The CQWPX Contest

I enjoy working contests; especially sideband contests, and the CQWPX Contest over the weekend was no exception.   I’ve submitted my log to the contest officials.  I made 120 contacts for a claimed score of 33810.  This is the typical score of a “dabbler” like me.  I didn’t work it too hard for a lot of reasons.  I didn’t work anything on Friday night (in local time) because I was tired from a full day.  I slept late on Saturday to recoup some sleep time lost.  I got into the contest for sure at about noon.  I worked about five hours and worked 100 stations on 10, 20, 15, and a little on 40 meters. 

Sunday morning is reserved for church and lunch with my granddaughter.   I got back on the air at about 2:30 and worked another 20 stations mostly on 10 and 20 meters.  I wish I had put more time into it.  There’s a possibility that I could have worked some other exotic stations, although snagging V55V, Namibia, was worth the entire contest for me. 

Lessons learned.  I will acquire a decent headset with a good microphone and a foot switch before I work another sideband contest; I have in mind the Heil Proset if I can find the $hambucks to make the purchase.  It’s been difficult for me to justify such an expense before, but now in my dotage I need some help in these situations.   I have a 40 meter dipole sitting on the shelf in my equipment closet that needs to be up in the air.  The135ft OCFD does fine on 40 meters, but in my heart, I know the single band dipole will give me better results. 

Although I used the CQWPX contest log from http://www.n3fjp.com/ .I wrote the contacts out to an ADIF file which I then imported into my HRD log.  One of the chores you have to do is a look-up on each contact to gather the full information from QRZ.  This also serves as a sort of filter.  I deleted four contacts for which I could not find QRZ or HAMCALL information.  After I finished updating the entries, I uploaded them to LOTW and eQSL. I can only imagine how busy those sites were this weekend.  I have, in fact, received a few eQSL cards from the contest and I expect to receive more over the next few weeks.  I’m always surprised how many contesters use eQSL and especially LOTW.  I then used the N3FJP program to write a Cabrillo File for submission to the contest officials.