[TVARC] CQWW DX CW contest

[George Briggs]

Well, THAT was interesting!
After falling short by one state in my quest to work all states during Sweepstakes SSB, I
decided to try for DXCC this weekend in the CQWW DX CW contest.  Once again, I fell a
bit short of my goal.  I haven’t figured out the final total yet, but it is either 96 or 97
countries.  I encountered about 15 additional countries, but I simply could not get through
to them.
I made a few mistakes relative to this attempt.  One might say that the first mistake was
even attempting it at all.  It was quite a grind because of the next two mistakes.  Mistake
#2 was in deciding to try for DXCC without the aid of a spotting network.  As a result, I had
to find ALL of the 96/97 countries by tuning (searching and pouncing).  Mistake #3 was
only using 100W.  I COULD have used an amplifier because I swapped out all of my Eaton
arc fault breakers with the latest model on Friday.  My transmitter no longer trips these
breakers in my house.  But, I went with the 100W.  Lots of breaks and naps helped me
endure the long stretches in the chair tuning and tuning and tuning, sometimes for up to
an hour without even hearing a new country (esp on Sunday).
40M was the money band.  It was wide open all night Friday and Saturday, and it provided
a final couple of countries on Sunday evening.  20M and 15M were minor players.  I had over
60 countries in the log by the time I went up to LSL for ROS on Saturday morning.
Although it was often boring tuning around without much action, it was very exciting towards
the end to pick up a new one.  And there were some juicy countries to be had.  Some contacts
that were especially gratifying with 100W and a low dipole were Japan, New Zealand, Guam,
Australia, Rodgriguez Island, Oman, Israel, Albania and San Andres.  Sadly, no one was active
from Montserrat.  Because I only cared about countries, I didn’t waste time calling stations in
countries that I had already worked, so I only made about 200 contacts.
Will I try this again?  Naaah!  This one was one and done!
73,
George K2DM
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