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CQwwWPXThis weekend I entered the CQ WPX RTTY contest with target to improve my personal total QSO-record in a contest. I think the current personal record stems from a PACC-contest a few years ago and was around 450 Q’s. There was only one catch: in this same weekend the PACC-contest is organized. PACC-contest is a 24-hour contest where you only work Dutch amateurs (PA) to collect all the Dutch provinces which are handed out as exchange. Because the Netherlands is small country, this contest is only successful if there are enough Dutch amateurs participating. It’s a unwritten rule to always participate as Dutch amateur, if only for a few Q’s.
PACC is in CW- and SSB-mode. In CW I’m not yet able to be in running mode and SSB is far from my favorite mode. But for this one contest I want to make an exception and plug in the microphone. I switched back and forward from CW S&P and SSB and collect a poor 100 Q’s. BUT…… I did participate!

When I logged 100 Q’s in the PACC I immediately switched back to RTTY for the WPX. Saturday I ran around 250 Q’s and Sunday was good for another 350! Weird propagation (an A-index of 23!) on Sunday which was noticeable.
A fun moment in this contest was the very close encounter with my friend Jim Wilson, K5ND. We have an ongoing saga to just work each other once in a contest. I was in line to work another station when I saw Jim work him just before me. I switched antennas from vertical to horizontal to copy Jim’s signal but I couldn’t. When I tried to work the next calling station, K5ND again appeared on my screen! So Jim was Search & Pouncing just before me down the band! I figured if I skipped one or two calling stations and call the third, maybe Jim would arrive at that station just when I was working it. I worked NR5M and afterwards I wait a little to see if Jim arrived. I didn’t seen his call anymore, but this morning I read his blog update and it seems he did see me in QSO with NR5M! Ah well, maybe more luck in the next contest. I did broke my personal Q’s record, so it was a fun weekend.
The next few weekends I have some DIY-resonsibilities in and around the house. So I have to throttle back a little on the contesting.

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This weekend I ran the BARTG Sprint RTTY contest (my favorite mode). Wonderfull thing to don’t have complains from the neighbors. Stayed up Saturday until 0:30 AM at 268 Q’s. Then again up at Sunday morning and in the radio room around 6:30 AM. Worked a few nice ones like JA, VK and PY. The contest ended on 12:00 UTC and at 11:00 UTC I was at my goal of 350 Q’s. The last hour I ran CQ on 20m. Nice sprint but unfortunately no 400 Q’s. I think I did quite OK, 46 DXCC’s.

I did noticed this contest I got quite good signals from the East and the West. Countries like Bulgaria, Hungaria etc. are easy to work (often with the first call). Also the United States and Canada are good doable. Scandinavian and Africa are much harder to reach. You might think it’s logical because my ZS6BKW is positioned West-East. But I wouldn’t suspect it has such an impact.

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This weekend I entered the Hungarian DX contest. A fun contest, 160 – 10 m in SSB and CW. Nice way to test my new antenna position (although not really different from the old one). There where noticeably less stations active with voice then in CW. My target was a minimum of 100 Q’s voice and 100 Q’s CW. Turned out I wasn’t even able to work 100 Q’s voice (98). CW Q’s could have been a lot more if I had stayed in that mode. More and more I dislike the voice mode for contesting. It’s loud, very wide signals, hard to copy and even harder to get copied (with some stations). Every now and the I switched back to CW and it’s just a warm bath. Every station I hear, I’m able to work. Almost every time on first try. For the division league I need to be active in voice as well, but I’m seriously considering to go CW and RTTY only for contesting.
10 meter was kind of open, but a little disappointing in score. 160 meters is just a steady S7/S8 QRM and I can only copy the strongest signals. My 2x 13,75 meter antenna as a bit small for good efficiency on this band; good noticeable in my score. But, I worked all bands! And that’s a good thing.