CQWW WPX Contest, CW
Call: KQ2M
Operator(s): KQ2M
Station: KQ2M
Class: SOSB20 HP
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80:
40:
20: 2380
15:
10:
------------
Total: 2380 Prefixes = 981 Total Score = 5,635,845
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
Possible New US/NA record (before log-checking)
WPXCW is my favorite "free-for-all". When I was a puny weak guy using only low
wires, the typical "Summertime" conditions with mostly high angle signals, was a
blessing in that I could run most of the time and work almost anything. Quite
the opposite of the "Wintertime" cndx where you needed very high antennas at
the bottom of the cycle.
Well, with a 3-stack of HG205CA's, there were only a few times during the
weekend when I felt loud, and I was in more freq. battles in this contest with
close-in guys, then I recall having over the past few years!
At the start of the contest, WK1Q parked less than 100 hz from me and refused
to move. He was 599+ on groundwave. What were you thinking OM? So my first
hour was disappointing and the next few hours were also disappointing compared
to what should be possible with decent bottom of the cycle cndx. KC3R was
smoking however, and as Alex's score indicates, he had it all working right
this past weekend. Congrats to you OM and to WC1M! At 05z, 20 almost died -
another head-scratcher for sure since the band is usually reaiable till 06z. I
plugged on through 06z and then my patience was rewarded with an erratic stream
of weak DL and G stations through 07z and 08z and then a real band opening at
09z. Prior to 09z the band was open skewpath, which meant that I could hear EU
just fine but only occasionally could I even get a ? in response to my call.
They were working each other on short-skip with an open band in full daylight
and I was in full darkness with a skewpath signal in a direction that their
beams were not pointed in. Not much good was going to happen! In all the
years that I have worked WPXCW (almost 30 years) I have NEVER heard 20 stay
open all night. My Friday night operating experience was typcal throughout the
weekend. I felt weak most of the time, loud rarely and the bands openings were
often not what I expected or when I expected them!
I took off time at 14z anticipating the high absorption period even though 20
was bedlam; but I wasn't able to work guys! The e-skip in Europe was
incredible and any time I was between two S7 or weaker EU stations, I was
rewarded with 0 callers as they were working each other like mad on short-skip.
I literally heard dozens of EU stations (that I never worked) call other EU
stations on either side of me and completely ignore me! How frustrating. What
was worse was when I fought my way to a clear freq. only to have a weak UA9 or
JA call cq in my face and then start a EU pileup on top of me. I was also
noticing that when a W0 or W7 cq'ed next to me, they would often have a run of
EU, again with Eu stations calling them that I had not yet worked. It felt
like I was operating in "Upside-down World"!
I realized that I had no idea why everything was seemed backwards, so I
improvised. Rather than slug it out with the high angle signal guys, who were
clearly running with impunity, I decided to operate at the times that primarily
favored lower angle signals and when the band would be more quiet.
This seemed to work better as the night-time propagation was a bit more
reliable and favored the lower-angle UA/UA9 and Eastern EU stations. Also,
this was good for working the US Mid-West and West Coast who were not yet in
darkness and were quite loud. I was working an enormous number of US prefixes
with an occasional Russian caller. The spotlight proagation was interesting.
Typically 2 weak's PA's would call followed by a few weak DL's and then a loud
G, followed by 10 min of Russia with a few weak OK's after, There was no
consistent band opening and the qsb was incredible. A few times during the
weekend, all of a sudden it sounded like someone took the RF Gain knob and
turned it all the way to the right! A literal 50 db increase in noise and
signal level ocurreing in less than 5 seconds! I had never experienced that
before!
I persevered through Saturday and into Saturday evening wondering where the
JA's were. Cndx seemed good from New England to Asia but "no one was home".
Saturday night into Sunday cndx were outstanding into Russia (03z on Sunday)
but absolutely no volume! I decided to take off time and get back on about 07z
to work the EU opening and hopefully run DL's and G's which I desperately
needed. Well it didn't happen. The band closed to EU from the Northeast, but
opened from the West into EU! At 0845z I got up and was rewarded with an
almost dead band. Huh? TU2CI and 7P8A heard me but little else. Well, this
time I was expecting the "bait and tease" 20 openings and took off-time when
normally i should have been running. I was glad to have a lot of off-time left
and I made the most of it. When I got back on at about 10z, the EU opening was
poor and signals were almost non-existent. I hung in on a good freq. and
steadily worked S1-S2 EU stations while an occasional LOUD JA blasted in! HUH?
