Whiskey Two Radio Echo

CQWW WPX Contest, SSB

Call: WW2DX
Operator(s): W2RE, WW2DX, KB2HZI
Station: W2RE

Class: M/S HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
Band QSOs
————
160: 9
80: 464
40: 870
20: 1564
15: 1807
10: 63
————
Total: 4777 Prefixes = 1449 Total Score = 21,539,385

Club: Frankford Radio Club

Comments:

Pre-Game:

Going into this we had one goal and that was to work as many EU as possible. We
figured US would just call us anyway and we would work them off the back of the
beams. Preparation started a week ago, I took my K3 and all the cables needed
and hooked the shack up, got the software all working, things looked good
before we left and it felt good knowing we could show up an hour before the
contest on Friday and start operating. Its a 2 hour drive from home to the
Catskill QTH so just after work we headed up. We went over the game plan just
before the contest and it was to work non-stop, make 4K q’s, have the highest
qso total on 40m and hit the 2nd radio as much as possible. Lori KB2HZI would
not only keep us well fed but also hit the 2nd radio maximizing the mults while
we tried to rest our eyes for 15-20min clips.

Game-Time:

We took off running on 40 and yes it was a complete mad house and as soon as
the rate would start falling from the QRM we switched to split to the bottom of
the band and sure enough that was successful, rate back up, I think sometimes we
forget to do this since the BC’s have been kicked out of the band but it’s still
very effective during the contests. Ran through the first evening and headed to
80 ran there for a bit, strong EU and that 1000′ bev is just incredible.

By 0700z we were being called by VK/JA and we ended up running endless
VK/ZL/JA/BY/HL! Lots of VK#AAAA calls, I think the 4 letter suffix is Low
power? Wow!

20m opened up early about 4:30-5:00am but we didn’t want to move with the great
rate on 40 into AS/PAC so we stayed racking up the 6 pointers well into daylight
then moved on to 20m. We were not there long and 15 opened and did it open! 15m
was our money band by far this weekend. By late afternoon on Saturday we had
the top 5ele of the triple stack to AS and the bottom 2 at EU and we had q’s
from every continent all at the same time! A SV would call followed by a VK
then a JA then a BY it was nuts! The Asian opening was like nothing I have ever
experienced before. We actually “ran” BY’s, ?? I remember working a JA that was
30 over and asking him if he was LP or SP because we were getting the same sig
strengths in both directions and he replied and said “Both, I am on a dipole”
ha ha, yea conditions were good! As matter of fact looking over the SH5 log we
worked twice as many AS stations as SA stations!

One downer was late morning on Saturday when I was on the 2nd radio (K3) and
got too close to the run run radio and POP! 30db of attenuation. Overloaded the
front end, going to have to debug that this week I scrambled, grabbed the
spare 1000MP, hooked it up got the N1MM to do all the right stuff and back to
operating again! Rule #1 in contesting, have backup equipment!!!

I forget what time it was but Ray posted our score to getscores.org, well I
don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing because then AK1W posted and
I knew we were in trouble. New goal, STAY AHEAD OF AK1W! Congrats to K5ZD and
W1UJ for really keeping us on our game, it was really a thrill! Comparing the
band breakdowns were were neck and neck!

I had the WPX website up looking over the records (great website BTW) and at
the 36 hour mark we had 16mil. We could not believe it! It was a real honor to
pass K1LZ’s incredible score! No way would that have ever been possible without
these incredible condx.

Once we reached over 3000 q’s it was a real struggle keeping the rate over
100/hr we had a LOT of repeats on the exchange and it was even worse when we
were giving out 4000+ serial numbers. That really slammed our rate but I
suppose that is bittersweet

Post-Game:

19% of our log was US and 81% was outside US. I think this is were the magic
happened. The times when we should have been on 40m with 6 pointers we were on
15/20 and working AS at a rate 2-3 times higher then what we could do on 40m
with the QRM so that made up for it. We shared the run radio 50/50 between ops
and really pushed each other during the whole test.

Also, like Krassy mentioned in his post, the LID patrol was really out this
weekend, I am not sure what is going on but we had some LID record our CQ and
play over and over, I think actually I want that to happen more often because I
was able to stop TXing and work all the guys responding to his CQ! Also, whats
the deal with guys showing right on top of you and calling CQ? I mean really
guys, seriously, we know you can hear us! Luckily that is short lived since we
just keep running over the top of you.

Additionally, thanks to all the EU/JA contesters, I think without you guys this
hobby would just about be dead. WRTC is a fantastic idea. I’m with K1LZ on
this, we need to do something here in US to increase contesting here in the
states, ideas?

8pm rolled around we were so hopped up on adrenaline we were bouncing off the
walls. Being up for 60+ hours with about 1 hour of total rest you would think
otherwise but that was not the case. We packed the truck, locked up the house
and Lori drove the 2 hours home. As soon as we sat in the truck we were out! I
never even remember being on the Taconic Parkway! Also there is nothing like
the sleep you get when the contest is over! Wow!

There are some really BIG scores being posted and looks like lots of new
records being set. There are big plans for the contest station at W2RE this
summer and we are really looking forward to the Fall contest season!

Thanks to Ray W2RE and Lori KB2HZI for a great memorable weekend. Always a
pleasure operating with you.

See you guys in WPX CW in 2 months!

73 de Lee
WW2DX.com
W2RE.com

SH5 Breakdown:

http://www.ww2dx.com/Contests/2011-WPX-SSB-WW2DX/index.htm