I recently completed a small DXpedition to VP2E, Anguilla, for the CQWW
CW contest. For those interested, I used a barefoot K3 on AFSK, 100w to
a K4KIO Heaxagonal Wire Beam 16 meters high on 20 thru 10M, and dipoles
on 80/30M 10meters high and a dipole on 40M 13meters high. The station
was on the north side of the island, with pretty much a water view from
Europe to JA, roughly a mile from the sea. Anguilla is NA-022, CQ zone
8, ITU zone 11, and we were in grid square FK88lf.
Prior to the contest, I wanted to activate RTTY for the island, and made
about 1350 QSOs on RTTY from there, band breakdowns as follows:
80M 62
40M 124
30M 147
20M 300
17M 220
15M 221
12M 202
10M 74
Total 1350
By Continent:
No Amer 744
Europe 464
Asia 115
So Amer 13
Africa 11
Oceania 3
I tried to concentrate on the WARC bands, Europe, and JA, but 15 and 20M
propagation was just sooo good! I also found I went through several
iterations of replying to stations that may be of benefit to others. At
first, I just started sending "W1XXX 599". That resulted in a lot of
silence when I stopped transmitting- the pile-up hadn't yet stopped. I
then went to "W1XXX 599 W1XXX". That was a little better, but still,
too often silence greeted me when I stopped transmitting. The best
trade-off in rate vs repeats seemed to come when I sent "W1XXX 599 Op
Dennis W1XXX"- the last callsign was now after the pile-up had subsided,
and I never heard silence when I stopped transmitting.
QSOs are now on LOTW, QSLs have been ordered, and I should be able to
start sending out paper QSLs in the next week or so.
I hope everyone had as much fun working me as I did working them!
Dennis VP2E/W1UE
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