Contest: CQWW-CW 2014 (November 29th - 30th)
Operator: EI5IX / M0XII
Class: SAAB LP
QTH: Westport
Operating Time (hrs): 37.5
Summary: (Once Dupes etc. were removed)
Band's QSOs Zones Countries
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160: 12 3 6
80: 272 15 53
40: 375 16 58
20: 226 22 61
15: 210 27 68
10: 305 26 66
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Total: 1400 109 312
Total Score = 1,044,080
My plans for CQWW-CW were a bit ‘last minute’ this year, I decided early on the Friday to enter as a Low Power Assisted Single Operator on All Bands. I drove back from London to the Irish QTH on Wednesday Night arriving early Thursday morning. Once I had a nap for a few hours it was then time to get out with my Dad (EI9JA) and my Sister (EI1588) and start making antenna preparations for the contest at the weekend. The weather on the Thursday and early Friday was nice and dry so this helped us raise Verticals and Dipoles and even get a HEX beam up for the contest.
Once everything was up and tested by late Friday evening it was time to grab something to eat and grab a quick nap before the contest. I was woken up by my Dad with 30 minutes to spare before the contest, so a quick dash of Tea and I was on-air Saturday 00:00, opened up the contest on 40m and immediately hit good rates at +170/h. The move to 80m around 01:30 was very productive although hard work to North America then back to 40m at 03:00. A quick jump up to 20m for some early Multipliers was nice then back to 80m and 40m for some Grey line activity. Once the sun had came up I found 15m and 10m quiet fruitful and got some nice runs on these bands. Busting pile ups with 100w and a simple set up is challenging but that is the thrill of the game, I thought conditions were in excellent shape for the weekend so at 18:00 on Saturday I was beginning to fatigue a bit and decided to grab a nap for a few hours and refuelled the body. I returned on-air at 21:00 on 20m as this band was in great shape into the late evening. 80m and 160m were the bands of choice until 03:00 then a jump over to 40m until Grey Line on Sunday morning on the higher bands 20m, 15m & 10m. I remained on these bands for most of the day with a nice break on 40m towards 18:00 unfortunately at 20:30 Sunday evening I had to physically stop contesting an I so wanted to continue and would have possibly improved my Total score by a bit more but I had a Migraine Headache from Hell and couldn't continue. I took some pain killers and went to bed. :-( I was happy to have finished the contest setting a new record score in EI for a SAAB-LP entry, there was some nice DX around throughout the weekend also.
I got to say I really enjoyed this contest, it was a fantastic experience it was also great to see how the newly built shack and the antennas that were put up for the weekend preformed, again a lot's of things learnt from this time around but the great news is that my home QTH station is slowly improving so hopefully I can make the extra improvements required and get the station working more efficiently in years to come, who knows it would be great to enter other sections of this contest in years to come.
I'd like to thank my Family for putting up with me throughout the weekend especially to my Dad (EI9JA) and my Sister Shauna (EI1588) for helping me get the station together and operational for the contest and for the many cups of Tea that were required to keep me awake for the weekend. Thank You :-)
IC7200, LDG AT11MP Tuner, Begali Magnetic Pro Key, WinKeyer 3, N1MM Logger+
Ant switch, HEX Beam @ 45ft, Carolina Windom 80, 1/4 waver Verticals 10m/15m/20m/40m & 80m, Inverted L for 160m. Loops for LF RX.
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Delighted to have come 1st place and set a new Irish Record in the Single Op Assisted Low Power All Bands category, as always thanks to CQ Magazine for holding and adjudicating this contest and thanks to everyone that gave me points during the contest, I look forward to the next one! :)
