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[3830] KQ2M 2001 WPXSSB SOABHP UNASSISTED (Long)

To: <3830@contesting.com>
Subject: [3830] KQ2M 2001 WPXSSB SOABHP UNASSISTED (Long)
From: kq2m@mags.net (Robert Shohet)
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 07:51:27 -0800
                 2001 CQWWWPX PHONE CONTEST

      Call:      KQ2M                   33.4 hours operated
      Category:  Single Operator
      Power:     High Power Unassisted
      Band:      All Band
      Mode:      SSB 
      Country:   United States

      BAND     QSO   QSO PTS  PTS/Q PREFIXES
      160        0        0   0.0        0
       80       53      111   2.1       37
       40       58      329   5.7       15
       20     1089     2760   2.5      232
       15     1601     4147   2.6      577
       10      781     1907   2.4      201
     --------------------------------------
     Totals   3582     9254   2.6     1062  =   9,827,748
     
All reports sent were 59(9), unless otherwise noted.

Equipment Description:
     
Club Affiliation: FRANKFORD RADIO CLUB

This is to certify that in this contest I have operated
my transmitter within the limitations of my license and have
observed fully the rules and regulations of the contest.

                             Signature _________________________________

           MAILING ADDRESS:
               ROBERT L. SHOHET  KQ2M
               51 SCUDDER ROAD       
               NEWTOWN, CT 06470

There is no contest that I enjoy operating more than WPX Phone.  It has
been my favorite contest for the past 25+ years and I always look
forward to it, but after the grueling ARRLDX SSB which had such lousy
propagation, I was determined not to make the same mistake again.  So when
the effects of the big solar disturbances continued up to the start of the 
contest replete with an S7 - S9 auroral buzz on 20, WWV showing a K of 5,
and horrible qrn from a departing Nor'easter, I needed little convincing.

At 0000, I heard W4MYA cqing in futility on the edge and I said hi to Bob and
gave him #1. We talked for 30 seconds and I shut off the radio and went
upstairs.  I had very mixed feelings as I love this contest, but the thought 
of spending the evening with Melissa (my 19 month old daughter) and my XYL
vs. working trying to work weak EU and stateside guys well underneath 
the S9 noise level - made it REAL easy to do this at 0001Z.

Being "daddy playground" while she repeatedly pounced and crawled all over
me (on the floor) was great but watching Melissa trying to feed herself (and 
my wife) ice cream with a big spoon was absolutely hilarious.  WPX?  What 
was that?

At 0530, I couldn't sleep and decided to try running on 80.  It was REAL bad 
and 20 was almost dead.  I operated for about 30 minutes and shut off the 
radio, read for an hour and went to sleep. 

At 1400 I woke up refreshed and again played with Melissa.  (I'm normally so 
busy at this time of the year that I usually work LONGER hours on Saturday 
and Sunday than during the week and don't play with her nearly enough)

At 1500z, after doing some odds and ends, and with a smile on my face, I got
curious and decided to take my cup of coffee downstairs and see how bad  
cndx were.  I started operating on 10 - which was pretty poor - but
I was "fresh meat" for everyone and the runs were pretty good, although it
was a much higher percentage of US q's than normal.  I had told Barbara, my 
XYL, that I was going to operate until I got tired or bored or both, and
then I would come upstairs.  Since this was going to be a casual affair, 
I left my "operating chair", spare computer, food, coffee, water and other
necessities, upstairs.

7 hours later, Barbara brought me some food and water (OOPS - this means
that I am SOA - right Randy?) and I told her that I would continue to
operate until propagation got worse or I got tired.

At 1400z on SUNDAY, when she and Melissa visited me again, I told her that 
I was going to operate to the end.  She was amused but not surprised. 
Melissa was VERY interested in the Heil headset and was not the least bit
shy at talking at full volume while I was running guys.  She even tried to 
grab the headset a few times and talk into it - (yeah, I know that some 
purists would say that I was assisted - but 'gimme a break - she is only
19 months old!).  A few EU and JA stations had to ask for repeats - it was
pretty funny.  I finished up at 0000z having operated the last 33 hours 
straight without leaving the radio once!

