The 2024 ARRL DX Contest
Mike and I were talking about the upcoming ARRL DX Contest a few days before the contest, and he asked me what was my QSO goal for the contest. I replied that I didn't have any goal. I said I might just use the contest for my streak QSOs or put in a serious effort or somewhere in between. I really didn't know. Actually I never did know until the contest started. When it did, I found some great conditions which persisted for all 48 hours of the contest. That encouraged me to put in more of an effort than I had in several years now.
I had planned if I did do a serious effort, I was going to do it with paper logging as a throwback to the early days of contesting. I never was much of a computer contester except for one thing. A computer is a much much better dupe checker than my old eyes and brain. I never relied on it for spotting or anything like that. I just used it to log and check for dupes. CW is a ham radio mode, not a computer mode. That's the way I see it anyway.
I did have a couple of goals for the contest, although never a goal of the number of QSOs. I always like to get a WAC in a contest with the sub goal of seeing how few minutes it takes to achieve the WAC. Keep reading to see if I made that goal. Also I like to try for an overall new country in a DX Contest. That will be found in the following story also.
I didn't learn much new from the contest, but it did reinforce some knowledge I already had. For instance, I know I can never be a great contester for one reason - LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. Living in this river valley in a small noisy town really hurts my DXability. Just comparing efforts with a few WPA friends makes that plain. They can work into areas that I can't even hear, like China, Singapore, Korea, Philippines, and other countries in that part of the world. I think it is mainly due to signals from that area having to take an extra skip or two to arrive here at the angle needed to hop over the hills that block this valley. Several years ago I spent Thanksgiving and the following CQWW DX Contest at my cousin's house which was located on top of one of the surrounding hills. The difference in reception was astounding. Signals were a few S units greater than here in the valley. Unfortunately she has since passed away so I can't do that again. However there are other instances of the comparison in signals from different locations. Just to mention a couple. The signals at the SkyView club are like night and day. Of course they have the big antenna farm to help also. Operating from our Kittanning Community Park with not only the altitude, but a negligible noise level as well. From Mike's QTH in Brookville for Field Day a few times. Also from the QTH at Chicora where Tom WB3FAE lives. And so on.
Speaking of WB3FAE, he asked me how I compare the IC705 to the KX3 for contesting. As with other aspects of ham radio, both have their good points. I like the band switching better on the ICOM as you can more quickly hop around to the different bands without having to go through all the bands in a row to get to the one you want. I like the feature of being able to record QSOs on the ICOM. Although I'm used to the external tuner for the ICOM now and really like it, I think the KX3 gets a point for the internal tuner for portability. Vice versa the internal Spectrum Scope on the ICOM beats out the external panadapter on the KX3. Other features are pretty much a toss up in my opinion.
Enough of a preface. Let's get down to business now. As I said, I was using paper logging. I set up blank sheets with two columns, each one having sub-columns for the bare minimum of info, namely TIME BAND CALL EXCHANGE which would hold for example 0007 15 JA3YBK KW. All the rest of the info can be added when I transfer from paper to computer after the contest. A minimum of writing and I could go at a rate of 30-60 QSOs per hour. Once I get to 150 or so QSOs though it becomes hard to dup check in my head. I'll have to work on that. Perhaps having a different log for each band would make it easier. I really don't know. Oh, one more thing that slowed me down a bit was trying to record some QSOs on the SD card in my new IC705. I have a goal of seeing how many countries I can get recorded with a goal of a DXCC. The contest would be an ideal place to increase totals. However in the excitement of the contest, I forgot to start the recording many times. HI
I decided to start with 15 meters. It was good to the Caribbean, but not much else, so it was on to 20. There it was better to AF and EU. Still I wanted to get an idea of how 40 was performing, so I went there. Wow, it was great to EU and I mean well into Europe, not just the western part of the continent. I had stations in my log like SP8R, RL3A, S57K, UW7LL, LN8W, LY2XW, and LY4A. All of which were easy QSOs. I probably should have stayed longer but the full blown contest effort was still not there and I took time out to get my weather readings, walk Roscoe, and watch some TV with my neighbor. I never did get back to the contest till the morning hours.
I started off at 1358Z with RU1A on 10 meters. The band was fantastic and reminded me of the last two sunspot peaks and the super conditions then. It's hard to divide Europe into common and rarer countries, but I have personal favorites, just for whether or not they are easy or hard to work for me. Some of the ones that are a little harder include RL3A, YL7X, ES5OW, LY4A, EW5A, YL3CW, UA2FZ, SP2PIK, EU2F, UR7EU, R1DX, TF3W. Some rarer prefixes like OG7A, SE0X, OG1F, DD2D, MW4R, MW5B, SC3A, SB7S, LB8DC, SJ6R, 4A7S. One interesting QSO was with OR5T. I worked him right after K3WW worked him. He handled it well with no confusion. HI. I wound up that session with 108 QSOs, all on 10 meters. I skipped around on 20, 15, and 10 for a while after that.
