call: 6v7d
operator(s): k1xm
station: 6w7rv
class: soab qrp
qth: senegal
operating time (hrs): 41
summary:
band qsos zones countries
------------------------------
160: 10 6 9
80: 40 10 32
40: 343 16 60
20: 602 25 86
15: 1113 25 90
10: 119 13 41
------------------------------
total: 2227 95 318 total score = 2,702,672
club: yankee clipper contest club
comments:
station: elecraft k2, titanex vertical 160-40,
3 element monoband yagis 20-10. see
http://www.le-calao.comfor details.
when i finish typing this i need to pack for the trip home.
i hate packing more than i hate writing so i'll ramble a bit.
maybe this wasn't the best year to try qrp. but i operated
low power last year and wanted to do something different. high
power wasn't an option and single-band means less chair time
so i decided to go after the african qrp record.
i really didn't know what to expect. i thought i'd run a bit
on the high bands and spend most of the contest s&p. this
turned out to be wrong.
s&p was much more difficult than i expected (and i should have
known better). the smart stations just called cq in my face.
the less smart stations would send a question mark, which began
a half-dozen transmissions while they worked through bv7d, sv7d,
uv7d, 647d, and a bunch of less common choices. eventually most
got it, some just gave up.
the titanex vertical with 5 watts was just not enough on 80 and
160, and even on 40 europe was difficult. i never worked the us
on 160 - i called kc1xx, w3lpl, k3lr, nq4i, k1lt, kt1v, vy2zm, and a
few others, but nobody heard me. on 80 i called just about every
european that called cq and most never heard me. on the other
hand kh6 on 80 was easy. on 40 i was able to get a run going
early in the contest but could not repeat it later.
20 was ok but the competition was tough. i think i had my best
hour there.
15 was the money band, with almost half of my qsos. i was
pleasantly surprised. last year 15 was noisy and i spent more
time on 20 and 10. this year 15 was quiet and productive.
10 was disappointing. last year with low power i had over 900
qsos there. this year it just didn't open well. i had one
run sunday.
thanks to everyone who heard my weak signal, and especially to
francois, 6w7rv for his help.