Cndx were really WEIRD.  Starting with Friday, I have heard MUCH better at 
the bottom of the cycle.  However, WPXSSB is very close to the Vernal 
Equinox and that time period usually has the best propagation of the whole 
year, so it was even stranger that cndx were BETTER in ARRLDX SSB even 
though it had a lower SF number and lower A & K indices.  Things began to 
improve on Saturday but 10 still did not really want to open to EU until 
late and 15 was poor to JA.  The low bands were poor as well.  
 
It was very weird to work "the boys", WC4E, KM9P, NT1N, KF3P, on Saturday
morning and be 700 - 1,000 q's behind them.  When Jeff (WC4E) called me he
said "I guess that you are not serious this weekend".  He was right, I
wasn't serious at the time. (Sorry Jeff!)

All during the day I ran and ran and ignored the 2nd radio.  I still had no 
plans to do a serious effort and wasn't going to be bothered with S & P
on the 2nd radio.  Besides, it re-developed it's bizarre tuning problem that
I had in CQWWSSB.  That is, it would tune down the band by itelf, stop, 
and then start tuning down again.  Trying to listen to it meant that I had 
to continually "compensate" for the tuning by continually moving the knob -
what a PITA!

When a JA called me on 15 at 2000z (a bit early) I was curious as to what was 
happening to the ionospheric "wet blanket".  By 2330 and with a good JA
run on 10, I was REALLY dying to hear the WWV report.  At 0018 they were 
predicting q-uns geomagnetic cndx with a K of 1 and SF of 210.  That was
all I needed to hear!  Propagation was going to get real good and I was 
going to operate the next 24 hours straight!  This meant of course that I 
could not operate more than 33 1/2 hours for the whole contest since I had 
already my 14 1/2 hours offtime by the time I sat down in the chair 
at 1510Z on Saturday.  I was going to get a reminder of what it was like to 
operate from "start-to-finish" although clearly it was only 34 hours vs 48. 

The JA run on 10 was shorter than anticipated and 15 did not stay open as 
late as in 2000, but XV9, 9M2, JT, 9V1, 9M6, YB, HL, BV, BY, KH0, HS and a
basketful of other neat stuff called in, unlike in ARRLDX SSB.  I still had
not figured out why I could be loud in Japan and Asia and had to struggle at
times to work EU. 

20 never had the all-night JA/EU runs that I had hoped for (seemed like
other guys also shut off the radio on Friday and never turned it on again)
and at times it was tough to get anything going.  I thought 15 would open
early (10Z) and bail me out.  It didn't.  When it finally opened, it was
pretty poor, except for the occasional VERY loud JA, YB or HS station.
Things got so poor to Eu that I had to go up the band to about 21.310
to get anything going.  I had a good run and went to 10 again about 13z.
A waste of time.  I tried 10 again later about 14z - it had loud CT's, EA's
and nothing else.  I couldn't wait any longer as EU was almost gone on 15
(15 went VERY long - very weak EU and very loud JA, HS, DS, etc) and I ran
for two hours.  I worked VERY loud UA9's, UN's etc. and could barely hear 
the occasional DL, but the band was sort of open - apparently most guys 
were tuning and not calling cq.  Unfortunately 10 died really early and
15 did not last much longer - but I have learned from experience that 10
and 15 usually disappear quite a few times before they finally die and sure
enough - every time I came back to 10 it was open somewhere else and a 
new bunch of callsigns and prefixes were in the log.

The nice thing about not having off-time was that I could simply stay on 
and run guys.  The not-so-nice thing was that when the doldrums hit about 
1600z - there was NO off-time to take.  YUCK!  I am sure that more than
one person was wondering why I was continuing to call CQ on an almost dead
15 meter band at about 1600z.

