THE 1996 CQ WW 160 M CW CONTEST
SCORE:
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QSO'S: 1275
1SO POINTS: 8995
STATES: 47
COUNTRIES: 79
SCORE: 1,133,370 POINTS
CATEGORY: SINGLE OP
OPERATOR: ON4UN
THE STORY:
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The contest starts as usual with trying to work a JA. In these years of low
sunspot activity this is much easier than in the "high" years. After having
worked the multiplier, I start cleaning up the European stations. No point
in wasting time trying to work JA's. A DX is worth only two European
stations, and you can work them much faster.
The XV7 station is said to be active in the contest (from Hanoi), but he has
only one frequency, 1827. I still need him for a new coun-try, but don't
think we will hear him with all the contest QRM. Anyhow it's S9 plus QRM all
around 1827...
The conditions seem to be "fair" to the USA, but pile-ups are moderate.
Around 03:00z the Mid-West starts coming in and from then on the skip
lengthens to Texas, New Mexico etc. At 05:22 Mike, N7ML is the first W6/7
worked, followed one minute later by N6DX, and a few minutes later by Bob,
W7LR also in MT. All were really loud! No more West Coast was worked, and
the only multiplier before sunrise was 6D2J. At 07:50 I am off to bed for
some sleep.
At 15:3z (45 minutes before sunset) I am back. It's working European
stations until my first DX at 19:00z (EX8W) followed shortly later by a good
signal from VK2BJ. Some of the rarer Europeans are worked (Z3, LX, ZA, GU,
GD). At 19:30z the band is wide-open to Japan (2 and a half hours before
their sun-rise). I work a string.
I worked Mark, ON4WW from his home QTH on Friday evening. He was leaving for
9X on Saturday early morning, and gave me a sked for Saturday evening. At
21.00z sharp 9X4WW calls me for a nice multiplier. In the next half hour I
work two other African sta-tions: 6W6JX (very strong!) and 7X2VZK. Mark,
5N0MVE was the only other African station worked.
I run across a huge pile up for 1A0KM. Won-der if this is the "real" one?
Anyhow, hordes of Europeans must have worked him.
The first W is worked at 22:40 (W2VO). The band starts opening really well
to the states at 23:30z the mid-West starts coming in at 00:30, and Ks
(W0CM), AR (K5GO) are added to the multiplier list. At 01:08 N6SS in
Arizona calls me with an excellent signal. This is early! The band remains
excellent to the US all through the night until sunrise, but never really
stretches all the way to the West Coast. The only W6 worked is Glen, K6NA,
and KX7VG in Utah. In total 2 W6's, and four genuine W7's (two in MT, one in
AZ and one in UT) were worked.
My last multiplier was PT7BZ at 07:30z, just on my sunrise.
Being single op non-assisted, I am forced to switch being working pile-up
and do some search and pound across the band looking for pile-ups where the
rare multipliers are. While doing so, I call every station (DX or European)
that's not yet in my log. One very amazing thing happened to me in this
contest. On at least 20 (TWENTY) occasions, the station I called came back
with "wkd B4", while this clearly was not the case. This can happen once or
twice in a contest, but not 20 times! With some stations it took a bit of
convincing to give me a "real" QSO. This happened ONLY with European
stations. I wonder what happened? Did the computer let me down? Maybe it did
not log some contacts? After the contests I listened to the entire recorded
con-test, and ALL QSO's were in the log. Maybe someone wanted to harm me and
worked a bunch of European stations with my call while I was running a
pile-up somewhere? Who will tell?
I have only one funny story: UR5KDX. kept telling me to move out of the
DX-window ... As I did not react, he started jamming me. Hell, I can
understand the purpose of the DX window (it's great), but if the DX (that's
we ??) must also stay out of there, who is going to work who ??? ... Maybe
we have to explain the poor man what's DX for the US organisers of the contest.
After the first night, ands in view of the local "factory generated" QRM, I
was convinced this year's results would not be as good as last year's. But
the much improved condition to the US on the second night soon made it clear
that maybe I would break the 1 Mi point barrier after all. And yes, almost
3 hours before sunrise we went through the 1 Mi point barrier. I ended with
approx. 150 more QSO's than last year (1275 QSO's) and with 1.13 Mi points,
which is nearly 20 % better than last year's score. Last year we worked 340
US + Canadian stations, this year 460! I nevertheless worked fewer
multipliers (80 countries and 47 states, vs. 82/47 in 1995). In the US I
made all W!,2,3,4,5,6,8 and 9 states, missed N and S.D. in the W0 district,
and missed all but AZ, MT and UT in the 7th district. From Canada we worked
the easterly provinces (VO1 through VE3).
No sign of the XV7 station, nor from 9V1XQ who's been on 160 in the week
prior to the contest. From Europe I missed GJ, HB0, 3A, but worked a number
of the rarer ones: EA6, HV, OH0, C3 etc. No EA8, nor CU! Besides the 460 US
+ Canadian stations I worked from N/S America: 6D2X, 8P9DX(very strong but
deaf like hell, half of Europe vcalled him, and I had to call for at least
20 minutes before getting through!), JG3KIV/6Y5, PJ9Z, PT7BZ, PY0FF, TO5T
(strong), TI1C (Strong as always), YV1OB (who else), P40WA (deaf like
8P9DX), P40I (got mMike on my first call!) and 9A3A/4U.
Without the chemical plant QRM I am sure I would have been able to dig into
the prover-bial "third layer" of North American stations which would
undoubtedly have given me a few more W7 stations. Maybe next year we'll have
160 m contest without handicaps?
73
John, ON4UN
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john.devoldere@box.eunet.be
Call us in all major 1996 contests: ON4UN (OT6T in WPX)
John Devoldere (ON4UN-AA4OI)
POBOX 41
B-9000 Ghent (Belgium)
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