March 27, 2011 — The 2011 CQ WPX SSB Contest is history for this year, and I’ll admit that I hadn’t been paying a bit of attention to the contest calendar; in fact, I stumbled across the contest late Friday.
I only made about 100 contacts, operating in fits and starts, basically catch-as-catch-can, with lots of other things going on in the house. But I found it very enjoyable to take up contesting again — especially with the PEP upgrades to my FT-2000.
I operated most on 15 and for a while on 10 meters today. It was great to hear both bands so wide open … I worked all over the place on both bands, particularly on 15. Today I found 10 to be excellent; late in the day I could hear the JAs the West Coast guys were working, but not well enough to work them (the JAs).
Operating on 10 gave my FT-2000 a unique workout too; I have a great many computer-generated birdies on 10, and invariably a DX station would be calling CQ in the midst of a heterodyne. The automatic notch did wonders in this situations; I was impressed. I was also impressed by the DSP’s ability to let me work the guys who were 1 KC (sometimes less!) from another, louder station.
I think there are some DX stations that require stations to be a certain signal level before they’ll answer; there’s a Cuban station who I constantly hear calling CQ in contests, and I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten him to acknowledge me answering his CQ. It was good to hear some of the contest “regulars” on too.
The contest reminded me of how much work — strategy and quick thinking — are required when you are operating a contest. If you can determine quickly the types of calls the DX is answering, you can craft your responses to what he’s answering. Some stations will call the loudest in the pileup; others will let the pileup trail off and pick one up at the end. Some ops use both methods, depending on the size of the pileup. I find it useful to observe what the guys who get through to the DX are doing too — are they higher or lower slightly in frequency? Calling right after his “QRZ” or waiting a couple of seconds? Or timing your call to catch his signal during a peak in the QSB?
I would like to do a little more contesting since the bands are improving; maybe a 10-10 contest? Or the 10M Contest later in the year? Field Day is coming up too.
SPEAKING OF CONTESTING … I had a ham from Ohio call me on Saturday to ask me a question: What are the phone frequencies for General Class ops on the 15-meter band? I don’t remember them off the top of my head, but I could look them up. Of course, the caller had it looked up — he just wanted to ask me about the contest stations on phone in the U.S. CW subband.
He told me he heard U.S. stations down below 21.200 working DX stations; as we talked he tuned his rig to 15-meter contest stations — all of whome I heard were DX stations and not subject to the same subband limitations as U.S. ops are. I listened across this portion of 15-meters after his call, and did not hear a U.S. station operating out-of-band. I imagine it would simple to forget the limitation if you were using the tune-and-pounce method of catching DX stations during a contest. I don’t think it necessary to boil these errant hams in transformer oil just yet … I think some of them made some assumptions and just blew it.
Contests also draw OOs attention; and given how careless some ops get in the heat of battle, perhaps its fitting that some OOs give contests some attention. Again, the contestors who make some errors really aren’t “the bad boys” of ham radio; they’re probably the best ops we have.
The contest was fun, and I was glad to give guys a multiplier. I got this call in 2004 just a few days prior to the CQ WPX contest, and I remember how nice it was to have a unique prefix to give out during the contest … the WPX contest always reminds me of that.
Hamfest season is kicking in soon … warmer temps are coming as well … see you in the flea market soon!