CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW - 2023
Call: KN7Y
Operator(s): KN7Y
Station: KN7Y
Class: SOAB HP
Class Overlay: Classic
QTH: AZ
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 6 5 4
80: 29 9 12
40: 110 22 40
20: 69 17 28
15: 133 24 61
10: 170 22 58
------------------------------
Total: 517 99 203 Total Score = 410,418
Club: Arizona Outlaws Contest Club
Comments:
Thanks from AZ for the Q’s, mult’s, and friendly competition in the
mini-pileups, and to those ops who rendered Zone multipliers on 80 and 160 – I
returned the favor for other US ops when calling CQ.
Participating in more contests and State QSO parties in 2023, I decided to be
more detailed in my Comments for the benefit of documenting a little history and
sharing the experience with others who might find it useful.
I have been looking forward to CQWW CW, and before the contest, took a look at
the 2022 W7 results to decide on a classification where I might be more
competitive instead of just generating a score for the AOCC. Given some
limitations of my antennas, I decided to select the Classic Overlay for 24 total
hours of unassisted fun. I ran 200 watts (Yaesu FT-2000D) into home-brew
¼-wave verticals on 10-15 (base up 35’), 20 (base up 22’), and an
Alpha-Delta 40-80-160 Inv-V up about 33’.
Mostly hunting & pouncing, I called CQ when a frequency was clear and when
times were especially favorable to Japan and was able to more rapidly generate
QSO points here and there. I didn’t waste time trying to hold a frequency
when stronger ops decided they wanted the action, however, but then was able to
pick up multipliers back to H&P with a little “west-coast advantage” by
finding, among others, 3W9A (Z 26), AH2R (Z 27), and 4W8X es 9M6NA (Z 28), etc.,
calling CQ and open, and ended up working 88 DXCC entities and 30 Zones
overall.
Before the contest, conditions were favorable but by Saturday, WM7D’s Solar
Resource Page had reported geomagnetic storms reaching the G2 level. For future
references, the reported SFI by 13:00 Z Sunday (while drafting some of my
thoughts for this summary) was 176, with A-index increasing to 38 and K-index 2.
Still, with my limited antennas from Arizona, I was up very earlier Sunday
morning and decided to put an hour toward the Classic Overlay’s 24, and was
able to work Hawaii, Australia es New Zealand, Japan, Brazil, England, and
Puerto Rico es Cayman Is., on 40 meters within a one-half hour window between
09:00 – and 09:30 Z (Arizona 2-2:30 AM). A jump to 80 and 160 for that
remaining half-hour of battling greater noise levels rendered additional
multi’s, HI and AK on 80 and Canada on 160. Back to bed and to preserve the
final hours…
After some more sleep (by this time, I’m liking the Classic Overlay although I
find myself keeping closer attention to my inventory of “invested hours”),
and coffee at 11:00 Z Sunday morning and before investing my final 4-hours of
air-time I took time to begin writing this summary and comparing numbers with
2022 totals. Even with the Overlay this year, the numbers were not far away
from passing my 2022 totals and if there were early openings to EU, I would be
able to pull off a much higher score, even with the Classic Overlay. Did I
mention I got some much-needed sleep?
After coffee and a little breakfast, wishes were answered back at the rig for
the last hours with Sunday morning openings on 10 and 15, so well so that I
didn’t make it back to 20 meters before time ran out. The first Q Sunday was
Serbia on 10 meters, and I worked my way down the band with more EU’s to
follow not to mention a couple of SA’s, Caribbean, and Hawaiian stations along
the way. It was good to find 10-meters doing so well. After focusing on 10, I
checked 15 and ended up spending the last hour picking up some nice multipliers
in the H&P mode.
73 to all – again thank you for the Q’s and mult’s.
Jack KN7Y
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