CQ3W @ CQ WW SSB 2024 claimes World #1 SA10m
Just back from CQ WW RTTY @ CR3W, a few weeks at home and then back to Madeira again for CQ WW phone!
What is the difference between September and October in Madeira? THE WEAHTER!!!! 10 degrees colder and a LOT of rain with some blue spots on the sky every now and then.
With some help from a great friend and CW operator the station setup was done within a few hours.
My setup to the right and a hot swap backup station to the left in case something stops working.
The plan was to operate CQ3W Single Operator 10m Assisted again. Station setup as usual:
ICOM IC-7300, Acom Amplifier, 4 element beam at 10m for US, 3 element 3 band spiderbeam for EU and another threeband antenna 3 elements for Africa (wich is quite difficould from Santana heating a 1600m montain with radiowaves).
The contest startet like a blast and than transitioned into pure chaos. 10m was so wide open – I would say to wide open – that the band was door to door packed from 28.300 to 29.700 …. no space for litle pistols. Where last year I could run above 200 QSOs/hour almost the complete first day, I got kicked out of my frequency at least once per hour. If you are very high up in the band above 28.900 rates go down, if you are lower where the action is, you get kicked out a lot or you have to live with S9 splatter. Hard to find any frequency that privide decent runs. My goal to reach more that 5100 QSOs was already dust in the wind (or rain) a few hours into the contest. What can you do? Surender? No, just try to stay in the game, QSY ofen, hope for a cluster spot and keep logging QSOs. Every time you get kicked out, look for mults – and find a new frequency – repeat.
At the end I was down 700 QSO’s from last year, but a few more mults in the log.
Some Stats …
And Dupefest thanks to wrong spots:
Edit Monday 11/04/2024 claimed scores are out:
Mac SN2M (SP2XF) is just 250.000 points behind me and showcased what you can do from europe with proper antennas! He runs 6 over 6 for US, 5 over 5 for JA/VK and anothe 5 element for Afrika. Pictures can be found on https://www.qrz.com/db/SN2M .
The map with all the mults still looks amazing!
DXCC’s with counts as follows:
Thanks to Team CR3W who let me use their station in Santana again! This was my contest trip number 23 to this unique place.
Thank you!!!!!!
FT8 haters better stop reading here … hahahahaha!
I warned you ….
Before and after the contest I added 5000+ QSOs into my log using FT8, also on 60m again with CT9/DF7EE.
The fun part on FT8 (if any) is that you can see in real time where your signals are beeing “heard”.
After one week of hamradio only …. time was up I needed to go back to work. I hope I can be back next year for more!
Sefie time ……
Now that you have made it all the way to here – I can show you how hard SO2BISQ or SO2RUN is on FT8.
QSL for CQ3W and CT9/DF7EE is via clublog OQRS only. I don’t need QSL cards for Madeira, only for my home call I am still collecting paper cards!
Thanks for all the callers and QSOs – sorry for the ones we could not figure out.
73
Helmut DF7EE
Are you interested in contesting? JOIN THE RRDXA!