I turned the top antenna to JA and NOTHING happaned! I tuned around for JA's
and only found three of them, including JH4UYB would would remain an S9+ for
the next 8 hours!!!! Eventually the EU and US stations disappeared from the
band like someone pulling the stopper out of a bathtub drain. 20 went long and
the JA's got louder! But I still could not run them! JH4UYB was now 599+20! I
figured that since I only had worked about 25 JA up until now and virtually no
other SE Asian stations, SOMEONE would have to call me?! I was rewarded with a
very, very, slow trickle of occasional JA's but YB3XM, B3C, VR2XMT, BA6QD, and
HL1VAU and a few other rarities; but no volume. Occasionally a US or EU
station would call but that was about it. Changing run frequencies did not
help either. Whatever was happening for most of the weekend I was not getting
the full benefit of it. JH4UYB continued to be loud for hours, 3W3W zero beat
me and ran a huge Eu pileup over me and everywhere I went US and EU stations
would continue to cq on me and run guys. It was really bizarre!
I welcomed offtime @ 15z and took an hour off to mentally re-group. At 16z I
tuned the band quickly, picked up a few mults and then took more off-time.
Back on at 17z with weak signals and no volume I resigned myself to tuning in
between cq's and hoping for the best.
The National WX service had predicted the possibility of T-storms for later in
the afternoon and I watched a squall line build up over Eastern PA/NJ about 60
miles from me. It was a slow mover and the qrn becamse a big factor over the
next 3 hours, erasing quite a few potential q's. At 20z I started to
experience a horrendous "buzz" on the antennas in advance of the front, a
really bad sign. A nasty looking T-storm cell formed and made a "beeline" for
me. I shutdown at 2018z and ran upstairs as it started, but surprisinlgy wll
we got was rain and wind. Apparently, at the very last second, the cell took a
sharp right turn and went over the next hill North! What a break! I went
downstairs and resumed by "walk". A few more mults called in and I climbed
over 5.4 and then 5.5 meg. The band opened to EU (as I had hoped it would)
with some loud signals and a few more loud mults. When my time ran out at
2320z, 20 was in an absolute frenzy! Amazing!
N2NC made the current 20 meter US/NA Unassisted record from N2RM at about 5.4
Meg. I was not able to work as many 3 pointers as John, but got a lot more
mults, no doubt becasue of the increased US participation. I don't think that
cndx were quite as good as in 2006, but regardless of whether I wind up with a
new record or not, it won't take long for a few sunspots to keep the bands oen
longer and better and a better score will be possible.
After reading many of the writeups, I had a much better understanding of why I
had struggled so much all weekend. Marginal band openings for many hours with
spotlight propagation, combined with high-angle signals which made lots of
lower-tier stations loud and runnable, combined with excellent participation in
the openings from the mid-West, Central US and West Coast, tremendous EU
short-skip AND, the biggest score booster of all, HUGE US participation since
the WPXCW was NOT on Memorial Day weekend! What a combination!
I worked 343 US prefixes, about 100 more than I have ever worked before in this
contest. Right from the beginning I noticed a much higher level of US activity
both calling me and calling CQ. I'll bet that MOST of the new records this
weekend are mainly because the US participation had a HUGE spike and the
workable US prefixes dramatically increased!
NOTE TO K5ZD: Change the WPXCW weekend to the weekend after Memorial Day!
I don't normally mention the callsigns of stations that have done unusually
foolish things during the weekends, but there were too many examples to ignore
this time:
WK1Q who heard me running before the contest and then started CQing in the
contest less than 100 hz from me! He never moved. That is really bad form
OM!
KR2AA who did the same and refused to move for 20 minutes.
IS0HQJ who heard me running and then started to CQ on me from less than 60 hz
away and NOT MOVE for more than 1 hour!
LZ9W who FIVE MINUTES after I started a run on a clear freq., came back to the
freq. he left, called CQ and refused to move! He was S9+20 at the time and all
he wanted to do was to CQ endlessly.
All contests are "bump and grind" to a cetain amount and we all get frustrated
and make mistakes. But there is no excuse for intentially qrming someone with
CQ's to try to bully them off THEIR freq. That is simply rude, spiteful and
unsportsmanlike. There is no excuse for operating practices like that. I
generally try to avoid getting closer than 200-250 hz. But 50-100 hz away?
Only a real lid does that!
Interesting to note that I did not have any issues with any of the top ops on
this weekend and it is quite rare when I do. Good ops simply DO NOT engage in
that kind of behavior! There is a good lesson to be learned from that.
This concludes my 20 meter single band "experiment". Over the past 6 major DX
contests including both modes of CQWW, ARRLDX and WPXCW, I have made 14,512 q's
in the six Unassisted Contests. Not bad for the lowest sunspot cycle bottom in
the almost a century!
I have learned a lot and had a great deal of fun. It's nice to know that a few
good antennas can revoluntionize how you look at contesting, even after 36 years
of contest operating!
Thanks for all the q's and mults, and most of all, thanks for all the
friendship and memories that each contest provides!
73
Bob KQ2M
kq2m@earthlink.net
HG205CA @ 130' rotatable Orion 2800
HG205CA @ 82' fixed NE
HG205CA @ 58' fixed NE
"West" dipole @ 35'
"South" dipole @ 35'
FT1000MP and Titan 425
Stackmaster with 3 working ports
MFJ 6 pos switch used to switch between
stackmaster and both dipoles
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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