally be generating a pileup somewhere (OH0, LX, EA8, 8P6, VP5, NP4)
and also I picked up one more state/province multiplier (NF) to bring my count
to 59.
Sunday: I normally don't operate on Sunday because things are too slow but this
time I got on for the last 50 minutes and it turned out to be a good idea since
I added 40 QSOs and 3 multipliers.
Having such good conditions inspired me to put in more time than usual and this
led me to set new personal records in all categories.
I noticed on several occasions that I would have periods of EU stations calling
after a long drought and then I would go back to only getting calls from US
stations. I suspect that it?s due to the same effect I see at this end ? most
of the time EU stations were beneath a US station and not working any US
stations, but when they were in the clear they would get lots of US calls. It
doesn't take a big station to cover up the DX and he may not be heard on the
other end. So no doubt my CQ frequency was often under someone and once in a
while my frequency would clear up on the other end. At one point a DL called me
and said he was having trouble copying me because of local QRM and would I
please move up 2? of course on this end up 2 meant right on top of another US
station calling CQ.
Mike McAmis - W1ECT
www.xmlog.com/shack
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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