Well, it’s official; we have busted our old score in CQ WW CW and have a new CW Op in our contest team. Thanks to Gary KD8SAV coming out for the entire weekend we had over half our QSO points and Multipliers in the first 24 hours of the contest. Below is a breakdown of our score…
QSO’s – 669
QSO Points – 1865
Total Mults – 377
Claimed Score – 703,105
Ops: KD8SAV, KA8OQF, & KB8UEY
Bands: QSO’s/Countries/Zones
160m – Ø/Ø/Ø
80m – 13/7/8
40m – 135/57/21
20m – 157/63/24
15m – 229/85/32
10m – 136/57/23
To explain the shortcomings on 80m & 160m, we currently have no 160m antenna and 80m was so noisy we even had extreme difficulty with Caribbean contacts and those are usually very easy on 80m. We only pulled off 1 European contact on 80m.
Our team this year consisted of Gary Whiddon KD8SAV, Charlie Cotterman KA8OQF, and Rob Lunsford KB8UEY. Gary arrived before the contest Friday afternoon to get things warmed up and ready, and boy did he! By the time Charlie arrived on Saturday evening Gary had already logged well over 300 QSO’s and at least half the multipliers that were logged for the entire contest. Rob arrived just after Charlie and provided some technical assistance and then jumped in and help log and made a few QSO’s when things were slow.
KA8OQF operating in CQ WW CW 2012
KD8SAV operating in CQ WW CW 2012
Overall it was the best outing for a CW contest from B-Road in a long time. Looking through scores from 2011, unless other stations had drastic increases in score like we did the entry should land us in the top 60 to 70 in the world, top 20 to 25 in North America, top 20 in the US, and right around #1 8th Call Area in the Multi Op / 2 Transmitter / Low Power category. The new amplifier was off for the duration of this contest. We just don’t have the bodies to compete in the high power categories. Official results from CQ usually take a few months for computer and hand checking of log submissions, although so far we are #1 North America, #1 USA, and #1 8th Call Area in Multi/Two/Low…We Shall See!