CQWW WPX Contest, CW
Call: P44W
Operator(s): W2GD
Station: P40W
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 36
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 29
40: 582
20: 643
15: 1031
10: 650
------------
Total: 2935 Prefixes = 980 Total Score = 10,246,880
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
K3 + Win-Test
3 el 80m wire Yagi for EU @ 20m
4 el 40m wire Yagi for EU @ 20m
Force 12 C3 @ 20M
Force 12 C31XR @ 21M
Force 12 Delta 240 @ 23M
160/80 Inverted V @ 19M
Beverage RX Antennas EU, USA, E/W, N/S
Arrived on Aruba three days before the contest. Found weather conditions very
windy, much like you find here in March....very unusual for May. No meaningful
rain for over 5 months now so it is very dry. On the plus side, the cactus
trees have not grown since December which made beverage repairs easy. But it
was too windy to work on Yagi antennas alone. Had the 700 meters of coax and
control cables and the wire Yagis deployed within 24 hours .... everything
seemed to be working OK and no line noise. Conditions on the high bands were
very good....SFI 117, A/K were 5 and 1. Worded EU on 10M LP at 0630Z....with
loud signals early Wednesday morning UTC.
Both of the triband beams need minor maintenance but with the exceptionally
high winds decided it was not possible for one small person like me to do the
work alone. Fortunately the problems have minimal impact on signal. Now
Monday morning, the rented bucket truck just left and repairs were made....for
next season.
When testing the station this week using the new P44 prefix (a call I'd been
asking the local authority to issue for WPX for nearly 20 years...and they
finally relented), I noticed the worldwide network of 100+ skimmers were rarely
reporting my signal....which made me really wonder if I had some unknown problem
... it was making me feel "weak" and distressed. Friday morning I
finally asked Pete N4ZR if there was some filter in the software that was
preventing the normal flurry of call outs when I CQed. It turns out there is
just such a filter file ...which did not have P44 as an authorized prefix for
Aruba. To make a long story short, there are some ways around it, but each of
the skimmer stations on the network will need to change settings and file
changes. I want to thank W3LPL, K8ND, DL6FBL, DL2CC, WA7LNW, WZ7I, EA4TX,
PY1NB, and others for making last minute temporary modifications to their
individual skimmer software setting to enable spotting of P44 during the
contest. BRAVO gentlemen for your terrific cooperation on short notice.
Since it was too windy Friday to fix the broken Yagis, I prepared for the
contest by painting both of my 20 meter tall towers. In this salt rich
environment, there can never be enough paint protection on steel.
Band conditions were quite good the days leading up to the contest but the
trend for SFI was down. I had visions of challenging the current LP record
(held by my neighbor P49Y/AE6Y), but the T-storms in the USA made both 80 and
40 much too noisy Friday evening to make a large number of QSOs running 100W.
Re-calibrated goals after the first 12 hours to something over the 10 million
posted by last year's LP champion.
Had a hot start on 20....13 contacts in just three minutes....but then things
returned to normal....finishing the hour at 120. The second hour was my best
all weekend....a 134, mostly the result of a great US and JA run on 15M.
Went to 40 at 0200z as planned. As mentioned earlier, the band had high QRN
from the storms 800 miles to the north. Kept plugging away averaging 80/hour
which was OK but nothing terrific. Would check 80 every so often and pick off
a few loud US and Carib stations but CQing was not productive.
Set the alarm for an hour before sunrise. Found 80 and 40 were still
noisy...and was disappointed I only worked a half-dozen JAs on 40 before
another hour break.
At 1200 went to 15...it sounded 'punk' and over the next six hours it really
didn't get any better. A solar disturbance had occurred....the A index was now
up to 20. Running LP, you don't get very many answers to CQs under these
circumstances. Ended up taking four somewhat unscheduled one hour off periods
waiting for improvement.
Finally at 1800z managed to get some rate going on 10M to the USA. Then the
next two hours 15M was the place to be with back to back 120 hours. During the
2300 hour 15M opened to JA....it is so nice to hear Japanese stations without
polar flutter.
Went back to 40M at 0200. The QRN was gone but the activity level was not
there for rate. Ended up alternating between 40 and 20 over the next four
hours before another nap.
Again set the alarm for an hour before sunrise. This time both 80 and 40 were
much quieter....and added about two dozen JAs on 40M to the log before taking
the remainder of my available off time.
At 1400Z the final dash to the finish line commenced. At first could not
establish a run on 15M so spent several hours on 28002.5 running EU and USA...a
nice steady stream of callers, not many were particularly loud, but the
conditions seemed stable and the rate was a consistent 80 to 90 an hour. Went
back and forth from 10 to 15 meters mid-afternoon but could not establish a
good run frequency with rate anywhere.
Finally the last three hours things began to click. alternating between 15 and
20 meters. The last hour was terrific, adding 23 mults out of 95 contacts,
mainly on 15M, including some very loud stations from Asia and the Pacific. It
was great to end the contest on such a positive note.
I remain indebted to my host family on Aruba for tolerating the blanketing of
their property with so many wires several times each year.
See everyone again next fall from P40W in the CQWW PH and CW.
73,
John Crovelli, W2GD
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|