[HCRA] ARRL DX SSB contest over, but CQ WW WPX right around the corner...

[kx1x@arrl.net]

It felt good to be back on-the-air after a considerable absence which coincidentally matched the solar minimum. 
15m was open to almost everywhere during most of the daytime both days, 20m was also wall-to-wall contacts during the day, and 40/80m had no shortage of EU, SA and Caribbean contacts to keep the evening hours busy. 

Due to commitments that took me out of the chair after 10:00 AM on Sunday, I wasn't able to reach my goal of 600 Q's. This would have been easily attained with just a couple more hours work as 15m was strong enough that I could hear and work even the 100w DX stations easily. All 400+ contacts that I made over the weekend were using Search and Pounce techniques (answering CQ's rather than calling CQ). 

There is another large contest at the end of the month, the CQ WW WPX SSB contest. This contest is a work-everyone (domestic and DX alike) contest with an easy exchange. There are always plenty of contacts and huge scores in the WPX contest. See http://www.cqwpx.com/ for contest rules and other details. 

For the WPX contest, I will be at K1TTT's contest station in Peru, MA, with Venture Crew DX using our club callsign NE1C. Coincidentally, Friday March 26th at 6:00 PM there will be a VE session at the Holyoke Hospital. Maybe now is the time to upgrade to General to gain more HF privileges, then jump right in when there are plenty of contacts to be made. 


'73 de Kx1x 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim - KK1W" <kk1w at charter.net> 
To: "HCRA" <hcra at mailman.qth.net> 
Sent: Sunday, March 7, 2010 4:36:47 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [HCRA] Will CW triumph once again??? 

______________________________________________ 
-------Hampden County Radio Association------- 
-----------e-mail list (reflector)------------- 
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Well folks, 



The little ‘wager’ between myself and Kx1x (aka LATEboy) is almost over. 
Once again it looks like CW may have the edge once again. 



Just to refresh your memory the challenge was for John to exceed my score in 
the CW part of the ARRL DX contest by 150%. Most contests give CW a two to 
one advantage so I look at the 150% goal as a gift! Still, it didn’t appear 
to be enough to keep it close, you be the judge. 



There are approximately 2 ½ hours left in the contest and the score at 
getscores.org for John is 277,290. My score for the CW portion was 236, 412 
so the number to exceed is 354, 618. There was also some talk of exceeding 
600 Q’s and he’s sitting at 476. Time is getting short – anyone want to 
guess on who will end up as the winner? 



All kidding aside 476 Q’s and 277K points is a nice accomplishment and 1x 
should be congratulated for his efforts. Like most of us a lot of contest 
time is spent with family responsibilities. Finding 12 hours or so out of 
the 48 is a difficult task. 



I hope many of our members had a chance to work some DX this weekend. The 
bands were pretty good and all the DX was looking for US and Canadian 
contacts. If not you still have a few hours to get on the air and have fun! 



’73… 



Jim, KK1W 

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