Here comes a highlight of the contest now. An overall new country for me, #229 in my list of worked countries. St. Helena, ZD7W on 15 meters, almost on the first time I called. I'd heard the country in the past a couple times, but never worked it. It was almost too easy. Oh, better not say that. It reminds me of South Africa when I worked ZS6EZ very easily after trying other times, but never succeeding. ZS6EZ read my comments in one of these contest stories saying how easy it was. Later on his QSL card he kidded me, saying next time he wouldn't make it so easy. HI
Back on 10 meters later, I achieved my second goal, working JR3NZC and JH8YOH to complete my WAC. I haven't figured yet how many minutes elapsed to make it, but glancing at the log I don't see KH6LC nor WH7T very close to the Japanese stations. Well, I take that back. I missed WH7T 20 minutes after the JA stations. So let me figure it out. It looks like 2209 JH8YOH, 2214 LU8DPM, 2227 WH7T, 2231 V31XX, 2240 F6IRA, 2247 ZD7W. That's 38 minutes. I've done better in past contests, but still that's not bad.
Nothing really out of the ordinary till I hit 80 meters at midnight. I thought maybe I'd find KL7RA there to complete my 80 meters WAS, bu no such luck. I did have fun working EU on 80. It's not all that easy with my QRP and attic random wire, but I did get VP9I, CR3W, HA1TJ, TM7A, G4A, OM7M, OL3Z, WP3C, OM2VL, OK1GK, 9A8M, ED7W, II2Q, CN3A, SP8R, KP2M. I don't think any are new 80 meters countries, but I'm going to pause in my writing to check. Well, Spain is new. I have all the rest, but need several confirmed yet.
As always, Sunday is slower than Saturday and it was the case again as most of the easy stations were worked on Saturday. Sunday did have some highlights though. Some new prefixes like IP3A, RU3A, MU5E, SC7DX, MM1E, 8R7X. Then to close out the contest, a run of JAs - JA3YBK, JN2AMD, JF1NHD, JH7XGN, JR1GSE, JI7NUF, JH7QXJ, JA3XOG. Quite an alphabet soup mix with those Japanese calls. HI.
Some stats coming up now. I wound up with 325 QSOs although some were dupes due to paper logging and old eyes and an old brain. 67 different countries divided among bands to make 151 multipliers.
QSOS BY BAND
10 - 164
15 - 84
20 - 43
40 - 17
80 - 16
QSOS BY CONTINENT
AF - 15
AS - 10
EU - 235
NA - 39
OC - 3
SA - 22
QSOS BY THEIR POWER
KW - 245
750 - 1
700 - 1
500 - 22
400 - 21
200 - 2
100 - 26
99 - 4
73 - 2
QSOS BY HOUR
0000 - 12
0100 - 10
1300 - 1
1400 - 35
1500 - 26
1600 - 17
1700 - 23
1800 - 6
1900 - 21
2000 - 7
2100 - 14
2200 - 11
2300 - 9
0000 - 11
0100 - 4
0500 - 15
0600 - 5
1300 - 1
1400 - 15
1500 - 9
1600 - 13
1700 - 8
1800 - 24
2000 - 9
2100 - 3
2200 - 11
2300 - 4
COUNTRIES WORKED - NUM OF QSOs
8P - 2
8R - 3
9A - 12
CM - 1
CN - 5
CT3 - 9
CU - 1
CX - 1
DL - 20
E7 - 2
EA - 9
EA6 - 4
EA8 - 1
EI - 3
ES - 2
EU - 4
F - 10
FM - 2
FY - 2
G - 13
GM - 3
GU - 1
GW - 2
HA - 11
HB - 3
I - 18
JA - 10
KH6 - 3
KL7 - 2
KP2 - 6
KP4 - 6
LA - 3
LU - 1
LX - 1
LY - 6
LZ - 1
OH - 7
OK - 13
OM - 7
ON - 5
OX - 1
OZ - 2
P4 - 5
PA - 3
PJ2C - 3
PJ4 - 1
PY - 4
PZ - 1
S5 - 18
SM - 10
SP - 14
TF - 2
TI - 1
UA1 - 9
UA2 - 1
UR - 4
V2 - 1
V3 - 7
VP2M - 1
VP5 - 2
VP9 - 1
XE - 1
YL - 4
YU - 6
ZD7 - 2
ZF - 5
ZP - 1
Bottom line: This report is dedicated to those who say they can't work DX because of their poor antenna, low power, etc., etc. Yes you can! Just give it a try and believe.
