[W8MWA] CQ World Wide DX Contest Post-Contest Review

[Spence Graham]

The 2018 CQ World Wide Contest is in the WT8WV logbook and it was a blast
to work contacts around the world.  My personal goals for this contest was
to pick up 3 new countries toward my Logbook of The World DXCC count (mixed
and phone) and to increase my country counts on 80, 40, 20, 15 and maybe
even 10 meters. I additionally wanted to evaluate my station performance to
others in a similar set up using different antenna systems.  It was also my
first foray into official club contesting and I wanted to see how well that
worked with the Northeast Maryland Amateur Radio Club (NEMARC) DXing and
Contest Society.  They were all VERY friendly and supportive from beginning
to the end!  I truly felt like a teammate and a friend.



With the real-time live scoring displayed on my monitor, I knew how the
team was doing, as a whole and individually, throughout the weekend and it
added to the competitive juices to help the club reach a new goal.  You
also could see where other teammates were working on the bands.  We also
used a live chat room to encourage each other and to see if sudden band
openings or unique multipliers became available.



The club broke the previous year’s record with over 4.5 million total
points.  N3JFP’s software was flawless and integrated easily with the live
and individual scoring web features.  Scott Davis (N3FJP) has been a great
encouragement to the club and to me, and I appreciate the time he has spent
with me to get a contest club created in North Central West Virginia!  I
can honestly say that team contesting has added an Order of Magnitude of
FUN to my own enjoyment of radio sport contesting.  I also learned that a
hex-beam is now on my eventual To-Do List, as those using them more than
doubled or tripled my dipole score.



My station set up consisted of an Icom 7300 running 100 watts into G5RV
flat-top dipoles at 43 and 45 feet, in opposing directions, and a Heil Pro7
headset.  There were ZERO sun spots to add to the challenge.  So here are
the results…



WT8WV

DXCC Count Pre and Post 2018 CQWW Contest

405 QSO’s   1087 QSO points   264 multipliers

Worked 19/40 Zones during the contest

Worked 80 unique DXCC entities during the contest

Total Score   286,968 points



Mixed  77  85  +9

Phone  73  81  +9



80m  15  25  +10

40m  40  50  +10

20m  67  74  +7

15m  16  32  +17

10m  1  3  +2



Includes working the Ducie Island DXpedition split frequency on 15 meters.

ZERO sun spots.  15 and 10 meters were intermittent, at best.



-- 
73,

Spence

*Spencer W. Graham, II*
*WT8WV*
*73 Crosby Road*
*Morgantown, WV 26508*

*2017-2018 VP of Monongalia Wireless Association http://www.w8mwa.org/
<http://www.w8mwa.org/> *
*ARRL Volunteer Examiner *
*W5YI Volunteer Examiner*
*Laurel ARC Volunteer Examiner*
*ARRL WV Section Affiliate Club Coordinator *

*Check Out My Ham Radio Blog Site...  http://kb8fir.wordpress.com
<http://kb8fir.wordpress.com>*

*(ex-KB8FIR and ex-KA8LJO)*
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