The 2024 CQ WW DX Contest
I wasn't too enthused about this contest even though band conditions had been quite good for DX lately. I don't really know why. I guess old age is catching up on me. I figured I'd probably just use the contest to get my daily streak QSOs. If I did get interested more than that, it still wouldn't be much so I planned to log on paper if so.
I got my streak QSO at the start of the contest from ZF5T on 20M at 0021Z. Then I decided since I was in the shack, I might as well make a few more contest QSOs. FEW is the key word as the pileups were tremedous and I wasn't able to break them easily for the most part. I made 3 more QSOs before hanging it up for the night at 0046Z. The last one was encouraging though. It was XR7X easily worked on 15M. I hadn't been working southern SA much lately.
I still wasn't too enthused when I got up Saturday morning, but I thought I'd just see what was going on in the contest, so I fired up the rig at 1600Z and found the bands in good shape. EU was very good so I started with SN2B, YL2SM, and EA5M on 10M. However I didn't think 10M was as good as it should be, so I went to 15M. Stations were easier to work there and I finished out the hour there and including the 3 10M QSOs, I wound up with 12 QSOs when I QRT for a while to have my brunch and do some other things. They were all EU QSOs in that 1600Z hour.
I didn't get back to the contest till some three hours later. I worked ED7W at 1939Z on 15M. For the rest of the 1900Z hour I wound up with 10 QSOS. They were from EU NA OC SA AF, missing AS for my contest WAC. It would be hard to get as you'll see as the story goes on.
The 2000Z hour was a short one with only 8 QSOs in 24 minutes, nothing out of the ordinary. After time out for my afternoon meal, the 2100Z hour started with FY5KE on 10M and when it was over, only 7 QSOs were added to the log including 2 Hawaiins to close out the hour, followed by one more to start the next hour a few hours later at 0002Z to begin the Sunday half (UTC) of the contest.
That 0000Z hour started with 7 QSOs on 20M and 15M including HD8CW and KL7SB before moving on to 40M. It finished with a total of 16 QSOs, all the ones on 40 being from EU. Moving on to the 0100Z hour, 7 QSOs capped the Saturday evening, all on 40M, 6 from EU and 1 from AF. Midnight EST Saturday showed my overall total to that point to be only 64 QSOs. Considering my laid-back effort, I thought that was more than I should have, and convinced me I should put in a little harder effort the rest of the test.
One thing I kept in the back of my mind was my contest WAC, but Asia shouldn't come till late afternoon or early evening Sunday. Till then I filled the time on the air with ordinary stations with a couple here and there I considered a little unusual. I'll get to those in a bit after I describe the way I handle contests, in particular, this one.
I start out at the lower end of a band, and slowly tune up the band working stations I want to work. In this case, I work only DX and ignore W/VE stations since I'm not going for a big score, but just having fun working DX. If I don't get a station in 3 or 4 calls, I move up a little to the next station. If it is a station I really need, I'll try more times before moving on. I do this until I reach the end of the CW band. Then go back to the low end for another tour of the band. Alternately, I'll start at the upper end and work my way down in the same way. I find that to work very well for a QRP station. It's pretty much useless to try and run stations by calling CQ. I find using spotting of any kind just time wasting and anyway I find looking for, finding, and working stations all by myself much more rewarding.
Back to my chronological description of the contest. Sunday EST started at 1523Z and continued with only short breaks for this or that until 1945Z. Some interesting (to me) stations included the following with a description.
G3V M2G G8X M6T four 1X1 UK calls in a row.
PC0A new prefix.
TF3W TF3SG unusual two Iceland in a row.
TK0C don't work many Corsica stations.
53 stations until 1946Z, then a longer break. Then back to finish out from 2112Z to 2350Z. In this period I finished my contest WAC with JA3YBK. My late afternoon early evening pipeline to Scandinavia opened up for a few OH stations. A somewhat unusual prefix in CT8/PA4O worked. The contest ended for me with a Japanese station JA5DQH.
Now some stats:
Total QSOs:
142 including three dupes (CR3W XR7X KL7SB).
Per Band:
10 - 21
15 - 84
20 - 16
40 - 21
Number of CQ Zones:
15
Per Zone:
1 - 2
6 - 2
8 - 26
9 - 8
10 - 1
11 - 2
12 - 2
14 - 43
15 - 32
16 - 3
25 - 3
31 - 4
33 - 11
35 - 1
40 - 2
Per Continent:
AF - 12
AS - 3
EU - 80
NA - 30
OC - 4
SA - 13
Number of Countries:
58
Number of Prefixes:
107
Per hour:
00 - 4
16 - 12
19 - 10
20 - 8
21 - 7
00 - 16
01 - 7
15 - 13
16 - 9
17 - 8
18 - 8
19 - 15
21 - 10
22 - 9
23 - 6
I just created a Cabrillo log for the contest and in checking, I found a couple more dupes included in the above stats. My claimed score is 47,311 points.
I hope this report encourages you to try your hand in a DX contest. You don't need a super station to have fun. With my 5W and simple wire antennas, I got 59 countries, and heard at least 25 more. Remember my setup here is very minimal, and those with better setups could have worked (and I am sure, did work) enough countries for the DXCC award this weekend. If you have been hesitant to enter a DX contest because you run QRP or don't have the best setup, give it a try anyway. I GUARANTEE you WILL have fun. Plan now for the ARRL DX Test in February.
