25 November 2012
The last day of the CQ WW DX CW contest. But nothing of interest to report. Sunday morning was one of those mornings when I didn’t seem to fully wake up. It was after 11am before I got into the shack.
My intention was to make some more contest contacts on 10m. Although I don’t compete seriously, I usually decide what category I am going to play in – single or multi-band, QRP or Low Power – and stick to it so that if I do make a decent number of contacts I can send an entry in. But this time my effort didn’t even justify sending in a check log.
I heard some interesting big gun stations such as in Africa (Gambia, Senegal) but I just could not be heard over the others calling. One Russian station seemed to be following me around and he wasn’t having much luck either. It was hard going even with the more run of the mill stations. I felt like I was running QRP. In fact, I’ve had better results when I did run QRP (such as for the CQ WW WPX back in May, when I used the KX3 ) than I was having this weekend.
It was obviously a mistake to limit myself to 10 metres. Not everyone was having such bad luck as me though. I heard a DX station who wasn’t hearing my calls working fellow blogger Tim G4VXE. So much for the magic dipole!
After I broke off for lunch I couldn’t be bothered to get back on the air again and so I spent the afternoon listening to a broadcast concert. I will draw a veil over my lamentable effort. (Those who are really interested to see the extent of my embarrassment can take a look at my contact log.)
Julian, I know what you mean. It was a beautiful autumn weekend here and we had several American college football games on TV in which I had more than a passing interest so I made the value judgement to keep the AF gain turned down much of the weekend. I did have some fun on 80 meters Friday evening and worked a number of European stations with my 300 watts/horizontal loop. That is the only band I where I still need my 100 for 5B-DXCC…but I need 65 more there!
10 and 15 were really bad here but managed to get the DXpeditions in Lesotho and Mauritania on 15.
Don’t be embarrassed. Sounds as if you have had a nice weekend altogether.
Don N4KC
http://www.n4kc.com
http://www.donkeith.com
Julian,
Don’t feel badly. I made a grand total of 1 contest QSO all weekend! I had other things to do (including hoisting up a new antenna); and just couldn’t find the time to sit behind the rig.
Sometimes you have the time, but are just not in the mood. Sometimes, you’re in the mood and you do have the time. It’s all good.
Larry W2LJ