CQ Worldwide DX contest

Trucker

Having fun.

10 meters wide open.

Ignacy

I made 2226 QSOs in 26 hrs, of which 1002 were on 10m.

For the first time of my contesting with 6600, no dramas. No disconnections, no crashes, no failures of voice memories. PG XL with AG worked well. I kept 2 radios in SO2R mode all the time but made just a few QSOs on the second radio. SO2R needs experience.

I kept PG XL quieter but putting it on a floor and covering it with a box with holes for ventilations. TG XL was barely warm suggesting that the cooling is perhaps too aggressive.

Shortened 40m beam required a tuner, and TG XL was faulty on arrival, now 2 month in Flex repair. I added a remote switch that shunts the beam with a capacitor, for low SWR in the SSB band.

Last year my SSB signal set according to the rules was weak. This year I made more aggressive equalization and boosted mic gain to the max before distortions were heard on the second radio. The signal was strong and seemed excellent but was a far cry from punchy but clear audio of FTDX101s or 10s.

The band was full of strong but strangely distorted signals with specific distortions, like D4C. Coming from Flex radios. It would seem that the transmit path in the Flex uses 8 bit audio. It is good with unprocessed audio but shows artefacts with processing, strong artefacts with strong processing, and no punch with weak processing. Some Flex users reported improvement using external audio processors. I will test an external speech processor TenTec 715 next time and see whether there is an improvement.

Ignacy NO9E

Trucker

Ignace,

Very impressive score. I didn't participate as much as I would have liked to. I only made a few contacts on 10 meters. One I was hoping to confirm was in Ireland. After the contest I found he only confirms contacts thru contest logs and by mail. So, Ireland is still on my needed DXCC list. Still it was great to see all the activity on 10 meters.

James

WD5GWY

Ignacy

EI was one of my last countries confirmed by paper QSL, well past 300. Are you looking at paper or LOTW?

My max of QSOs in CQ WW SSB at home QTH with low 2 el quad and a multiband dipole was 600. It is tough in SSB. Now with a 100 ft tower and stacked beams including one on 40m, I made 1500 QSOs last year and, after improvements to voice quality and better propagation, 2200 this year. A guru would probably make over 3000.

Ignacy NO9E

Trucker

I haven't really been trying to use paper qsl cards for a long time. LOTW and qrz.com logbook are what I use the most. I did receive a nice qsl card last year from a ham in South Africa. That was a surprise as I had contacted his qsl manager for instructions to get his card, including paying for his costs. Instead, he told his manager to send me his card at no cost!

But, I don't go out of my way for cards anymore. I am happy to receive confirmation by LOTW or qrz.com. I lost all my card collection years ago after a divorce. But, that's another story!

James

WD5GWY

David Decoons, wo2x

I’m President of North Jersey DX Association. We’re the W2 incoming QSL Bureau since 1958. We handle a lot of cards a year.

I only had time for about 15 hrs in the contest. Did 800k. I got DXCC on 10 meters (104 countries total) in less that 6 hrs. 10 was wild!

Ignacy, we’ll have to schedule a contact so you can hear how I have my 6600m set up. I get excellent reports. Using an RE27ND mic with W2IHY 8 band EQ and EQ Plus. I narrow audio to 200-2900 and have plenty of punch and loud, but clear.

73

Dave wo2x

Mike-VA3MW

For what it is worth, this is the EQ I used after lots of on air testing with my RadioSport headset and the M208 element I think.

I actually got about a dozen comments on audio quality. I was really surprised.

My audio level was peaking at -10db and I had no issue driving the PGXL to 2000 PEP when measured with an LP-100 wattmeter in peak mode. My drive was set to about 60 watts.