CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: VE9AA
Operator(s): VE9AA
Station: VE9AA
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: nb
Operating Time (hrs): 40
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 146 6 11
80: 560 17 52
40: 745 17 55
20: 1200 20 86
15: 387 23 73
10: 97 15 34
------------------------------
Total: 3135 98 311 Total Score = 2,824,554
Club: Maritime Contest Club
Comments:
Well well well , how was *THAT* for FB condx guys? Fantastic, eh?......ummm,
kidding !
I thought maybe this would be a great chance for me to test all the new low
band arrays recently installed here, but instead I
just got lots of S&P practice ! :-) Most runs (if I could even call them
that) were 15-30 Q's with 3 exceptions. One each on 160,
80 , 40 & 20m with over 100 ea. I don't ever recall running EU on any
band with more than 2-3 callers. EU= 17.2% of QSO's
(46.6% last year !)
With condx so dreadful I had contemplated several times just throwing in the
towel, but with 4 new antenna arrays inline, and
runing HP this year. I still wanted to see how they performed. (stn description
at the end)
With the rates so low, if I was running, I would occasionally say "Hi
John, Hi Bob, Hi Steve" while giving my report. I trust the
extra ~1 second of time I used up of yours did not make/break your contest for
you. I am sure I could've squeaked in another 5
or 10 Q's over the weekend if I had not been friendly. If condx had been
superb, I would've likely been "all business", but it
was obvious after the first hour and 37 Q's it would just be a slog and I had
better make the best of it, such as it was. Bad form
for me wanting to spread of little cheer in the midst of the Auroral misery, hi
!
For some reason it seemed like there were not as many overdriven splattery
signals as before. Yes, there were still a few here
and there, but maybe it was the 40dB of AU attenuation that made it bearable to
be nudged up against the big boys and not be
overly bothered by them.
I did have one loud USA station about 2-3kHz above me for my long 20m run
where I had been parked for what I thought was
abt 90mins eventually come down on my frequency and say "Hey, you're
killing me up here, can you move a couple kcs lower
and gimme a break?". I don't know where he thought I was going to move to
! I told him I had been on 14.181 for an hour and
a half (checking the log today revealed it was actual 2.5 hours not 1.5 hours).
He said sarcasticly something about a Mexican
standoff, uttered some kind of profantity and slid down towards me (for more
QRM effect) and then cranked his compression
up. Congrats, you won, I moved and then immediately S&P'd a couple double
mults below 14.150MHz. I was not too worried
because at that point, I am just trying to have fun and not create a mess.
BTW, I run NO compression; when I am HP I tune my
amps carefully and have the mic gain at about 40%. I don't think I can't say
the same about the fellow above me on Sunday.
This was about having fun, not fighting with folks. This is a hobby.
10m was a wasteland. No zone 3 and only 1 European worked on 10m.(CT1DVV). I
came up short of my 100Q goal on 10m.
I was pretty happy to get a few Stateside on 10m backscatter, but I think most
folks missed this as stations from Maine to
Colorado were worked beaming due south yet I called CQ for perhaps 30mins and
worked only 10 guys in the USA.
15m Sat. was primarily SA and some USA. Sunday a smattering of EU, first
sidescatter towards ZS, then direct. Never lasted
very long. Signals weak on my low yagi.
20m was weird. Deep fades and at times short skip into W1/W2/W3....the Eu's
were sounding like they were underwater.
WArbly/watery, bubbly. My first northern stn in EU was OH8X and he was 5/1 if
that. I am sure condx were tough up there
even at a big stn like that.
40m was weak and not normally runnable. Certainly not to EU where I had
counted on a lot of the points to be. Lots of QRM
(of course) and lots of nets, ragchews and whatever. I did have a few say I
was the loudest thing on the bad, which made me
feel good, but did nothing for my log. Still nice to hear, even if it I am
sure it wasn't true,. hi
80m. Likely was the most runnable band . 560 Q's on this band. Pretty darn
good on SSB. I usually avoid SSB on 80m like the
plague but with 10-15-20-40 so miserable I spent a lot of time on 80m and
worked pretty much every stn heard calling CQ.
160m wasn't so bad and the new array kinda held its own for what it was, but
there were times I felt QRP. Left a couple zones
& mults on the table as I evaluated the time spent calling vs. the possible
mult advantage in my head. Still work to do here on
this band though 146-Q's is nothing to sneeze at with a parttime one-night
effort on 160m phone.
I only worked a couple KH6's, mostly on the low bands. Thanks to Jeff N6GQ who
called me on 80m. A definate highlight.
Thanks to Yuri, VE3DZ as VE2IM for my first zone 2 mult on 5 bands. I
actually had a couple other zone 2's from Quebec call
me later and also ran into Naz VO2NS later as well. Always appreciate the zone
2 mult, even though I realize for Yuri it was a
zero pointer. There must have been a zone 2 convention this year ! (and I had
thoughts to activate VO2DX as a LP entrant.
Glad I never did that ). Missed it on TopBand though.
Speaking of zero pointers, I think I had 98% of the VE3's on the band call
me!? Why? They can work any East Coast w1-4 for
zone 5. Instead of getting mad about it, I just worked them and moved on. One
VE3 made me laugh as he called me on 40m
and told me he didn't know his S-meter even went that high so felt forced to
call in and give me an exchange. Nothing for the
log, but gave me a little pick-me-up when I was feeling especially tired.
W1VE(@ K2LE) told me essentially the same thing.
No JA's heard, nor worked. Almost nothing from ZL. Almost zero Russians.
This was an endurance test. I had planned for weeks to do 43hours and maybe
even close to 44 hours, but slept through the
timer I set on Sunday, so it reduced my BIC a little. I don't know how anyone
endured more than 40hours in this one. Butt glue
I guess.
Even though condx were extremely trying I had a good time, ran a lot (too
much!?) Stateside, who I must say were a joy to
work, very civil, friendly and a lot of great friends out there to boot.
Radio # 1, IC-7410 + ancient Alpha 76a
Radio # 2, IC-7410 , usually 100w barefoot. Ran ZS6BKW antenna with conjoined
15m inv vee exclusively on this radio.
Radio #1's antennas:
10m - A3S @ 24'
15m - A3S @ 24'
20m - 4-Square (aluminum verts & raised wire radials)
40m - 4-Square in the trees. All wire.
80m - 4-Square in the trees. All wire.
160m - 2-el BS/EF and NE or SW array.
No RX antennas.
CQ WorldWide SSB - 2016-10-29 0000Z to 2016-10-31 0000Z - 3162 QSOs
VE9AA Max Rates:
2016-10-29 0304Z - 8.0 per minute (1 minute(s)), 480 per hour by VE9AA
2016-10-29 0126Z - 5.2 per minute (10 minute(s)), 312 per hour by VE9AA
2016-10-30 0111Z - 3.4 per minute (60 minute(s)), 205 per hour by VE9AA
SO2R stats: There were 282 bandchanges and 119 (3.8%) probable 2nd radio QSOs.
(radio 2's amp was on the Fritz and was
only in HP mode about 20% of the time.).....100w to a dipole on radio 2 was the
'norm' this contest. Much easier on CW.
Multi-band QSOs
---------------
1 bands 1677
2 bands 306
3 bands 122
4 bands 76
5 bands 28
6 bands 6
The following stations were worked on 6 bands:
8P5A WP3C WE3C W3LPL KP2M K5TR
Thanks all ! I sure hope it's better for the CW leg. At least I'll have some
narrow filters and a voice left on Monday !
CU (all of sudden)
dit dit
Mike VE9AA "New Brunswick"
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