PACC 2023 contest review

Event: PACC 2023
Section: QRP mixed
Logger: N1MM+ 
Station: Icom IC-7300 at 5% (5W)
Antenna 1: Experimental multiband halo
Antenna 2: 10m LFA @14m
Antenna 3: 2x20m inverted-V doublet

Had fun in this yearly contest. My goal was to beat my 2021 score and QSOs. And that's what I did. Propagation was excellent for QRP. Strong signals on the bands. Unfortunately I didn't have a 160m band antenna ready this time. I used the 10m beam which I loaded through my Palstar tuner. It works because I made 4 contacts, but of course that was very difficult since I think only a few percent of the power was radiated. With 5W that's not much. Best bands were 80m and 40m with excellent strong signals from Europe and even outside Europe. I found myself in a few nice pile-ups which were incredible difficult on CW but easy on SSB. The fact is that I should learn CW and not rely on CW skimmer. In that case my score and QSO count would be at least doubled. Anyway, although I had to stop early due to circumstances I'm satisfied with the result for now.

Red=SSB Green=CW (Click on map to enlarge)

Dutch contacts in PACC

Of course the majority of contacts with QRP are made within the Netherlands. Most participants are from The Netherlands of course. A lot of stations knew my name (is not that difficult hi). It is nice to know some names from radioamateurs, who also read my blog or have a blog themselves, as well. Over the years you meet the same radio enthousiasts in this contest over and over again. I have to write that propagation within the Netherlands on 40m was very strong this time. Of course that is a good thing when QRP. But I worked some DX as well. One of the highlights was K1ZZ which I worked on 10m, 20m, 40m and 80m. I think he has incredible RX on his side to hear my tiny QRP signal across the ocean. 

Time to take part was limited. I tried to be at the radio as much as I could. But I also have a family. Of course all kind of things happened on which I could not turn my back on. Due to circumstances I had to stop already on 10:15 UTC Sundaymorning. Well, 16 hours of contesting time was good enough I think.

Well, the PACC isn't really a DX contest. Although DX can be worked, I did in the past. But with 5W it was limited this time. If you are QRO in this contest it is no problem of course. However, 34 DXCC in a weekend with just QRP is not that bad I think. Most important, I had fun, the bands were interesting and I had some really nice contacts that were sometimes not (only) 5 by 9.

What I learned from this past contest is that receive is the most important thing of your station. It was interesting to experience that some stations that were real 59 or 599 on my side could not be worked while others with lower signals had no problem to hear me. I also learned (actually I knew this of course) that a better score in the QRP mixed section can only be achieved by learning the CW skills. And last of all, I learned that my experimental multiband halo is a solid performer. I could work most stations on 20m and 15m without any problems, when calling on CW on those bands I had immidiate pile-ups which gave me a lot of problems of course...Unfortunately I think my log will be the one with the most penalties for not logging the exchange right. Really, it is my fault, I apologize, I should really learn the art of CW...