It was neat to work the "the boys" from time to time and see how I was
doing.  By about 2000z it was clear that I had caught up with them.

20 opened late, so 10 and 15 became a real drudge at times but this was made 
easier by all the S.A. and US stations that I could now call (since I had 
ignored them earlier).  This bought me some time until 10 REALLY opened to 
JA - but REALLY opening is relative. In New England, a really good JA opening 
on 10 usually means that the "super-loud" JA's are pushing 59+15 and that we
might actually have about two hours to run or S & P them. (They are louder on 
15 and we have a bit more time.)  The best 10 meter JA rate that I ever had
was a 111 hour and the best 10 meter JA run that I ever had was three  
hours - in 25 years!  

Realizing that I had worked most of the "easy" JA prefixes and that I needed 
q's (and most cq's were going unanswered), I planned to end the contest on 
40.  After (wasting) 30 minutes on 40 for the 6-pointers, and with one 
coastal storm to the East and another snow storm just to the West, the QRN 
was awful, so I decided to give up and go back to 20 where most of EU 
was anyway - working the loud W's.  That's where I finished the contest.

On Sunday, I had hoped to break 10 MEG (again), but between poor propagation 
and operating only 33 1/2 hours, it was too much of a challenge.

I had a lot of fun and realized that next year's WPXSSB probably won't be 
as interesting as we really get into the cycle 23 decline.  I am glad that 
I operated the contest the way I did. I will always have in my mind 
the "surreal" pictures of playing with my daughter on Friday evening during 
a major worldwide DX contest and reading and sleeping for 9 hours on the  
first day. 

Thanks for all the qso's!  CU in WPXCW (propagation permitting).  

73

Bob KQ2M

HOUR      160      80       40       20       15       10    HR TOT  CUM TOT  
   0    .....    .....    .....     1/1     .....    .....     1/1     1/1  
   1      .        .        .        .        .        .        .      1/1  
   2      .        .        .        .        .        .        .      1/1  
   3      .        .        .        .        .        .        .      1/1  
   4      .        .        .        .        .        .        .      1/1  
   5      .      33/31     4/4      2/2       .        .      39/37   40/38 
   6      .        .        .        .        .        .        .     40/38 
   7      .        .        .        .        .        .        .     40/38 
   8    .....    .....    .....    .....    .....    .....    .....   40/38 
   9      .        .        .        .        .        .        .     40/38 
  10      .        .        .        .        .        .        .     40/38 
  11      .        .        .        .        .        .        .     40/38 
  12      .        .        .        .        .        .        .     40/38 
  13      .        .        .        .        .        .        .     40/38 
  14      .        .        .        .        .        .        .     40/38 
  15      .        .        .        .      96/79    18/16   114/95  154/133
  16    .....    .....    .....    .....  200/127    .....  200/127  354/260
  17      .        .        .        .      22/14   151/74   173/88  527/348
  18      .        .        .        .      73/31    51/16   124/47  651/395
  19      .        .        .        .     167/55      .     167/55  818/450
  20      .        .        .        .     150/63      .     150/63  968/513
  21      .        .        .      97/21    25/15      .     122/36 1090/549
  22      .        .        .      51/7     48/21    14/5    113/33 1203/582
  23      .        .        .     147/46      .        .     147/46 1350/628
   0    .....    .....    .....     9/1     39/13    41/14    89/28 1439/656
   1      .       5/2       .        .      74/28     9/7     88/37 1527/693
   2      .        .      12/5     18/4     70/22      .     100/31 1627/724
   3      .        .        .     130/22     9/6       .     139/28 1766/752
   4      .        .        .     120/31     5/3       .     125/34 1891/786
   5      .        .      10/2    114/26      .        .     124/28 2015/814
   6      .      10/3      4/1     60/11      .        .      74/15 2089/829
   7      .        .       2/1    118/16      .        .     120/17 2209/846
   8    .....     2/1      5/0     74/17    .....    .....    81/18 2290/864
   9      .       3/0       .      85/12     1/1       .      89/13 2379/877
  10      .        .       1/0     29/7     78/8       .     108/15 2487/892
  11      .        .        .        .     101/16     2/1    103/17 2590/909
  12      .        .        .        .      84/9      2/2     86/11 2676/920
  13      .        .        .        .     104/10     5/5    109/15 2785/935
  14      .        .        .        .       2/0    114/12   116/12 2901/947
  15      .        .        .        .       1/1     99/8    100/9  3001/956
  16    .....    .....    .....    .....    47/9     21/1     68/10 3069/966
  17      .        .        .        .      56/14     2/1     58/15 3127/981
  18      .        .        .        .      17/4     62/6     79/10 3206/991
  19      .        .        .        .       1/0     83/17    84/173290/1008
  20      .        .        .        .      41/10    36/5     77/153367/1023
  21      .        .        .      15/4     66/13     7/2     88/193455/1042
  22      .        .        .       6/1     24/5     52/7     82/133537/1055
  23      .        .      20/2     13/3       .      12/2     45/7 3582/1062
DAY1    .....    33/31     4/4    298/77  781/405  234/111    ..... 1350/628
DAY2      .      20/6     54/11  791/155  820/172   547/90      .   2232/434
TOT       .      53/37    58/15 1089/232 1601/577  781/201      .  3582/1062

