AmateurRadio.com

In the thick of things

Well I am in the thick of things with the ARRL CW contest and as for my goals....I wanted to stay below 5 watts and try to get as many QRPp contacts as possible. Up to this point my QRPp contacts in the contest are at 92%!!! Because I am making mainly QRPp contacts the total contacts up to this point is suffering as I have to take the time to make the QSO. If there is even a faint signal coming back to the DX station I have to wait in line and sometimes these lines are over 5 minutes, this affects my total contact count big time. Some of the highlights up to this point in the contest are..........

1. Contacted DL6FBL with only 10mW's for a miles per watt total of 433,756 per watt an all time record  for me.
2. As was already mentioned 92% of contacts are QRPp and a majority of those are at or below 500mWs.
3. There are so far 9 contacts at or below 50mWs and again all these contacts are DX and not U.S stations.
 As for the rest of the goals like getting up early and racking up lots of time on the contest.........well the bed was sooooo comfee this morning it was very hard to get up and out before 8am! So that goal up to this point has not been met...but there is Sunday!! (dreams are free they say)
As for spending more time in the chair that will have to be weighted out on Sunday evening when the total time on air is looked at.
Contest on....it's off to 40m and maybe 80m as well..........will keep you posted