CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2022
Call: P44W
Operator(s): W2GD
Station: P40L/P49Y
Class: SO(A)AB HP
QTH: Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 43
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 179 16 44
80: 647 24 87
40: 1249 32 112
20: 1091 36 115
15: 1414 33 120
10: 1820 30 117
------------------------------
Total: 6400 171 595 Total Score = 14,466,676
Club: Frankford Radio Club
Comments:
STATION DESCRIPTION
Many thanks to John P40L/W6LD and Andy P49Y/AE6Y for providing an
opportunity to once again operate their great station during the CQWW CW. I
really had a perfect weekend.
Note: All of the P40L/P49Y towers are on a small 100 x 100 foot lot:
Rohn 45 tower (66’): Single boom 2-element shortened 40m beam interlaced
with
4-element 20m @68’ (JK2040, long-boom version); 80m Inverted-V @65’; 160m
center-fed vertical dipole @ 65'
North Rohn 25 tower (56’): Single boom 5-element 15 interlaced with
6-element 10 @58’ (JK1015 configured for dual feed)
South Rohn 25 tower (45.5’): Tribander (JK Mid-tri)
RX Antennas: 4 beverages selected using K9AY switchbox: West-US (800’),
North/East US (500’), EU (800’)and East-West (AF and OC) (350’)
Rig: Elecraft K3/P3 + Alpha 91B 800 to 1100 watts
Logging software: Win-test V4.40
COMMENTS:
I'm proud to report the score posted above is the HIGHEST I've EVER accomplished
from Aruba. Let me try to put this in some prospective
This year was my 33rd Single Operator All Band entry in CQWW CW from Aruba in
the past 36 years. I've only gone elsewhere three times: 1988 - PJ1B M/M, 2000
- A61AJ M/M, and 2003 V47KP M/2. My first operation in 1985 was as P40GD from
the home of Jim, P43JD (SK). Then over the following seven years I operated from
the home of Gary, P43GR. When Gary left the island in '94 the station was moved
to it's present location in Santa Cruz. Having survived several
life-threatening health events over these many years, I feel blessed and
grateful to be here and still be physically able to enjoy this great sport of
ours. There are few competitive activities where participants north of age 70
can compete with those half in age and have a realistic expectation of success.
I think my ole friend Jim, N6TJ would agree with me on this point and say 'bring
em on'.
Over the lsst three decades here have been some amazing changes in the world of
technology which have impacted ham radio and contesting. In particular, the
explosion of personal computers, advances in transceiver design, and eventually
the widespread availability of internet access. All have them have made
off-shore travel with radio equipment and contesting far easier and more
enjoyable.
I'm old enough to vividly recall logging every contest QSO by hand and then
facing the painful chore of manually duping those P40 logs for submission.
Fortunately by the early 90's computer logging was evolving into the newest
"best thing", making the lives of contesters (and contest sponsors)
easier. Hats off to the early contest logging software pioneers (K1EA in
particular and many others too) for creating something most competitors take
completely take for granted today. I'm also thankful laptop computers became
smaller and affordable at about the same time.
Competition grade transceivers have evolved from seventy pound monsters to much
smaller and more powerful seven pound feature rich powerhouses, delivering
receiver sensitivity and selectivity only dreamed of back in the day. The chore
of hand carrying my old Kenwood TS-930 was gladly replaced with packing an
Elecraft K3 in a suitcase, with no one the wiser. I vividly remember the times
that along with the TS-930, I also had an Alpha 87A power transformer carried
in a bowling ball bag and a not so light or small Toshiba laptop as hand
luggage. We've come a long way over the last three decades.
The growth of the internet the last couple decades has radically changed the
world and it's benefits to contesting are many. We can now literally connect to
anyone anywhere with just a few keystrokes or by pressing some digits on a phone
keypad. Gaining access to what is at times critical technical information is now
a trivial task and almost effortless. The isolation that used to be a large
part of the island expedition experience back in the 80's and 90s is forever in
the rear view mirror. We've progressed from paper to automated on-line log
submission and the computers grade our logs harder than ever. The cluster
concept has evolved from a small number of isolated packet radio networks into a
global RBN system by virtue of internet resources. Contesters have greatly
benefited from this evolution of internet connectivity and technology and remain
quick to exploit new developments.
All of these changes the last several decades have made the effort required to
travel off to some island contest paradise that much easier and efficient. Its
fortunate and timely too since many of us have reached a point in life where
travel can be a somewhat more arduous undertaking, especially when lugging
copious amounts of gear. Youth unfortunately is not eternal.
