The 2017 ARRL DX Contest
The next big contest I plan on keeping notes while I'm doing the contest. I think of so many things I want to say when I write these stories, but then forget them after the contest is over. I know, it's old age.
One thing is changing in contesting in recent years. A lot of stations are now using digital recorders to aid them in copying stations. At least that is what I surmise from actions like this. I was trying to work EA8ZS through a pileup. I sent my call then listened to the pileup for about 15 seconds to see who he was going to work. To my surprise after I hadn't sent anything for those 15 seconds out of the blue came K3WWP 599KW. I can only guess EA8ZS was listening to a recording to not respond for such a long time. Not so dramatically, but I often call someone and don't get a response until a few seconds later. If anyone has any other explanation of such actions, let me know.
The contest started very slowly for me, working only KP2M the first half hour. The pileups on every DX station were well, awesome ones I couldn't come close to breaking. So I quit for three hours.
When I came back at 0330Z, things were a little better as a lot of the big USA contest station had already worked a lot of the stronger DX stations, giving me more of a chance to get the DX. I started in with V43Z on 20 who was sending his power as TTT. I guess that was supposed to be 1000. Even stranger, although I didn't work him, was PV8ADI sending his power as RR. Although ATT for 100, NN for 99, and the like are common, the TTT and RR were odd. Then I added PJ4X on 20 before going to 40. My first station there was the aforementioned V43Z again. I stayed around for about an hour on 40 with a short excursion to 80 for KP2M. I worked some EU and AF stations. I awoke in the 1000Z hour and my first QSO then was with KH6LC on 40. My Hawaii pipeline was a bit leaky though as it took several repeats of my call to make the QSO. Usually I work KH6 with only a single call or at most with one repeat. Later that hour I worked KH6LC on 80 with the same rough time. I made 5 QSOs that hour before going back to bed until 1330Z when I got up and got back on the air again around 1400Z.
My first QSO was with EF1A whom at first listen I thought was the ever present ZF1A, hearing only F1A when I called. That 1400Z hour was my best hour of the contest with 25 QSOs. Most all were with the common contest stations. I thought the Belize stations had a couple nice calls this year in V3T and V3M. Just like so many of the England stations such as G5W G4A M7O and the like. Those one by one calls are really nice for contesting. It was nice to work Bert F6HKA who was greeting all those he worked by name if he had them in his computer. At least I guess it was his computer or else he has a fantastic memory. Later in the contest I worked Franki OQ5M and we always greet each other by name. One other station whom I forget now called me Jack.
In the 1500Z hour, it was pretty much the same although not as many QSOs. Somewhat unusual was EF6T. Most Balearic Is. stations I work used the standard EA6 prefix although I have worked EC6, ED6, and other EF6 stations in the past.
My only 10 meters QSO came in that hour thanks to TI5W, whom I also worked on 15, 20, and 40. Other 4 band stations were CR3W 80 40 20 15, KP2M 80 40 20 15. That was it. There were a lot of 3 band stations.
The rest of Saturday afternoon and early evening presented nothing unusual in the way of stations worked. The propagation was a bit unusual though. Many times I could not get any response from stations who were well over S9 up to S9+25 even with no competition, but work stations who were only S6 or S7, perhaps even weaker, fairly easily. Later then, I'd hear the strong stations again, but weaker, and work them pretty easily. That actually continued for most of the contest except for a short period Sunday afternoon when I could go up and down 20 and 15 working most all stations I heard that I hadn't worked earlier whether they were weak or strong. That didn't last too long though.
For some reason, antenna orientation or whatever, I sometimes have trouble working central or southern South American stations, so I was surprised to work CW4MAX and CW5W back to back easily on 15 meters early Saturday evening.
When I went to 40 at 2330Z, Europe was coming in strong and I easily worked several station like S52AW, EA1DAV, IR2C, EF7X, G5W, EI7M, OM5ZW, IT9CJC, EA8CN (Africa), TM5Y (80M), S56X, and several more including IS0/OM8A for what I think is my only new band country in the test. That was in the 0100Z hour during which I also worked TO7A and CR3W on 80M. My 80M noise was around S8 Saturday evening or I might have done better on that band. With the noise that high and 40 slowing down, I quit at 0200Z until 1330Z Sunday morning.
Sunday morning proved a little better than Saturday morning, but not all that much. I worked a few somewhat unusual (for me) stations on Sunday. One was KG4ZK - I hadn't worked Gitmo in a contest in quite a while. Another unusual thing was not working Scandinavia except for OH8WW in a very rough QSO. Normally I have a good pipeline to that part of Europe. Not only not working, but not even hearing OZ OH OH0 LA SM stations. Although I didn't work Russia (RU1 was strong, but couldn't get him), I did work a couple Kaliningrad stations - RW2F and UA2FZ both on 20 plus ES5Q in Estonia. A somewhat unusual prefix was XF2L. The Hawaii pipeline was repaired and I worked KH6LC easily on 15 as well as KH7Q and KH7M also a little later on 15.
The last couple hours of the contest were pretty much like the first hour with huge unbreakable pileups on most of the stations. I guess a lot of folks got on expecting the pileups to be pretty much gone at the end, but instead they caused the regenerated pileups. HI
Anyway although I didn't come remotely close to the 633 QSOs I made in the 2002 ARRL DX test, it was a lot of fun and I put in more hours than I intended. Yes, QRP and simple antenna still work pretty well away from the sunspot peak years with the Solar Flux in the 70s. Wonder what next year will bring with the SF probably down in the 60s.
