CQWW WPX Contest, SSB
Call: WM5R
Operator(s): WM5R
Station: K5TR
Class: SOSB15 HP
QTH: TX
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80:
40:
20:
15: 1225
10:
------------
Total: 1225 Prefixes = 598 Total Score = 1,631,344
Club:
Comments:
Station at K5TR:
* Kenwood TS-850SAT
* Ameritron AL-1200
* Six element OWA yagi, 36' boom at 70', rotatable
* Six element OWA yagi, 36' boom at 35', fixed NE
* Three element Telrex yagi, 17' boom at 30', fixed SE
* Ameritron RCS-8V antenna switch
* Heil Proset Plus with rubber band boom mod
* W9XT Contest Card
* TR Log 6.78
http://www.kkn.net/albums/k5tr_station_photos/dsc08793.sized.jpg
George was very generous to offer me the opportunity to operate
another big phone contest from his fabulous station in the Texas
Hill Country. While I did a single band effort on 15 meters, George
was initially planning to do a single band effort on 40 meters, but
the allure of rate on 20 meters was too much, I think. He ended up
doing an all-band effort where all the bands included only a handful
of 15 meter QSOs made with 10 meter antennas. In retrospect, maybe
we should have done a multi-single, but this turned out to be a
very interesting weekend on 15 meters after all.
The contest started off with a very fun 172 hour. I was working
Canada, Japan, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and a few USA
stations. Conditions to the continental USA were never again as
good as they were in that first hour. My second hour included 74
QSOs, and my third hour only 14. I stuck it out calling CQ until
my final contact of the evening at 0416 UTC.
On Saturday morning local time, the first station heard was in West
Africa, but he could not hear me yet. My first contact of the
morning was at 1225 UTC, a couple of minutes before official
sunrise. For the next several hours, it was all South America and
the occasional USA station that was also beaming to the south. In
the 1300 UTC hour, I worked a few African stations including ZS,
TR, TU, and ZD8.
My first European QSO of the day was at 1347 UTC, but by 1500 UTC
I had only managed to get four Europeans in the log. The run to
Europe did not really pick up until well into the 1600 UTC hour,
and even then it only peaked at a 40 hour and a 51 hour. The
rest of the day was pretty slow, with seven out of eight daylight
hours producing fewer than 30 QSOs each. The first Japanese station
was worked at 2133 UTC, but working stations in that direction was
difficult because of line noise. The last Japanese station in the
log that night was worked at 2324 UTC. The 0000, 0100, and 0200 UTC
hours were mostly Australian and New Zealand stations with the
occasional South American and USA station. My last station in the
log that night was an Australian at 0222 UTC.
Sunday morning, I could hear stations well before they could
hear me, including some USA stations. I heard a station in the
Dominican Republic operating below the USA phone subband around
1225 UTC - he never did make it into my log. The first QSO of the
morning was at 1237 UTC, but it was the second QSO of the morning
that had me excited, as it was a loud Irish station. I worked a
scattering of Europeans for the next hour, and things really began
to take off around 1330 UTC, when I started working multiple
stations every minute. I had five hours of 72, 116, 69, 58, and
67 QSOs, mostly to Europe. The USA stations I worked during this
time frame were almost always harder to copy than the European
stations that were calling. In the 1400 UTC hour, my second best
hour of the contest, I actually had to switch to another run
frequency as some sort of HF RADAR system came up centered a few
kHz from my frequency and wiped out a good 40-50 kHz of the phone
subband. That was very frustrating.
After a slow 20 QSO hour at 1900 UTC, conditions rallied and I
began for the first time since the very first hour of the contest
to work USA stations in any quantity. Two hours of 44 and 48 QSOs
were much more fun than the 11 and 24 hours I had during the 2000
and 2100 UTC hours the day before. I only worked six Japanese
stations on Sunday afternoon, and even fewer Australians and New
Zealanders.
This was the first 48-hour HF contest I can remember operating in
which I made more QSOs in the second 24 hours of the contest than
I did in the first 24 hours of the contest. It is also the first
world wide HF contest that I have worked in which I get points for
USA stations, but I actually worked more DX stations than USA
stations! 15 meters was very long a lot of the time, making most
of my one point QSOs more challenging than the two and three point
QSOs.
HOUR HR TOT CUM TOTAL SCORE
---- ------- --------- -----
0000 172/111 172/111 0.04M
0100 74/35 246/146 0.07M
0200 14/4 260/150 0.07M
0300 2/0 262/150 0.07M
0400 1/0 263/150 0.07M
0500 --- 263/150 0.07M
0600 --- 263/150 0.07M
0700 --- 263/150 0.07M
0800 --- 263/150 0.07M
0900 --- 263/150 0.07M
1000 --- 263/150 0.07M
1100 --- 263/150 0.07M
1200 22/14 285/164 0.09M
1300 36/30 321/194 0.12M
1400 20/14 341/208 0.14M
1500 25/19 366/227 0.16M
1600 40/32 406/259 0.21M
1700 51/22 457/281 0.26M
1800 21/14 478/295 0.29M
1900 34/13 512/308 0.31M
2000 11/8 523/316 0.33M
2100 24/12 547/328 0.36M
2200 27/8 574/336 0.39M
2300 18/7 592/343 0.41M
0000 18/3 610/346 0.43M
0100 20/4 630/350 0.45M
0200 5/1 635/351 0.46M
0300 --- 635/351 0.46M
0400 --- 635/351 0.46M
0500 --- 635/351 0.46M
0600 --- 635/351 0.46M
0700 --- 635/351 0.46M
0800 --- 635/351 0.46M
0900 --- 635/351 0.46M
1000 --- 635/351 0.46M
1100 --- 635/351 0.46M
1200 2/1 637/352 0.46M
1300 72/44 709/396 0.59M
1400 116/64 825/460 0.84M
1500 69/25 894/485 0.97M
1600 58/30 952/515 1.11M
1700 67/22 1019/537 1.26M
1800 45/16 1064/553 1.35M
1900 20/8 1084/561 1.40M
2000 44/16 1128/577 1.48M
2100 48/10 1176/587 1.55M
2200 14/3 1190/590 1.57M
2300 35/8 1225/598 1.63M
DAY 1 592/343
DAY 2 633/255
TOTAL 1225/598
Continental Distribution
----------------------
USA = 404
Canada = 96
North America = 44
South America = 88
Europe = 404
Africa = 23
Asia = 4
Japan = 68
Oceania = 94
----------------------
Total calls = 1225
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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