[ADXA] W5ZN CQWW CW

Tue Nov 26 04:17:54 EST 2024

I previously posted about gearing up for CQWW CW this past weekend. I talk a
lot about goals and since I decided to go all out, I set some for my effort.
Now, I consider myself an expert DX'er and will mow right over you in a DX
pileup and I've won some of the VHF contests, setting a new national record
twice. But HF contests require a significantly different skill set that I
haven't mastered. Some of it is geographical location. I will never be able
to compete with the east coast folks since Europe is a huge contest center
that favors the W1, 2, and 3 ops. I like to compare contest notes with my
buddy K1ZZ in CT and keep up with multi-ops at K3LR and W3LPL. Locally our
contest super hero is N5DX and K5GO. I am not even close to that level, far
from it - to quote AC-DC, "It's a long way to the top if you want to rock
and roll" !

As I noted in my earlier post, I love a CW fray and had a great time this
past weekend but I fell short of my goals. I wanted to break 5 million
points but only made it to 4,912,671. I missed three of my QSO goals also.
The totals were:

160 - 17 (goal 50)

80 - 206 (goal 300)

40 - 757 (goal 750)

20 - 448 (goal 750)

15 - 509 (goal 500)

10 - 744 (goal 500)

Even though I exceeded my goal on 40, 15, and 10 I was deficient on 160, 80,
and 20. I didn't worry too much about 160. Even though prop had been good
the few days leading up to Friday night the band folded and went basically
dead. 80 was decent, but not as expected. For 20 meters, I'm simply not good
at moving to 20 when needed during openings on the other bands. The
highlight here was Saturday between 2300z and 0000z with a massive 10 meter
opening to SE Asia. Signals from HS, XV, DU, BY YB, V85, HL, and JA were 20
to 30 dB over S9. Quite amazing. By comparison, Sunday night around the same
time, just before the contest end, I could barely hear JA's at that time! I
also enjoyed hearing some severe over the pole flutter on the Russian
signals and zones 17, 18, 19, and 40. Reminded me of "old times"!

You can see my claimed totals at
https://www.3830scores.com/showrumor.php?arg=RvYizV77nYJneU

I'm not good at SO2R. For you new folks, that is "Single Op 2 Radio" and
even though some radio manufacturers brag that their radio is "SO2R" please
understand that is an operator skill, NOT a radio !!! It takes considerable
practice and experience to even reach low proficiency. I'm far from it.

The station performed extremely well. I was very, very pleased with
everything. I consider myself and expert at station building, I'm just
lacking as an HF contest operator. Regardless, the station performed
flawlessly for the entire contest period.

I basically achieved DXCC on four bands and hit sixty on 80 meters. Only 11
on 160 with a dead band.

I got up Friday morning at 4 AM with my customary morning routine and did
some final checks and assessment throughout the day and had lunch with Kim
at noon. I started the contest right at 6 PM local time Friday. I was up
through the night Friday night and all-day Saturday. Around 2 AM Sunday
morning my body told me I needed a nap as I was starting to doze off so I
grabbed a 3-hour nap on the couch in the shack and was back on at 5:30 AM. I
did take a one-hour break at noon on Sunday for lunch and a 1 mile walk down
the road and back for a little exercise.

Sunday at 6 PM when the contest ended, I exported the log into my regular
station log, uploaded to LoTW then generated a Cabrillo file and uploaded it
to CQWW. I then assessed the station and began shutting things down. I
strolled into the den, picked up a drink and sat down in my recliner. About
5 minutes later I abruptly woke up to some cold and wet in my lap - I was
holding my drink, fell asleep, and dumped it all over me !!!!! It was time
to ditch the recliner and go to bed.

Summary - I love CW and really enjoyed the weekend.

73 Joel W5ZN

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