Hope those of you reading this also had a good time in the contest, be it with QRP or QRO, simple antennas or big high gain antennas, poor locations or something on a hilltop.
Let's examine some of my stats now:
Band QSOs Mults
80 - 5 5
40 - 50 34
20 - 100 46
15 - 58 34
10 - 1 1
tot - 214 120
Continent - QSOs - Nr of countries - Country list
AF - 11 - 3 - D4 EA8 CT3
EU - 109 - 24 - EA6 ON E7 9A OK G ES OH F DL HA EI I UA2 LX SP CT IS GM OM S5 EA GW YU
NA - 68 - 20 - V2 C6 8P VP9 V3 ZF TI CM J7 KG4 6Y XE VP2M FM HP KP4 PJ6 V4 VP5 KP2
OC - 5 - 1 - KH6
SA - 21 - 7 - P4 PJ4 PY PJ2 FY CX YV
tot 214 - 55
Hour tot 80 40 20 15 10
0000 - 1 0 0 1 0 0
0300 - 10 1 7 2 0 0
0400 - 9 0 9 0 0 0
1000 - 5 1 4 0 0 0
1400 - 25 0 0 4 21 0
1500 - 6 0 0 3 2 1
1600 - 2 0 0 1 1 0
1800 - 9 0 0 8 1 0
1900 - 14 0 0 11 3 0
2000 - 8 0 0 8 0 0
2100 - 4 0 0 3 1 0
2200 - 9 0 0 8 1 0
2300 - 10 0 10 0 0 0
0000 - 7 1 6 0 0 0
0100 - 11 2 9 0 0 0
1300 - 10 0 0 3 7 0
1400 - 6 0 0 3 3 0
1500 - 15 0 0 8 7 0
1600 - 7 0 0 6 1 0
1700 - 23 0 0 22 1 0
1800 - 8 0 0 4 4 0
1900 - 2 0 0 1 1 0
2000 - 2 0 0 2 0 0
2100 - 1 0 0 1 0 0
2200 - 5 0 1 1 3 0
2300 - 5 0 4 1 0 0
Times a station has been worked before in all my years of hamming including contest and non-contest QSOs.
Stations I worked more than once in the contest will be listed only once.
For example the first of 4 times I worked KP2M was the 49th QSO we've had so he will be
listed as only 49 although subsequent QSOs would be 50,51,52. After his call I'll put (4)
to indicate that was the first of 4 QSOs. Hope that's clear:
Times - How many stations - List of stations
1 - 22 - CO2RQ CT7/F6IRA (2) DK0SV DM5N (2) EA2HW EA2OT EA6VQ EA8KW GM0NAI HP3SS IB2T IZ1YPF
J75Y KG4ZK OM7LW PJ6T V3M (2) V3T (2) V43Z (3) VP2MVV (2) XF2L YV5LAY
2 - 9 - CW4MAX DM2DXA F5RQQ II3W IK5ZWU KH7Q M7O PP5NY S52NR
3 - 7 - 9A2NA 9A3XV IT9CJC IW1ARB MM2N TO1A ZF9CW (3)
4 - 11 - 9A5M DL1REM EA8RM EF6T GW5R IO2X (2) NP3X (3) OT6M S50Q S51YI SN8B (2)
5 - 10 - C6ARU CR3W (4) DK0MM GM3YTS OK2D S51DX S56X TM5Y UA2FZ V31JZ
6 - 3 - EF7X GM5X YT1A
7 - 2 - CO2JD F2GL
8 - 7 - DL1WA EA1DAV EA2LU HA7GN S57Q VP5K VP5M
9 - 6 - C6ANM C6AUM G4A OH8WW OM5ZW S52AW
10 - 3 - F5MUX HG3R V26M (3)
11 - 4 - EA4TX IO4T KH7M PW2D
12 - 2 - CW5W TO7A (3)
13 - 4 - 6Y2T (3) DD2ML EA8CN EF1A (2)
14 - 3 - DK8ZB M3W P40R (3)
16 - 3 - EA5RS ES5Q S57AL (2)
17 - 2 - IR1Y OQ5M
18 - 1 - NP2N (3)
19 - 2 - EI7M (3) IK3UNA
20 - 4 - CO8ZZ (2) CS2C EA8ZS IS0/OM8A
21 - 5 - DD1A FY5KE (2) NP2P (2) NP3A (3) PJ4X (3)
22 - 3 - DL7ON G5W (3) TM6X
23 - 3 - CR6K D4C (3) S50K
24 - 1 - WP3C (3)
26 - 2 - DL2DX DL6FBL (3)
27 - 3 - E7DX (2) TI5W (4) WP3R
28 - 1 - S53A (3)
29 - 1 - 8P5A (3)
30 - 1 - IK0YVV
32 - 1 - PS2T
33 - 2 - IR4X P40L (3)
37 - 1 - IR2C (2)
38 - 1 - LX7I
41 - 3 - KH6LC (3) SN7Q VP9/W6PH
42 - 1 - F6HKA (2)
43 - 1 - TM6M
45 - 1 - RW2F
49 - 1 - KP2M (4)
54 - 1 - DK3GI
55 - 1 - F5IN
59 - 1 - HG6N
60 - 1 - ZF1A (3)
67 - 1 - 9A1A (2)
69 - 1 - HG1S (2)
90 - 1 - PJ2T (3)
