Having fun as V37DX on Saturday.
This one is in the books now, too. And what a great experience! I decided to put in a serious effort into this one on 20 m, too. And I took last year’s World winning score of TM5Y as a benchmark. 😎 One might think it is easy to win from the Caribbean or Latin America but Sebastien’s location on the French West Coast is exceptionally good, too! He’s got nothing than water to North America and the band is open way longer (something like 3-4 hours!) than my German location. So he’s a serious competitor and you bet, he was QRV, too! I have not seen any results from him yet so eager to learn how he did …
The contest started quite well on Friday. Made 280 QSOs in the first two hours until the band closed here. Pileups were massive and all the stations zero-beating made it quite difficult to copy so I needed to ask for fills quite often. Saturday was great as well. Although the band closed an hour earlier than the days before I managed a whopping 1.200 QSOs that day! Others may smile tiredly about it, but keep in mind I’m just an average CW’er at best! I felt quite exhausted but very happy, too. 😉
Sunday was rather catastrophic first! I couldn’t get much going during our local morning. Whatever I tried I couldn’t get the rate up, worst hour was even below 40 QSOs/hour! 🙁 It only got better in the afternoon after propagation between North America and Europe ceased and people finally turned their antennas southwards. But I couldn’t make up for the losses anymore so finished with less than anticipated when going to bed Saturday evening. What’s a pity, too, is all the dupes! 160 is way too much! So out of the 2.340 QSOs made only 2.180 are valid contacts, what a pity. 🙁
Anyway, all in all great fun nevertheless and a good result! Only regular multiplier missing is VO2/LB. No idea why, they are usually quite active in the contests. But so be it. Here are the V37DX totals on 20 m, let’s see what it’s good for …
ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2019 Call: V37DX Operator(s): DH8BQA Station: V31DL Class: SOSB/20 HP QTH: EK57nf Operating Time (hrs): 25 Summary: Band QSOs Mults ------------------- 20: 2339 60 (including dupes) ------------------- Total: 2179 60 Total Score = 389,160 Comments: IC-7300, IC-PW1 + Cushcraft X7
Inbetween the 20 m shifts I did a few QSOs as V31FO on 80 m, just for the fun of it. 😉 Pileups were massive there, too, always a challenge with zero-beat callers, no chance to decipher anything then. Your only chance is callers with a bit off frequency shift or wait until the zero-beat callers stop calling which is quite unproductive, of course …
ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2019 Call: V31FO Operator(s): DH8BQA Station: V31DL Class: SOSB/80 HP QTH: EK57nf Operating Time (hrs): 3 Summary: Band QSOs Mults ------------------- 80: 418 54 (including dupes) ------------------- Total: 412 54 Total Score = 66,582 Club: Bavarian Contest Club Comments: IC-7300, IC-PW1 + dipole