CQWW WPX Contest, CW - 2023
Call: KQ2M
Operator(s): KQ2M
Station: KQ2M
Class: SOAB HP
Class Overlay: Unassisted
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 36.0
OpMode: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 128
40: 680
20: 1193
15: 1216
10: 68
------------
Total: 3285 Prefixes = 1042 Total Score = 10,030,292
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
I chose to operate NON-Assisted because I still like the challenge of finding
all the qso's and mults by myself. I may try Assisted in the future since I am
forced to compete in the Assisted category which is now just called
"Single-op".
Tuesday before the contest I was at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD
celebrating my daughter's Graduate School graduation (MSE degree in Applied Math
and Statistics) and then meeting some of her professors and helping her with her
new apartment in Washington, DC.
Friday I was back and operating WPXCW. Quite a mind-shift - took me a while to
get my head in the game. LOL!
The spectacular cndx Friday night and Saturday morning to JA / Asia really
caught me by surprise, and I was surprised yet again by the very, poor cndx to
EU on 20 on Sunday morning. I definitely did not max out the Asian prefixes on
Friday nor did I get much out of Sunday morning which was disappointing.
WPXCW has always been the trickiest of contests to operate because of the
combination of Summer cndx, the unpredictability of openings and the requirement
of taking 12 hours of off-time. IF you guess wrong on the off-times and miss a
rare opening, your score gets hammered!
I have noticed through the decades in WPXCW that there seems to be a
"constant" of the number of stations that I can work each year, and,
like ARRLDX, the biggest question is what will the final distribution of qso's
be on each band to arrive at that "constant" total?
This year I expected to make far more qso's than I did in 2022 and 2021, and I
was disappointed that I did not exceed those totals even though I got off to my
best start ever with 1029 qsos and 572 mults by 09z. 40 was especially
disappointing - the rates were poor even though the signals were strong - was
the MUF was too high? The poor cndx for part of Sunday ceratinly offset the
awesome cndx to Asia Friday/Saturday. K = 5 at some point during the contest
seems to be a requirement for a DX contest in 2023.
I know that this year I did not feel loud after Saturday evening unlike in 2021
and the qso rates correlated both years to how loud I felt. More than half of
all stations asked me for repeats of the serial number, far more than ever
before, like I was not being heard. It consistently lowered my hourly rates.
Were there lots of T-storms in Europe this weekend?
After the contest I also noticed how infrequently I was being spotted on DX
Summit compared to other stations, even when I was very much in the clear and
the qso rates were good. The opposite was true in WPXSSB when I was spotted
often and the rates were much better.
Overall the volume of stations seemed to be down given the quality of openings
and the signal strengths on 15, 20 and 40 Friday - Saturday. 80 was a total
loss Friday night and ok on Saturday but not good. QSB was incredibly deep and
fast all weekend.
The biggest problem for me were the microsleeps which were incredibly bad after
my not sleeping Friday night. I had to pull many mults out of the log and many
other qsos were also lost because I would send a report and then fall asleep
instantly before I heard the reply, waking up to a clear freq. My apologies in
advance to anyone that might have been impacted.
I still have not found a successful strategy for counteracting the microsleeps
which can plague me for hours before finally going away. Does any ops out there
get these? If you do, have you found anything that works for waking you up and
staying awake? Coffee/caffeine is not an option for me due to persistent Heart
arrhythmias and the ever-present AFIB risk, especially when I am
sleep-deprived.
Congratulations to Dave, K1ZZ on a great job! I'm always amazed at how similar
our scores and band by band breakdowns are. Each year I get a little closer to
him which is a good challenge for me since I do not use spotting assistance.
It was great to hear so many Ukraine stations on!
I look forward to operating this contest each year. It is still one of my
favorites with lots of propagation surprises like hearing EU at 06:30z on 15!
73 and tnx for the qso and mults!
Bob, KQ2M
kq2m@kq2m.com
BREAKDOWN QSO/mults KQ2M CQ WORLD WIDE PREFIX CONTEST Single Operator
HOUR 160 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOT
0 ..... ..... 133/120 ..... ..... ..... 133/120 133/120
1 . . 1/1 59/40 61/55 . 121/96 254/216
2 . 7/5 58/33 44/28 3/3 . 112/69 366/285
3 . 5/1 61/31 62/27 . . 128/59 494/344
4 . . . 131/61 . . 131/61 625/405
5 . . 88/42 17/5 1/1 . 106/48 731/453
6 . . 3/0 103/49 1/1 . 107/50 838/503
7 . . . 100/38 . . 100/38 938/541
8 ..... ..... ..... 91/31 ..... ..... 91/31 1029/572
9 . . . 40/14 . . 40/14 1069/586
10 . . . . 33/7 . 33/7 1102/593
11 . . . . 128/35 . 128/35 1230/628
12 . . . . 114/33 . 114/33 1344/661
13 . . . . 108/33 . 108/33 1452/694
14 . . . . 97/21 . 97/21 1549/715
15 . . . . . . . 1549/715
16 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 1549/715
17 . . . . . . . 1549/715
18 . . . . 98/25 7/0 105/25 1654/740
19 . . . 25/6 69/21 9/7 103/34 1757/774
20 . . . 49/11 47/12 2/2 98/25 1855/799
21 . . . 33/8 17/3 . 50/11 1905/810
22 . . . 29/6 31/9 31/11 91/26 1996/836
23 . . 68/7 . 1/1 . 69/8 2065/844
0 ..... ..... 90/14 1/1 2/1 ..... 93/16 2158/860
1 . 25/6 51/6 . 1/1 . 77/13 2235/873
2 . 76/13 . . . . 76/13 2311/886
3 . 15/1 59/5 . . . 74/6 2385/892
4 . . 62/15 17/2 . . 79/17 2464/909
5 . . . 88/10 . . 88/10 2552/919
6 . . . 3/0 . . 3/0 2555/919
7 . . . . . . . 2555/919
8 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 2555/919
9 . . . . . . . 2555/919
10 . . . . . . . 2555/919
11 . . . . . . . 2555/919
12 . . . . 67/7 . 67/7 2622/926
13 . . . . 82/17 . 82/17 2704/943
14 . . . . 72/10 1/1 73/11 2777/954
15 . . . . 52/10 12/1 64/11 2841/965
16 ..... ..... ..... ..... 54/5 3/2 57/7 2898/972
17 . . . . 7/4 . 7/4 2905/976
18 . . . . 56/15 . 56/15 2961/991
19 . . . 41/5 12/2 1/1 54/8 3015/999
20 . . . 77/15 . . 77/153092/1014
21 . . . 99/13 . . 99/133191/1027
22 . . . 73/12 2/1 2/2 77/153268/1042
23 . . 6/0 11/0 . . 17/0 3285/1042
DAY1 ..... 12/6 412/234 783/324 809/260 49/20 ..... 2065/844
DAY2 . 116/20 268/40 410/58 407/73 19/7 . 1220/198
TOT . 128/26 680/274 1193/382 1216/333 68/27 . 3285/1042
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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