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Day one of CQ WW CW contest
25 May 2013 | by 
The facts
- The propagation was.....shall we say (because this is a family blog) crap!!
- I was in the contest for a grand total of 5 hours today.
- There was some down time as you can tell from fact number 2...software troubles, USB port trouble and K3 updates and the list can go on. (This is normal contest OMG stuff)
- The attic dipole once again did very well considering the conditions.
- The evening once 20m closes down I am done as with the poor conditions for some reason 40m has not been a great band for me with the attic dipole.
Day one surprises
- So far I have not used any paper and pencils to copy call's I have been able to just use the keyboard. Now yes in the picture above in the center monitor bottom right you will see MRP40. (cw decoding program and the BEST one out there) That was up and running for the contester who for some reason send at @#@%$$# SPEEDS!!
- With the propagation conditions in the dumps I was very please to get my QRP signal heard in Hawaii, Australia, South America and Cuba.
- I have been practicing my contest code with some programs and for the first time code at 30-35wpm was clear and understandable!
2 Responses to “Day one of CQ WW CW contest”
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With a very limited antenna here, I worked a few loud stations. Funny, they all balked at my low NR reply, ~~~~~ I sent NR 002, they replied ? NR?
They were sending 3 and 4 digit numbers to me. Twenty meters is beginning to improve now at 11 local time. K index is finally down to 2, but its been rough, the A index (the past 8 hours of K index is 32). Its part of the game but when it happens on a weekend especially a big contest weekend, its very disappointing.
Good morning Ernest, nice to hear from you and that you are having fun in the contest….that’s what it’s all about. Yes when the numbers are up in the 3 digits and more then sending a single number does turn heads. I got on the rig today around 1pm local time. I had to get some things done around the house. Good luck and let me know how you did in the contest.
Mike