Another WPX-CW is gone. Used the special call DM5ØPCK of our local radio club to provide a unique prefix.
As I had to attend a funeral Saturday afternoon I missed most of the best run time the first day. Defined this one as a non-serious entry due to the circumstances but nevertheless tried to make the best out of it. Suffered from heavy sleep deprivation at times. Well, no excuse, I did not practice any CW up front like I wanted to so still not good enough. 😉
Conditions were rather mixed. 160, 80 & 40 m suffered quite a lot from static crashes (a few thunderstorms around Europe, typical summer QRN) making copy difficult and many repeats needed. 20 & 15 m saw some nice US openings and 10 m at least provided a few Sporadic E-QSOs within Europe although spending much time there might not have been the best strategy points-wise. But tell that to an old 10 m addict. 🙂 Worked half a dozen US stations on 10 m skewed path beaming SA with very weak signals. Makes exchanging serial numbers a real challenge but the more proud you are when completed. 😉
Detailed analysis is available here: SH5 DM5ØPCK WPX-CW
15 m sure was the money band this time providing a solid stream of 3 pointers. Although skimmers confirmed I was putting out a reasonably strong signal in the target areas I generally found the rates much too low. Best hour was just 92. Lots of CQs in-between …
CQWW WPX Contest, CW Call: DM50PCK Operator: DH8BQA Class: SO(A)AB HP QTH: JO73ce Operating Time (hrs): 33 Summary: Band QSOs Pts/QSO --------------------------- 160: 22 1.9 80: 138 2.0 40: 425 2.7 20: 550 2.0 15: 605 2.4 10: 305 1.5 Average 2.2 overall --------------------------- Total: 2045 Prefixes = 874 Total Score = 3,895,418 Club: Bavarian Contest Club
Now looking forward to July’s VHF contest (first full weekend) and IARU-HF. Not sure about the latter one, it’s my turn but I might give this one to DL3BQA this year (we share the station and change RDXC & IARU-HF between OPs each year).