N2OO CQWW CW Single Op, HP.

Recently, I don’t normally put in serious contest efforts. But I decided to do the best I could this year. Put in 33.5 hours. Once upon a time I could do at least 40-42 hours.  :-0

My setup here is a 3 element SteppIR with the 40/30 trombone driven element. One good antenna that covers all bands 40-10 (plus WARC and 6 for my DX chasing).

It is on a 54’ crankup that I leave at about 45’. 

For 80 I use a double bazooka hung as an inverted vee at about 25 feet. 

The 160 antenna is normally an inverted L wire over a tree but the wire broke last year and I haven’t gotten around to putting it back together.

The station is a K3 and an OM2000HF amp. I use a KPA500 for daily DX chasing. 

My station is not competitive compared to you serious guys out there. 

I use N1MM and the W9PA cluster running RBN’s.

Needless to say, I had a ball this year. Run pileups resembled some of my DXpedition activities after the first few days. 

I used a gameplan that seemed to work well. Friday night I S/P picked through 20 meters mainly looking for more difficult mults. Then moved to 40 and some 80 doing the same thing. Hit the sack around 2AM.

Overslept a couple hours on Saturday morning but got on at around 9AM, Ran all day on 10, 15 and 20 using a combination of S/P and running. But mostly S/P. Worked hard to grab new mults. Then hit 40 hard at night with some 80. Hit the sack around 1AMbut got back on at 6:30AM on Sunday.

Operated all day Sunday to the end with a heavier effort on running, but also doing S/P new mults and running through band spots. Started on 15, then went to 10 bouncing back and forth to 15, then later to 20. Wrapped up on 15 and 10 for a great run into Asia.

I generally did not jump bands a lot. 

In any case, this was a ton of fun here.

                  CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2024

K2SG

Class: SO(A)SB10 LP
QTH: NFL
Operating Time (hrs): 27

Summary:
Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
10: 1207    36      132
------------------------------
Total: 1207    36      132  Total Score = 585,816

Club: Florida Contest Group

Comments:

Conditions on 10 meters have been so good in this cycle and especially the past several weeks I decided to try a SOA SB10M LP for the first time. When conditions are this good it’s tough on us old guys to put in the extra hours needed to work all bands. My rotator is broken and stuck at due North which worked fairly well for Europe and great for JA & BY most of the time.  I had a feeling at times signals were coming in crooked path anyway so maybe it was good I didn’t have a rotator to point in the wrong direction.   I usually keep my tower at 50’ for everyday operating but for this contest I put it up all the way which put my JK-MID-TRI with 5el's on 10m at 90+ feet.  I wasn’t disappointed, conditions were amazing.  I had a plan to run run run on the first evening. The plan went out the window fairly quick when the runs were too slow so I decided to shift to chasing multipliers and cluster spots which was much more productive. The cluster spots (often busted) were most times fairly easy to work.  On Saturday some very strange noise developed that my Elecraft K4D just wouldn’t take out that made Saturday afternoon difficult and tiring. Early evening went well, the noise disappeared and the JA’s along with other Far East stations were plentiful. I just couldn’t work any SA stations and struggled with everything to the South. Sunday was a better day, the runs picked up and the multipliers seemed to be easier to work. I didn't work any mult's on the first call but staying slightly off frequency always seemed to help. Late Sunday the SA stations were so strong I thought my JK-MID antenna had turned but it was just the skip changing.  In the last hours JA and BY stations were 20 over along with a few aurora OH and SM stations.  It was just a fun contest!   73, Tony K2SG

-=-
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