maandag 29 november 2021

CQ World Wide DX contest CW

Finally back on HF, finally back on CW.


After months of inactivity, I decided to go for SOAB(A) 15m this year.   
At the ultimate last moment, I changed my choice to 20m (fear of an ON competitor with stacks on 21Mhz).  


Normally I put up my 6 element 50 Mhz yagi just above the Steppir in May and take it down in October, but this year I was too lazy to put it down.  Consequence : in stead of 1:1, I had an SWR of 1.5 on 14.050 Mhz because of the capacitive load of the 50Mhz yagi.  

I had to control the Steppir on 14.400 Mhz to get it OK on 14.050 Mhz, but as a additional consequence, the 180° function requested 13.900 Mhz.   Technically, it worked fine, but this is not the good way.  Yagi this year @23m.

Goal was at >1000 QSO.  I had no idea of the conditions.  

I ended up with 2.175 Q and possible a new ON record.  Reason for that huge number of contacts is the combination of good running times together with very quick S&P.   Flexx radio + CWskimmer is a perfect combination.  When a station, somewhere on the band, calls 1x CQ, it is noticed and put on the N1MM+ bandmap.  Often, I was first to respond on a cq.

S&P was never as easy as this year.  

But : special multipliers do not call CQ and are often too weak to be noticed (or the antenna is turned in a wrong direction).  

Additionally, N1MM+ accepts only 1 telnet session, i.e. skimmer OR DXcluster.  This isn't the best solution.  I lost some important multipliers the first day.  On Sunday I installed the DXcluster on a second screen.

Anyway, happy to be again active on CW. 
It took a week daily Morserunner and Rufz sessions to activate the necessary CW-speed in mind.


Weakest point stays the hunt for mulipliers.  3 elements are too little to get them on an easy way.  

Need more elements for future contests on the higher bands.  Let the new sun-cycle begin :-) 


AND.... I have a ham student in the house + an interested one (who has to study first more maths and basic physics).  No ON3 preparation @ON4CCP/ON4CFG, we allways go for full Harec.   Exam to be done in Q2 2022.