2011 ARRL DX CW After Action Report

Screen shot #1 is my raw score after a weekend where weather trumped triple digit solar flux. A powerful storm slammed into the central coast on Friday night with it strong winds, lightening, and rain. I chuckled that one cannot have the best of both worlds preferring RadioSport activity beneath a clear blue sunny sky and starry filled nights. The storm dissipated by Sunday morning delivering sought after weather conditions for the remainder of the event.

Screenshot #2 illustrates my first time piloting a station equipped with competitive antenna systems during a DX contest. Fundamentally, my understanding of high frequency propagation or lack thereof worked against my effort. I did not use the yagi antennas to their fullest potential nor did I take advantage of maximum usable frequency. Knowledge and experience is one's best playbook in RadioSport.

I'm in the books learning about propagation preparing for the next time and continuing to learn about antenna systems. I enjoyed reading through the latest QST antenna issue as well. There are summer antenna projects beginning to develop.

Screen shot #3 is a little less detail. I searched and logged when the path to Europe was open on 15, 2o, and 40m. I observed the terminator crossing the European continent while mining as many DXCC entities as possible (15 and 20m) in the morning with six elements respectively, and (40m gray line) in the evening with three elements beaming to Europe/Africa.

The remarkable east coast wall of signals into Europe surprised me since I cannot hear it when operating from the shackadelic on the beach. Likewise, after calling CQ unsuccessfully for several minutes beaming Europe, I searched and logged needed multipliers, instead.

I remember sustainable rates into Europe when I operated as KA3DRR/DV2 and maintaining the dupe sheet as a novice during multi-single operations. Geographical location to multiplier rich continents plays into the game of RadioSport. The west coast needs additional Pacific/Asia activity to compensate for the east coast Europe/Africa radio frequency tunnel.

Screen shot #4 sums competition against self that is how many zones and new entities can I log in the span of 48 hours? Basically, I'm always competing against self and your scores fuel my RadioSport motivation for personal improvement.

My DX Summary Report generated by DXKeeper detailed first DXCC entities and first CQ zones. I logged 34 new countries plus five new zones over the weekend for example P29CW, T30YA, D4C, CN3A, MD2C, and EA8URL.

My personal highlight arrived late Saturday afternoon when 10m opened into Asia and the Pacific. I did not arrive on the band through experience and knowledge. It was an intuitive hunch to point W6SL's three element yagi at Japan. Signals jumped up from the receiver noise floor and my 10-minute rate meter peaked at one hundred and twenty.

My excitement was palpable and I hooted from inside the SL shack while fine business operators from Japan were logged. John responded with, "You better get on it!"

Contest on.

P.S. Thank you to all the volunteers who make RadioSport fun and N1MM Contest Logging Software plus DXLab personal logging software.