CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: KT8K
Operator(s): KT8K
Station: KT8K
Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: EN82ch SE Michigan
Operating Time (hrs): 30:43
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 8 2 1
80: 9 6 4
40: 119 15 46
20: 86 16 47
15: 146 17 55
10: 50 13 25
------------------------------
Total: 418 69 178 Total Score = 279,604
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
This is one of my most favorite contests, and was big fun as always in spite of
lackluster propagation. There were short periods when each of the bands was
fairly noise free and working well, but Saturday saw the aftermath of a couple
of solar flares and Sunday signal levels just slipped down a few S units
relative to the background noise, making for tough going, especially for the
QRP-ers.
20m was noisy and, at times, pretty crowded. 40m was wide open when expected
but overcrowded and full of QRM. 15m was my workhorse band, opening at almost
the same time as 20m Saturday morning but with much less background noise. At
first I didn't think 10m was going to open, and it wasn't ever "wide"
open here, but there were still quite a few signals coming through, though most
over the equator.
I never heard BY, ZL, or SE Asia at all, but heard VU in the first 5 minutes
(though they couldn't hear me and disappeared quickly). After hearing VK
several times over the first 24 hours I managed to snag one for the double
multiplier. Near the end, on an almost-closed 20m, it was a joy to work RT0C
on my first call with practically no QRM/QRN, and then GW5R gave me a nice
multipllier as the last QSO in the log. It was nice to work 3 TF stations, 3
Hawaiian stations, and 2 CN stations as well as ZD8W, ZS6EL, and other
notables. I once thought QRP just couldn't do that, especially with dipoles.
Thanks to all who listened for my weak signal and asked for many repeats. I
heard people rushing and getting calls wrong on quite a few occasions,
sometimes leaving the running station repeating "CL?" over and over
to no answer. I always try to verify information, and have often stayed on
freq to try to give the running station a correction they often don't know they
need.
As usual I attempted to run a number of times (my Mad River mentors taught me
that "if you ain't runnin', you ain't winnin'), wasting something less
than an hour at it. At one point I did get two callers right away, but then
nothing even though I kept calling for more than 5 minutes. So it goes ... A
"dipole QRP-er" like me is going to S&P a LOT of the time.
I hope everyone had at least half as much fun as I did, and hope the ionosphere
will be a bit kinder in the next big contest, as I expect to be there trying to
put your call in my log.
Best rx & 73 to all - Tim, KT8K
equipment
- Tentec Orion reduced to 5 Watts
- MFJ Grandmaster Keyer (for variable speed paddle keying)
- Bencher BY-1 (first or second production year?)
- Ancient XP laptop with 512(!) mb of ram struggling to run N1MM+
antennas
- 20/40/80m (home brew triple dipole) in 'W' shape in trees, feed point at
least 45 feet up
- 10/15/20m triband vertical dipole (Cushcraft A3 driven element) hanging in a
tree with feed point up about 60 feet
- 500 foot sort-of horizontal loop of 14 gauge THNN house wire (height ranges
from 15 to 70 feet) fed with flat TV twin lead via an LDG Z-11 autotuner, feed
point is about 15 feet above ground
- K9AY loop is gone - torn to pieces in the last winter - and Man! could I use
a beverage or three (and, of course, the space to deploy them)! 160m is fine
here but 80m is NOISY!
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