Time’s flying by that fast it’s incredible! Already end of January again and time for another CQ160 on CW. Participated in this one remotely again, about 600 W from my KPA500 into a 160 m “lazy loop” much too low (only between 8 and 16 m high). So rather an NVIS antenna than a DX shooter. 😉
CONDX were quite good during the first night, worked a number of US stations but had no luck with the Caribbean multipliers. Second night conditions deteriorated. Decided to take a nap for 2 h during the night but ended up only getting up after 4 hours of sleep, oh well. But worked a few more US/VE at sunrise when signals came up a bit again. Sunday evening saw massive pileups on every new station appearing on the band, not much fresh meat available. Wanted to get over the 1.000 QSOs mark and only at 21z realized the contest was ending at 22z and I had to really hurry up and that I had started 2 hours too late. Was of the firm opinion the contest would start 0z as all the other big ones. Oh well.
All in all good fun but we really have to work on our low band antennas! Not sure how often I already mentioned that. 😀 If we could only spend our time as we’d like to …
CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW Call: DH8BQA Class: Single Op Assisted HP QTH: JO73ce Operating Time (hrs): 28 Summary: Total QSOs = 1003 State/Prov = 17 Countries = 61 Total Score = 373,853 Club: Bavarian Contest Club Comments: Elecraft K3, KPA500 + 160m Lazy Loop
Next stops are the CQ WPX RTTY in 2 weeks and ARRL-CW the weekend after.