CQWW WPX Contest, CW - 2023
Call: NJ6G
Operator(s): N7MH
Station: W6YX
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Stanford
Operating Time (hrs): 35
OpMode: 2BSIQ
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80:
40: 161
20: 724
15: 675
10: 47
------------
Total: 1607 Prefixes = 783 Total Score = 2,626,182
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
With our 40m Yagi destroyed in wind storms earlier this year I realized it was
going to be much harder to make 6-point QSOs with an inverted vee. Knowing that
40 was going to be a challenge I chose to sleep during much of the Asia opening
on 40, catching just the last few hours both days. It also seemed like a good
year to try low power just for fun.
As expected, my best hour on 40 during the Asia openings was only 18 Qs, and in
all I only worked 11 Asians there. If I'd started an hour or two earlier the
result may have been better since many of the JAs that were loud enough to work
were busy working to the west into EU. I didn't even try 80 since 20 was open
all night and probably giving higher point rates even considering the doubled DX
points on 80.
15 and 20 were both very good but our only rotatable antennas for those bands
are on the same mast and most of the time when 20 was producing well to EU there
were few EU on 15, but 15 was good to Asia. Similarly, when 15 was good to EU
then few EU were on 20 but Asia could be worked on 20. So I rotated the 15/20
stack back and forth, trying to milk both bands for 3-point Qs and mults.
I tried 2BSIQ on and off, but much of the time had few answers and it was more
efficient to pick off spotted multipliers from packet while CQing on the other
radio with a Yagi fixed toward the eastern US, or power split between the US
Yagi and wherever the 15/20 stack was beaming. After reviewing the log I found 6
2BSIQ sessions of 10 minutes or longer, with the longest being 30 minutes.
I checked 10 periodically, looking for RBN spots from the west coast, but there
were few. When I finally listened on 10 there were several South America
stations that I worked and then a very loud NH7T while I was still beaming to
South America, who commented that my 100 W signal was very loud there also. I
heard several European stations on 10 mid-afternoon on Saturday, including 9A
and DL, but none heard my low power signal and the path appeared to be nearly
due south. I worked 6 Asia Qs on 10, the first few from spots and then a short
CQ run. VC7G was a beacon on 10 that was heard regularly.
As in past years many stations first responded with N1BG and I corrected them
using more spacing between characters with NJ6G. This worked most of the time
but there were still probably 20 stations that eventually gave up and started
calling CQ again. I'm more careful now about correcting these errors since the
log checking causes me to get a NIL when it's really the other operator's
mistake.
Thanks to Dennis, NJ6G, for the use of his call yet again. Thanks for all the Qs
and to those who had to deal with many repeats due to my low power.
73,
-Mike, N7MH
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