Tuesday, November 1, 2022

CQWW DX SSB 2022 review

Event: CQWW DX SSB contest 2022
Section: SO Low Assisted 10M
Logger: N1MM+ 
Station: Icom IC-7300 @100W
Antenna 1: 10m LFA @14m
Antenna 2: 4 band square halo @15m
Antenna 3: 2x20m inverted-V doublet @12m

Started saterdaymorning late. 10m was not open yet here. At that moment I was not shure I would do a single 10m band effort like last year. So I started on 40m and 20m. This was also a god test for the "new" square halo antenna I previously made. And I have to say...compared to the multiband vertical it is a excellent performer. It is clear to me that most of the stations I heard I could work as well. For instance KL7RA (Alaska) was barely above the noise. But I had a reply after the first call which surprised me. Same for VJ4T. Below a map made with all 1000 QSOs I made.



Oh yes, I heard the DXCC I wanted to work. V85RH and VK9C. But others did as well and I might have a chance another time. I tried a few times but the pile-up was just too large and signals too low.

Although I was active on all bands except 160m (I forgot I don't have a 160m antenna aymore) I aimed for 10m only. So most of the contest I was on 10m to work as many DXCC/stations as possible. I made quite a few runs into the direction of north america, always great to do that. Below a map from my 427 QSOs on 10m.


Surprisingly, and I believe never did this before. I worked 100 DXCC overall. Incredible to just contact so many countries in one weekend.


According to the analyzer I use I operated 30 hours and 1 minute in total. Which is a lot I think. Yet, I was not on the radio all the time. I just had breaks to drink coffee/tea and eat lunch/dinner. Besides that I had to go out with my XYL to do the necessary shopping for the week. I did have a good sleep as well. So after the contest I was tired but not really exhausted.  

I always remember some memorable moments. Like the station in Sudan (ST0HQ) that was giving me a report in dutch. Another memorabe moment was a surprise call I got on 80m by Elsie M7ELC, probabely the youngest female operator/contester in the UK. She is the daughter of fellow blogger M0YKS Simon. You can view a video about the contest featuring both here.

I also worked fellow blogger VE3VN Ron on 15m. Ron has a interesting blog full of details about the hobby. I met Ron before on 15m and never heard him on another band. He might do a single band 15m effort?

Funny is also that some stations, even when I never ever had a contact, seem to be regular readers of this blog. According to the reactions from some of these stations. If you read this it is appreciated and always nice to make the contact were ever you are. I had a lot of fun this weekend and certainly broke last years score. Surely I will be in the contest next year and will try to beat this years score.

4 comments:

Paul Stam PAØK said...

Hallo Bas, mooi resultaat en een leuk filmpje op Youtube. Je hebt een mooie en uitgebreide shack. En leuk om je zo te horen werken. Ik had ook nog een tijdje geluisterd op 10 meter. De stations rolde allemaal naar binnen. Mijn PC was vorige week defect. 3 RAM geheugen banken waren defect. Waarschijnlijk door statische elektriciteit. Ik ben bang dat het door mijn zender komt. Misschien moet ik de aarde even gaan controleren. 73 Paul

VE9KK said...

Good morning Bas, sounds like you had a great time in the contest. One thousand contacts are very impressive for sure and some nice DX worked as well.
Great to see the bands opened up and the turn out was very high as well.
73,
Mike
VE9KK

PE4BAS, Bas said...

@Paul Bedankt voor je reactie. 10m is de laatste tijd goed open. Intern geheugen defect door jouw zenden. Ik heb daar nog nooit van gehoord. Je computer heb je wel op een geaard stopcontact zitten? Dat is wel belangrijk.

@Hello Mike, I had a lot of fun making the contacts. And indeed, anything around the 1K is good.

73, Bas

Paul Stam PAØK said...

Hallo Bas, mijn PC and zenders zitten allemaal aan een geaard stopcontact. Mijn PC reparateur had het ook nog nooit meegemaakt dat alle RAM geheugen kaarten beschadigd waren. Maar de PC werkt weer. Fijn weekend, 73 Paul