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.

Preparation:

The setup has been in principle the same as been used during the CQ WWDX SSB four weeks ago. An additional 40m delta-loop has been erected Friday afternoon just in case there are problems with one of the double-zepps.

Unfortunately, the erection of a 80m quad loop had to be postponed to the spring time. There hasn’t been enough time to do all the preparations this year. Hopefully, it will boost the signal in between Europe quite a bit.

Contest:

Contest preparations have been finished early this time. So, it allowed for a few hours of hardly needed sleep before the contest. The latter started with reasonable rates compared to the SSB leg of the contest and stayed that way till the second evening. So, I have been well ahead in QSO numbers compared to last years effort. However, the high bands closed early not long into the dark and QSO points and multiplier numbers suffered quite a lot. I slept for about four hours Sunday morning and finished with almost 1900 QSOs. The 10m band had been quite spotty and only opened sporadically to certain parts of the world. So, I worked VK, quite a number of UA9ers but almost no Europeans. 15m and 20m provided some good DX. 40m were quite good. However, it is always hard to work DX despite the well hearing North-Americans. Especially, to snag the JA double multiplier took quite a number of attempts. Several stations just CQed into my face. Eventually, I worked three in a row followed by an UA0 for zone 21. I never managed to work PY, LU nor ZD8 although there signals had been excellent. Conditions on 80m seemed to be quite well. So, I worked 66 stations from North-America. Most of them on the first call. It has been real fun. 160m was Ok but a bit noisy. Maybe not only on my side since I missed HZ, 9K, CN to name a few despite their good signals.

Conclusion:

I’m happy with the result. All the equipment worked flawlessly allowing for a great number of QSOs. Thanks everybody pulling out my signal from the noise.

Highlights:

Working quite some DX despite the qrp power level, i.e.:

• JA on 40m
• VK on 15m and 20m
• ZL on 15m
• VU on 20m

Low Points:

• Trying to work a station in CE on 10m for a double multiplier. He asked a number of times for DM2? and I answered. DL1LOD didn’t stop calling as well and the QSO didn’t take place. Thanks a lot OM for listening.

Acknowledgements:

I would like to say thank you to DL2LSM and XYL for hosting me again and helping with all the antenna work outside.

Outlook:

This contest is always fun to operate and I will certainly be part of the crowd next year. So, merry Xmas and happy holidays to everyone and thanks for all the nice QSOs.

Preliminary Result:

Call: DM2M
Class: SO All Band QRP
Rig:   K3 (5W) + K3 (5W)
Ant:   2x20m double zepp @13m, spider beam, 2x27m double zepp @15m, 40m Delta Loop
QTH:   @DL2LSM, JO61GH

Summary:

Total Score:  3352 * (108 + 391) = 1.672.648

Band   QSO    CQ   DXCC   Points   
--------------------------------
160    133     4    37     132    
 80    531    13    67     711
 40    335    18    76     574
 20    426    25    88     846
 15    398    30    92     891
 10     75    18    29     198
--------------------------------
Total 1898   108   391    3352

Downloads:

• Log (submitted)
• Log (corrected)
• UBN Report)