HOUR    160      80       40       20       15       10    HR TOT   CUM TOT 

   0   .....      .      .....      1/1    .....    .....    .1/1.    .1/1. 
   1     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .   
   2     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .   
   3     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .   
   4     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .   
   5     .      22/88     7/37     5/22      .        .      34/68    35/70 
   6     .        .        .        .        .        .        .      35/70 
   7     .        .        .        .        .        .        .      35/70 
   8   .....    .....    .....    .....    .....    .....    .....    35/70 
   9     .        .        .        .        .        .        .      35/70 
  10     .        .        .        .        .        .        .      35/70 
  11     .        .        .        .        .        .        .      35/70 
  12     .        .        .        .        .        .        .      35/70 
  13     .        .        .        .        .        .        .      35/70 
  14     .        .        .        .        .        .        .      35/70 
  15     .        .        .        .      38/150   12/90    50/135   85/109
  16   .....    .....    .....    .....    61/198   .....    61/198  146/146
  17     .        .        .        .       9/142   50/181   59/175  205/154
  18     .        .        .        .      27/163   33/93    60/124  265/147
  19     .        .        .        .      60/166     .      60/166  325/151
  20     .        .        .        .      61/148     .      61/148  386/150
  21     .        .        .      42/137   17/90      .      59/124  445/147
  22     .        .        .      18/173   29/99    13/62    60/113  505/143
  23     .        .        .      60/146     .        .      60/146  565/143
   0   .....    .....    .....     5/104   23/102   32/76    60/89   626/138
   1     .       4/80      .        .      52/86     5/109   61/87   686/134
   2     .        .       9/80     9/120   41/102     .      59/102  745/131
   3     .        .        .      55/142    5/108     .      60/139  805/132
   4     .        .        .      58/125    2/122     .      60/125  865/131
   5     .        .       5/115   55/124     .        .      60/123  925/131
   6     .      16/38     8/30    36/100     .        .      60/74   985/127
   7     .        .       1/114   59/120     .        .      60/120 1045/127
   8   .....     2/69     3/105   56/80    .....    .....    60/81  1105/124
   9     .       2/101     .      58/88     1/103     .      60/89  1166/122
  10     .        .       0/171   23/75    36/131     .      59/109 1225/122
  11     .        .        .        .      58/105    2/52    60/103 1285/121
  12     .        .        .        .      58/87     2/66    60/86  1345/119
  13     .        .        .        .      58/107    1/222   60/109 1405/119
  14     .        .        .        .       2/73    58/117   60/116 1465/119
  15     .        .        .        .       0/120   60/100   60/100 1525/118
  16   .....    .....    .....    .....    38/75    22/56    60/68  1585/116
  17     .        .        .        .      61/55     3/40    64/55  1649/114
  18     .        .        .        .      16/62    40/93    56/84  1705/113
  19     .        .        .        .       1/80    59/84    60/84  1765/112
  20     .        .        .        .      33/74    27/80    60/77  1826/111
  21     .        .        .      10/87    44/91     5/77    59/89  1885/110
  22     .        .        .       4/89    16/91    45/69    65/76  1950/109
  23     .        .      34/36     9/85      .      11/65    54/50  2004/107
DAY1   .....   0.4/88   0.1/37   2.1/142  5.0/155  1.8/129   .....   9.4/143
DAY2     .     0.4/52   1.0/54   7.3/109  9.1/90   6.2/88      .    24.0/93 
TOT      .     0.8/70   1.1/52   9.4/116 14.1/113  8.0/97      .    33.4/107 
BREAKDOWN in kilo-points by hr  KQ2M  CQ WORLD WIDE PREFIX CONTEST  Single 
Operator

