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After the contest – Viva CW!

Glad the contest is over. Never thought I’d say that but this one… I don’t know what to think. The rates were horrible. I only had one fast hour of 117Q/h. That was 11.00 to 12.00utc on Saturday. Next bests are 98 and 89 and that’s it. In the biggest contest of the year. Compare that to all the CW contests I did this year where I have several +100 hours in a row. My conclusion? It seems that for SSB contesting you need more power than 1kW and more than a tribander up at 21m above the ground. Conditions were not too good but they have been all year so that can’t play. Maybe the OB11-3 does not play as well as the KLM KT34XA? It’s at least as good on 10m and better on 15m but maybe slightly less on 20m? But then again it has worked great in the CW contests.
One thing I am sure of: Viva CW!

The score is way down compared to last year.

  • 2006:  1508 QSO – 114 cty – 35 z  =  420.180 points claimed.
  • 2007:  1360 QSO – 107 cty – 32 z  =  378.219 points claimed.

The operating was a real QRM fest. And splatter! A couple of times I had a decent run going and then – whoops, all RX wiped out. On many occasions I knew there were DX stations calling me even with fairly good signals but when the QRM is S9+20dB you cannot copy those. I compiled a list of stations with VERY wide modulation that came (too) close to me.
My first run was early Saturday when the band was still closed but I thought to stick on that frequency and reserve a spot for when things got hot. A couple of CQ’s in vain and then there was OH0JFP firing away on my frequency. He’s forgiven as he couldn’t hear me but his CQ raised a small UA pile up.
Then at 06.19 along came UA3SAQ about 3kHz below me. 3kHz is a fair margin you say? Sure but with 12kHz wide signals I could move. He could hear me as he worked me right before he started to run.
At 08.00 OL5M was only 8kHz wide but of course a show stopper. 08.06 EW6GF popped up less than 1kHz away. That set the tone for what was to come.

Oh yeah, when you make a remark to those guys about how they are greedy for spectrum they don’t seem to understand. Standard reply is that they did ask if the frequency was in use. Errr, that was not what I was saying!
On Sunday at 06.20 LZ9W was 10kHz wide and at 07.20 ES375UT was 8kHz wide but he blamed the ‘strong propagation’ (sic). At 10.23 I was finally working more than one JA but RZ3LC decided to crank it up and with his 8kHz wide signal: exit JA. 10.25 was closer to home ànd someone who actually spoke / understood English. G6PZ was running East which is right over me but 8kHz wide and S9+40 although more than 2000Hz away. His reply to my remark that he wiped away all signals on my running frequency? "Well that’s great thank you". DUH!
Most funny guy must have been IZ8CKT who was more than 8000Hz wide but said -and I quote- his radio was only 20W at the moment. Another guy who doesn’t seem to get it.
My ‘measurements’ for the occupied bandwith were done like this: I zero beat the signal, move up/down until the QRM is manageble and multiply the offset by two. So in fact the bandwidth might even be bigger but as long as you can hear what’s under it…
And when I finally found a new multiplier towards the end (FS/K1XM at 17.52utc) YT5S wiped away the confirmation. Thanks for that mate! I think K1XM logged me and got my call correct but these impatient jerks just spoil all the fun.

It wasn’t all that bad and there were some nice things too. Being called by nice (double) mults for instance. Especially at the point where I realized I didn’t have a single VK or ZL in the log. Too bad ZL6QH quit! Then at 10.09 on Sunday ZM2M called me followed right away by VK4WR. That’s so sweet: 4 badly needed mults in half a minute. Again I didn’t work Alaska – hello guys?

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EDIT: I forgot some irritating other things:

  • Those #{|@{|@{   ‘last two’ callers… Normally I just ignore them until they give me a full call but in a contest this hurts the score.
  • Everyone just going ‘QRZ’ in stead of just giving their call. This goes just as fast and makes things go smoother.
  • Beiging called by ‘Mobile station calling’ or ‘QRP station calling’ – why not simply give me your callsign in stead of making me repeat that very same sentence?

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Counting down to CQ WW CW, which will most likely be SOAB(A) if WX permits. Can’t wait for a good CW contest because CW is the real mode, SSB is just passing time. It’s the difference between working a contest and enjoying a contest.

73 / CU!

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