CQWW CW 2017

For three years in a row I participated CQ WW CW from home.

I am trying to make that some kind of tradition, running small gear and barefoot (100w) like some normal hams would do. Also my CW skills are not that great that I would consider myself @ a top spot somewhere around the world. This is also a bit of an family event as well. My wife is doing the x-mas cookie work with the little one, we have a few Glühwein along the process and we take the time to go to dinner altogether. So this is definitely not a huge contest effort! At least the setup on my desk is nice:

Since last year I opted to rent a 18m portable tower with a small 3 element summer beam on it. It also support the G5RV for 40m and 80m. Friday after work the antenna works starts and was supported by pooring rain all the time. It was really raining cats and dogs and I was soaking wet at the end, but it was worth the effort.

Of course the weather cleared up a little bit after the outdoor work was done!

As expected the conditions were really poor and most of the time it looked like I have to settle for a lower score than 2016.  df7zs.de/rental-tower/ 

Most of the time I only concentrate on getting the mults from the bandmap using skimmer, but this took much longer than last year to reach a good count. This is also why I missed big parts of the 3 points US openings on 20m .. I was so tied up working mults.

For the first time I was using N1MM Logger instead of Win-Test in order to use the full capacity of the band scope, cluster-scope link and SO2V! It really worked great! I bet the NASA had less computing power flying to the moon as we use in today contests. Here is a screenshot – click on it for full view:

It is really fun on two 27 inch screens.

I also worked N1MM using N1MM on three bands during the contest.

On sunday a decision had to be made between Tatort (german TV series), with the wife, NFL Gameday or “keep ponding” QSOs. I was still behind the 2016 score and I was really tiered. I decided to give it one more shot on the radio, and BINGO! This was the right decision. Some nice mutls on 40m found the way into my log and I catched a nice 40m US oping for a ton of 3 point QSOs that boosted my little pistol score over the goal of 800.000 points. DONE

Watch out – I will be back in 2018!

On Monday after work Michael and Kay showed up to remove the rental tower and guess what? It was raining cats and dogs AGAIN!

Thanks for all the stations that picked up my tiny signal in the pileup.

I also worked TI7W, ZF2MJ and CR3OO who where having a blast of a race using SO2RUN technique. Here is a nice article on that matter from Jose: http://www.qsl.net/c/ct1boh//2bsiq/

From Place #7 in DL 2016 there is a good chance to end up TOP 5 in DL 2017!

These are the RAW scores after deadline.

73

Helmut