Contest of two faces: Saturday and Sunday. But it can bring the 10m KV band. I chose this band with regard to a possible year around the current solar maximum and an attempt at the second oldest Slovak record in this contest. He has been holding it for a year 2000 Rony OM4KK. That time he managed to get over 278,000 points. In the past, Jozef OM5CD apparently tried for him (I consider WPX to be the most attractive DX short wave races 2003 and 2004 was on the band above 22 hours). At the same time, operation on one band can be more easily combined with family.
You will read:
Livescore contest.run
Dmitry R4WW manages the server, where possible from TR4W, N1MM, 5MContest, QARTest, DXLog.net, WriteLog, Win-Test, RUMlog, UcxLog to send running scores. This makes it possible to do various analyzes and views not only on one's own contest efforts but also on the ongoing results of other stations.
During this contest, I took several screenshots of this environment.
DXMAPS
A second website, which I use when contesting https://www.dxmaps.com/spots/mapg.php?Lan=E Allows you to visually see, in which direction there is an opening on the given band.
Contest on Saturday
First mistake, I probably start late. Immediately after turning on the Yaesu FT-1000MP, the headphones roar JA8COE. It's right next door VU2RCT. But there are already many strong signals on the band. I mainly collect connections with Japanese stations. The WPX contest on 10m with a power of 100W has a specific taste: what a connection, to DX. With a 2-element moxon antenna and such performance, I try to search, I'm not calling a challenge. Connections increase very nicely until the forenoon, when I take my lunch break. Even then, the first signals from the other side of the globe appear, from Brazil.
In the direction of 180° to 270° I have some interference on 10 m approx. 7S. There are also radar-like waveforms that are wide (cca.30kHz) noises running on the band. Deciphering the signals in them is very difficult. That's why I welcome, that the zone to North America is opening. I will collect in the next hours 70 stations from the United States. I don't know that yet, that there will be no more of them. I finish the evening a little earlier, to be with my family. It can be seen in the graphs, that SO0N during that time he made a not inconsiderable number of connections. I end on 271 connections.
Contest on Sunday
So that I don't miss the first opening in the morning, I set the alarm for 5.30, so I get up after changing to summer time still in the dark. However, the band is more or less empty. That seems about right, I'm not late this time.
However, the band does not want to open. Only a few strong UA9 stations come through. Chinese and Japanese stations started to appear only later. Feel, however, that it is collecting connection after connection.
I appreciate the working rotator. According to SP5GNI, I made a controller based on Arduino https://github.com/sp5gni/GNI-r3-rotator-controller This allows connection to a PSTRotator synchronized to the N1MM+. I use semi-automatic antenna rotation. It is very comfortable.
In the afternoon I expect signals from North America. However, there are none. But, maybe it's a little early. Here and there, signals from Southeast Asia and nearby Oceania appear on the band. Among them are stations from South America. I'm fighting those again from interference. I'm setting the record straight OM4KK, but that's not enough - the error rate has already cost many stations a lot of points. I guess you should 10% extra points.
Evening comes and the North American stations are still nowhere to be found. Neither do DX spots, even the online propagation maps do not show an opening from Europe in this direction. This is already becoming a crisis. It makes me fight for stations from South America in interference. Spanish stations are not shown either. I usually compose numbers by fragments, which I catch during the connections of the given station with other stations. It's fine, that combination 270 multipliers and 3-point connection adds 810 points. That's not enough.
Step by step, I will squeeze in Sundays 116 contacts.
Summary
Jano OM0AAJ stared, apparently thinking his 387 QSOs and 298 násobičov, which gives approximately 320,000 points. Rafalov SO0N his UltrBeam goes very well, but at the same time he pointed to another great error, which I made: I wasn't on the band on Saturday night, when the band was still open. Live score can show such things. According to the N1MM+ log, I was on the band 22,5 hours.
I remember years, when only a few connections could be made on 10m in the CQ World Wide WPX Contest SSB. To make four hundred so soon means, that there will be something to remember. I'll have to look for the source of the interference, because, apart from the propagation conditions, it is the main stem on this band.