HOUR    160      80       40       20       15       10    HR TOT   CUM TOT 

   0   .....    .....    .....    .....    .....    .....    .....    ..... 
   1     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .    
   3     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .   
   4     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .   
   5     .       182       31       11       .        .       224      229  
   6     .        .        .        .        .        .        .       229  
   7     .        .        .        .        .        .        .       229  
   8   .....    .....    .....    .....    .....    .....    .....     229  
   9     .        .        .        .        .        .        .       229  
  10     .        .        .        .        .        .        .       229  
  11     .        .        .        .        .        .        .       229  
  12     .        .        .        .        .        .        .       229  
  13     .        .        .        .        .        .        .       229  
  14     .        .        .        .        .        .        .       229  
  15     .        .        .        .       507       97      604      834  
  16   .....    .....    .....    .....     855     .....     855     1689  
  17     .        .        .        .        92      546      638     2327  
  18     .        .        .        .       235      136      371     2699  
  19     .        .        .        .       489       .       489     3188  
  20     .        .        .        .       477       .       477     3665  
  21     .        .        .       231      101       .       332     3997  
  22     .        .        .       100      159       40      300     4297  
  23     .        .        .       408       .        .       408     4704  
   0   .....    .....    .....      16      114      121      251     4955  
   1     .        18       .        .       235       45      298     5252  
   2     .        .        60       39      201       .       300     5553  
   3     .        .        .       259       38       .       297     5849  
   4     .        .        .       295       22       .       317     6167  
   5     .        .        40      265       .        .       305     6471  
   6     .        23       17      140       .        .       181     6652  
   7     .        .        10      249       .        .       259     6911  
   8   .....       6       10      186     .....    .....     202     7114  
   9     .         2       .       184        6       .       192     7305  
  10     .        .         3       76      160       .       239     7544  
  11     .        .        .        .       233        7      241     7785  
  12     .        .        .        .       170       12      183     7967  
  13     .        .        .        .       205       29      233     8201  
  14     .        .        .        .         3      209      212     8413  
  15     .        .        .        .         6      178      184     8598  
  16   .....    .....    .....    .....     102       33      134     8732  
  17     .        .        .        .       139        8      146     8878  
  18     .        .        .        .        38       98      135     9014  
  19     .        .        .        .         1      173      174     9188  
  20     .        .        .        .        94       63      157     9345  
  21     .        .        .        36      141       18      195     9540  
  22     .        .        .        11       50      102      163     9702  
  23     .        .        72       27       .        26      125     9828  
DAY1   .....     182       31      756     2916      819     .....    4704  
DAY2     .        48      213     1783     1956     1123       .      5123  
TOT      .       230      244     2539     4872     1943       .      9828   




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