Happy Second

The final scores for the CQWW DX CW 2016 are out and the ranking from the claimed scores stands. Thus, giving me a second place finish after two consecutive wins in this contest. Karel, OK2FD, wins this time with almost the same number of QSOs but quite some more multis. Congratulations. Considering the illness and the resulting operating time during the weekend I’m still quite happy with the result and will definitely try to fight back in the 2017 competition.

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First Serious Participation

The idea of taking part in the IARU Region I Fieldday came up when chatting with René, DL2JRM, during the annual BCC Meeting 2016. It has been decided that DL2JRM provides the Fieldday-QTH and is responsible for all social activities wheras DL2LSM and DK3WE provide the rig as well as housing. The team has been joined by Irina, DL8DYL, on short notice. We decided to play with the big boys in the Low-Power-Unassisted category.

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Continuous Improvement

The CQ WPX CW contest has been in coincidence with the family holidays on Bornholm Island for the last couple of years. However, my daughter started school last September and consequently family holidays moved to August. So, this WPX participation has been the first one from the DL2LSM QTH for quite a while. The overall result is comparable to the one from last year despite the declining sun activity. So, it has been managed to work about 100 more QSOs whie keeping the QSO points and prefixes at a constant level.

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Accuracy Pays Off

It has been a real surprise to me having a look at the results of the CQ WWDX CW contest 2015. The claimed scores put me in second place with Karel, OK2FD, leading the pack by a clear margin. However, he lost more than 6 percent of his score during the process of log checking. In contrast my result got reduced by only 2.4 percent. When the dust settled the difference between the two of us is less than a single DX or two inner European QSOs. Luckily – at least for me – the initial ranking got reversed. So, giving me my  second consecutive win in this contest.

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Eventually

It took some time but eventually it arrived. My plaque won in the CQ WWDX CW 2014 has been delivered yesterday. So, I have to find a reasonable place now for display 🙂

Another Plaque

The results of the CQ WW DX SSB 2015 are published in this CQ magazine article. I win another Plaque (All Band QRP Europe) by finishing second place behind VE3VN. A total of 115 QSOs and 58 multis could not compensate for the higher QSO point value operating from North America. Nevertheless, that is great news taking into account that I operated without my voice being seriously ill that weekend.

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Loosing the Mood

Operating SSB during times of low solar activity is not much fun. However, I took the challenge again and eventually lost the mood to go on to the bitter end.

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The Thousand Stands

The results of the IARU HF World Championship 2015 have been published by the ARRL. I’m World Champion in the new Single Operator Unlimited QRP class. (more…)

It’s going down

Declining conditions on the high bands due to the solar cycle have the effect of DX signal levels becoming weaker and openings becoming shorter in general. Thus, operating QRP becomes harder in two ways. The time window to work a certain DX station becomes shorter, i.e. there is more competition from high power stations. Additionally, less bands will be open and stations will concentrate on the ones open. Thus, increasing the competition even further. The result is supposedly much less DX stations and multipliers worked.

So, exactly this happened over the weekend. The final result — 1.7 compared to 2.4 million points last — is down by about one third despite having worked almost as many stations.

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SSB without a Voice

John, W2GD wrote: ‘The other thing you learn operating LP or QRP is you must have perfect timing to overcome the ‘brute force’ advantage of your KW brothers. Sounds simplistic, but this has a huge impact on how well you do breaking pileups. It is a learned skill that takes practice to master.’ Well, he is pretty right. Almost all of the time during this contest I had to operate using the voice recorder of my K3 due to having lost my voice. This hampered the score quite a bit not only because the timing hasn’t been right but also responding to specific questions has been quite a challenge. Additionally, calling CQ myself has been out of question. Last but not least, operating having fever is not much fun…

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