The 2022 CQWW CW contest will always be remembered as a special one for me. I
felt like I was at the top of my game when the bell rang and immediately enjoyed
incredible rates at the start, ripping off 229, 253 and 238 hours back to back
to back (see the rate sheet). As 0200Z rolled by and I consciously resisted the
strong urge to QSY to 160 meters (one of my important strategy changes this year
- I waited till 0400 for my Top Band fix). Caught early 80 meter traffic from EU
and the US instead. Five hours in to the contest the average rate was a very
healthy 205/hour - by far the best start I've ever experienced in any contest.
Remember this is with just one radio, no SO2R, no 2SBIQ.
160 meters turned out to be the expected disappointment. Signals were weak -
the anticipated absorption a reality. Worked down the USA pileup - only three
EU and one AS stations joined the party that hour. For the remainder of the
first night there were better bands to gather points and multipliers.
Another change from my normal was to spend more time on 40 meters near EU
sunrise. Not sure if this really helped that much but it didn't hurt. When it
came time to consider a short break at 0830, I didn't feel tired at all so
decided to power though the remaining deep night and mentally prepare for the
sunrise runs, on 20 and then skipping over 15 going right to 10 where the band
was wide open to EU.
Another change in strategy called for abandoning the run to spend five to ten
minutes each hour grabbing multipliers, particularly the doubles that were shown
on the band map. The goal was to work at least one new mult per minute spent in
hunting mode. Did this at least 25 times over the course of the weekend and
believe it contributed significantly to the final elevated Z and C counts. Year
over year, I enjoyed an increase of 75 mults representing nearly a 10%
improvement over 2021.
Saturday morning and early afternoon involved switching back and forth between
15 and 10 with a planned emphasis on 10 to capitalize on the robust EU opening -
knowing it could fail to materialize again on Sunday (it fortunately did repeat
Sunday morning but not nearly as long and strong - you just never know).
Finished out the first day with a few hours of running stateside on 20. At the
half way point there were 4000 contacts and roughly 6.6 million points in the
log. It seemed the trend would a finish between 14.5 and 15.2 million if
conditions held together (and the operator did too).
Seeing lots of mult activity on the 160 band map, I made a sweep there starting
at 0030 grabbing 13 much needed multipliers in 22 minutes, mostly EU.
Conditions seemed much improved over the first night.
During the 0100 hour abandoned the run again and clicked off another 28
multipliers on 80/40/20/15 including six doubles. Being one radio limited forces
the need to periodically go on search and destroy binges like this one for a
somewhat extended period of time (34 minutes). Fortunately it was very
successful.
Another mini mult binge occurred in the middle of the 0500 hour, adding another
12 mults, eight of which were on 160 in 16 minutes of effort.
By 0800 the run rate had dropped below 200 and I was ready for some sleep. The
plan was to take a nap for 1.5 hours. It turned out differently. As a
consequence I was a little late to the party Sunday morning. Ten was still
productive but definitely didn't produce the expected rate and I keep trying to
make that happen without success - I should have been on 15.
During the 1400 hour I embarked on another mini-mult binge adding 22 mults in 30
minutes, with multiple doubles. From this point on to the end of the contest
the multiplier available window rarely had more than five or six calls listed
for all the bands at any one time. It seems you eventually reach a multiplier
plateau of sorts at a certain point. A large number of those still needed were
close in Carib countries, the most unfavorable places for real propagation. But
slowly over the next five hours many made it into the log - it was most often
the result of successfully timing calls when the pileup subsided - its never
easy.
The last six hours I tried hard to max rate ... shooting for 6400 contacts and I
got there with a whole five minutes to spare.
The dupe count was substantially lower than normal by a factor of two or three
this year. Would love to know how and why this happened. I'm ecstatic!
Breaking pileups is a big part of the Assisted game and I'm still shaking my
head in disbelief about how I somehow managed to make QSOs when what I felt
there was an impossible wall of calling stations to overcome at the moment.
This was particularly true when calling and working Carib stations on 10 and 15
meters as well as many stations in AS and AF. Some signals were of whisper
quality. Bravo to the guys with great ears.
Special thanks to the 45 of you who made it into the log on six bands, and
another 98 on five. This doesn't happen by accident. VFB!
Congratulations to those operators who are using advanced 2SBIQ and SO2R/SO2V
techniques to earn amazing scores (in particular this time EA8RM, N2NT, AA3B,
N5DX, CT1ILT, EA3M, RA3CO and others). I remain in awe of what you are doing.
The nice thing about contesting and particularly the contestssponsored by CQ
Magazine, there are entry class opportunities to fit the competitive abilities
of all participants, both young and "older", really something for
everyone. ILTHRS.
