Contesting

Random reporting from our cadre of contesters! It’s fun- you should try! This is partially an email thread- so you might want to read from the bottom up. - - - - - - Good goin' on the antenna Mark. My logger displays mults and I check it periodically during the contest. I see you grabbed Utah. That one's usually well represented but I never even heard it. Maybe it was conditions. On the CW OPS Facebook page, a few guys mentioned they had trouble working out west. I did work a bunch of other sixes and sevens though. Seeeeeeya, Joe On Sun, Dec 5, 2021 at 9:05 PM, Mark, N8FTB <markdavidrader@gmail.com> wrote: Great job Joe! Thanks for giving me some future motivation/inspiration.:) I took my 150' inverted-vee and added another 150' to the ends (and zigzagged the stuff all over our lot) for ~300' of wire. Apex is at 50' but everything else low so pretty much a cloud warmer. (non-resonance, window line, antenna tuner, amp). It worked! I was able to get on 160M for the first time. I basically did DXing style again looking for states/countries (only logged a couple DX..). N1MM ops may already know this but the grid window was handy. Blue shows areas that have been logged and red boxes (none below after the contest) show spots available and the spots are highlighted red on the bandmap with the call sign/frequency. Very helpful for me in finding new stuff. (I saw Alaska spotted but couldn't hear them.) Mark N8FTB On Sun, Dec 5, 2021 at 1:20 PM Joe K8MP via groups.io <K8mp=aol.com@groups.io> wrote: I put in 12 hours. I worked Larry, N8CWU and was pleasantly surprised to work our old friend Terry, K8EHE. After I worked Larry, he "spotted" me on the DX Cluster and it drew in about 20 new contacts, including a couple Europeans. Thanks Lar! I missed a few US/Canadian mults LAX (LA area), ORG (Orange county), WTX (West Texas), NM (New Mexico), UT (Utah), two Canadian sections, and maybe a few others. I never even heard Alaska. I heard one Hawaiian but he was S&P so I couldn't call him. 2021 ARRL 160 METER CONTEST Call used: K8MP Location: OH Category: Single-Op Mode: CW Power: High Callsign of Operator(s): K8MP Exchanged Information: K8MP RST OH Hours of Operation: 11:59 band QSOs points ------------------------------------ 160 758 1567 ------------------------------------ TOTAL 758 1567 X 87 multipliers = 136,329 One of these days I will get better at CW, Had to search and pounce all contest as I have to listen a few times before I make sure I got the other guys call right. Total Contacts by Band and Mode: Band CW Total % ---- --- --- 160 14 14 3 80 46 46 10 40 127 127 28 20 145 145 32 15 110 110 24 10 9 9 2 -- ----- --- ----- --- Total 451 0 0 451 100 Larry N8CWU I spent quite a few hours DXing, not contesting per se, looking for specific countries on specific bands trying to make a dent in multiband DXCC totals. I currently have the "most" in my log on 20M, hence only "3" below since I couldn't find much I didn't have. There were some that got away.:) Guam was busting the door down during grayline and I tried for 40 mins to bust the pileup with a solid 1kw dithering my xmit freq, but no luck and he faded away...:( Lots of fun! I wish they had this contest every weekend.:) Mark N8FTB On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 1:18 PM Joe K8MP via groups.io <K8mp=aol.com@groups.io> wrote: Thanks George and yes, it was fun! Are you going to jump into the 160 contest? On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 12:56 PM, George, WD8KNC via groups.io <ghafler1=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote: Looks like you had fun. Awesome Job! On Tuesday, November 30, 2021, 10:14:49 AM EST, Joe K8MP via groups.io <k8mp=aol.com@groups.io> wrote: I put in 18-plus hours and had fun! I was able to work DX easier on 80 than on 40. That's not normal. It seemed like both of 40M antennas were not performing well. On the other hand, my 80M Inverted-L did very well. When S&P, I was able to get through on the first call most of the time, even when there were other stateside stations calling the DX station. That gave me confidence to try calling CQ on 80, which I have rarely done in the past. I had a decent run doing that. Note that I only made 3 QSOs on 10 meters. That was my fault for going there too late in the afternoon. However, those 3 Qs gave me 6 multipliers because each one was a new country and a new zone. CQWW is one of the few contests that uses "Simultaneous Mults" (Countries and Zones). Next up: The ARRL 160M Contest (CW) 2021 CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST CW Call used: K8MP Location: 4 Category: Single-Op Mode: CW Power: High Callsign of Operator(s): K8MP Exchanged Information: K8MP RST 4 Hours of Operation: 18:25 band QSOs points zones countries ---------------------------------------------------------------- 160 31 67 11 18 80 167 461 17 57 40 152 417 19 53 20 429 1260 21 65 15 196 558 22 54 10 3 9 3 3 ----------------------------------------------------------------- TOT. 978 2772 93 250 SCORE: 950,796