CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: W9KKN
Operator(s): W9KKN
Station: NW6P
Class: SO(A)AB HP
QTH: Cupertino, CA
Operating Time (hrs): 37
Remote Operation
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 0 0 0
80: 29 11 15
40: 490 32 90
20: 546 33 107
15: 73 18 34
10: 1 1 1
------------------------------
Total: 1139 95 247 Total Score = 1,063,278
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
As always, special thanks to Tom/NW6P for his use of his station.
After working and contesting pretty hard lately, I hadn't been spending enough
time at home, so I decided to do most of this contest remotely. I've still got a
few things that only work locally, such as tune 80 meters and parts of 40 and
10, but I've been making steady and subtle improvements to the NW6P station that
have made remote a legitimate reality. In particular, I managed to fix remote
control of the Alpha amplifier such that it wasn't stuck at 300 baud. The worst
case is that the remote just wouldn't work out, but I can at least throw the
kill switch remotely, and I live close enough to rescue anything that could go
wrong. Given that we have such a location disadvantage in CQWW CW, I decided to
take on a semi-serious effort just for the DX; I have never bothered to work
toward even a mixed ARRL DXCC award under my own call, so I wanted to try and
make that happen.
I kicked this off at NW6P Friday night, left around 23:00, continuing from home.
All in all, N1MM+ says I managed to put in about 37 hours or so, but it was more
like 35 because I was comically incapable of decoding anything for at least a
few of them. I had caught a bit of a cold the week before and was trying not to
overextend myself further. Flex gave me a few annoying mishaps (sometimes CW
would stop keying the radio until a reboot even with the external Winkeyer
driving the Maestro, which historically has been the only reliable way to work
remotely) but overall, a very good remote contest experience.
As far as the contest itself, in summary, some really cool propagation and the
NW6P station is performing fantastically! I was getting into Europe and Africa
on Tom's 80m dipole, which is something that does not usually happen, but long
path on 40m Friday/Saturday morning was absolutely on fire. It wasn't quite as
good Saturday/Sunday morning, but impressive overall! 10 meters was only open
for minutes at a time and very unproductive, but 15 m was working pretty well
for at least a few hours each day. In preparation for the contest, I had studied
last year's logs carefully of a few local single ops that regularly score
highly, noting things like when they appeared to be running or S&P, which
bands they were on when, and who / what they were working at the time and it
helped a lot, sans 15m not being open at all Friday evening.
I'd also say my contest CW is still coming along nicely, and I'm happy with this
result. At the beginning of 2018, I didn't even have the full CW alphabet
memorized, but thanks to the likes of CWops L1/L2 and lots of time in Morse
Runner, I can't hide behind that excuse as easily anymore. Still, I think that
the need for repeats and such is a limiting factor for me that will only get
better with more butt-in-chair time.
Thanks for the Q's everyone and see you in the next contest!
-- Bill/W9KKN
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|