Hope to return to Aruba for this one again next fall. CQWW CW will always be
the BIG ONE for me.
73,
John, W2GD/P40W/P44W
Cabrillo Statistics (Version 10g) by K5KA & N6TV
Data obtained with the assistance of K8IA
CONTEST: CQ-WW-CW
CALLSIGN: P44W
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OP
CATEGORY-TRANSMITTER: ONE
OPERATORS: W2GD
-------------- Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour 160 80 40 20 15 10 Rate Total Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
0000 0 0 0 229 0 0 229 229 3.6
0100 0 0 251 2 0 0 253 482 7.5
0200 0 0 238 0 0 0 238 720 11.3
0300 0 145 24 0 0 0 169 889 13.9
0400 124 11 0 0 0 0 135 1024 16.0
0500 0 157 0 0 0 0 157 1181 18.5
0600 1 0 121 7 1 0 130 1311 20.5
0700 2 29 66 0 0 0 97 1408 22.0
0800 1 38 95 0 0 0 134 1542 24.1
0900 0 1 91 0 0 0 92 1634 25.5
1000 0 15 8 70 0 0 93 1727 27.0
1100 0 0 0 183 0 0 183 1910 29.8
1200 0 0 0 1 0 172 173 2083 32.5
1300 0 0 0 0 126 51 177 2260 35.3
1400 0 0 0 0 55 99 154 2414 37.7
1500 0 0 0 0 149 48 197 2611 40.8
1600 0 0 0 0 1 183 184 2795 43.7
1700 0 0 0 0 0 208 208 3003 46.9
1800 0 0 0 0 29 59 88 3091 48.3
1900 0 0 0 0 0 208 208 3299 51.5
2000 0 0 0 0 165 19 184 3483 54.4
2100 0 0 0 0 180 0 180 3663 57.2
2200 0 0 0 122 44 2 168 3831 59.9
2300 0 0 0 136 0 0 136 3967 62.0
0000 30 0 0 82 0 2 114 4081 63.8
0100 8 10 6 23 1 0 48 4129 64.5
0200 2 0 121 0 0 0 123 4252 66.4
0300 0 122 9 0 0 0 131 4383 68.5
0400 4 102 0 0 0 0 106 4489 70.1
0500 6 17 68 6 1 0 98 4587 71.7
0600 1 0 54 2 0 0 57 4644 72.6
0700 0 0 97 0 0 0 97 4741 74.1
0800 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4741 74.1
0900 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4741 74.1
1000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4741 74.1
1100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4741 74.1
1200 0 0 0 8 5 29 42 4783 74.7
1300 0 0 0 1 5 131 137 4920 76.9
1400 0 0 0 0 6 34 40 4960 77.5
1500 0 0 0 1 23 78 102 5062 79.1
1600 0 0 0 0 162 3 165 5227 81.7
1700 0 0 0 1 156 14 171 5398 84.3
1800 0 0 0 0 0 210 210 5608 87.6
1900 0 0 0 2 0 160 162 5770 90.2
2000 0 0 0 1 106 66 173 5943 92.9
2100 0 0 0 0 139 44 183 6126 95.7
2200 0 0 0 73 60 0 133 6259 97.8
2300 0 0 0 141 0 0 141 6400 100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 179 647 1249 1091 1414 1820 6400
Gross QSOs=6459 Dupes=59 Net QSOs=6400
Unique callsigns worked = 3735
The best 60 minute rate was 259/hour from 0105 to 0204
The best 30 minute rate was 266/hour from 0113 to 0142
The best 10 minute rate was 294/hour from 0001 to 0010
The best 1 minute rates were:
7 QSOs/minute 1 times.
6 QSOs/minute 23 times.
5 QSOs/minute 190 times.
4 QSOs/minute 557 times.
3 QSOs/minute 629 times.
Multi-band QSOs
---------------
1 bands 2329
2 bands 682
3 bands 377
4 bands 204
5 bands 98
6 bands 45
The following stations were worked on 6 bands:
N2NL N2AA W2AA W3MA AB2E K3LR
K1TTT W2FU WG3J K8LX K9CT K8AZ
VA2WA NA3M W2OIB NS3T K9RS P44X
HQ9X FY5KE V26K N8CC K3PH W3MF
W3KB K0RF N5RZ TK0C K2AX K2RET
AA1K W3LPL W9VW W1GD K3WW W8FJ
NX3A CX6VM PJ2T VE2IM K5UR N4QS
V47T CN3A K1LZ
------- S i n g l e B a n d Q S O s ------
Band 160 80 40 20 15 10
----------------------------------------------
QSOs 31 163 482 334 518 801
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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