#cqww CW 2017 80m

Event: CQWW CW 2017

SOA low/qrp dutch records

Section:  Single Operator unassisted  QRP 80M
Logger: N1MM+ newest version
Station: Icom IC-706 MK2G 5W
Antenna: Inverted-V apex 12m + multiband vertical
CW decoder: FLdigi newest version

Well, a few hours of participation time early in the morning and late in the evening resulted in only 60 QSOs. No DX, only European stations. I certainly miss my 80m horizontal loop in a contest like this. The inverted-V was not doing well, I guess it is because of the wet ladderline feeding the antenna giving me some loss. The vertical did sometimes better although it is very ineffective (too short) for 80m. When starting the contest Saturday morning my FLdigi was mysteriously disappeared? Had to install a new one and redirect N1MM+ to it before I could decode CW. After that it was no problem, although I had to finetune a bit till I got best decodes. Still, I had the idea the old FLdigi did a better job. Of course CWskimmer would be the best, I've been experimenting with it in 2015. I still hope for a free good CW decoder like CWskimmer one day. But when you are QRP it is not really important as most of the weaker signals are not able to copy you at all. For a new dutch record I switched off the telnet connection for a DXcluster to be unassisted. Actually in previous years the DXcluster didn't help me at all as spots are on the right frequency on CW but not for MCW in USB mode.