01/06/2015

ED2A at CQ WPX CW 2015

This weekend I left SOTA activity for working the CQ WPX CW contest, after 25 years without taking part on it. I used a G5RV Junior dipole (SW-NE oriented) covering from 7 to 28 Mhz and 100w at home. It is not a contest station, really, but enough to have some fun taking part in the "voragine" of a contest.

A week before I asked for a special call for the contest to the local PTT office, EG2A, but I was told that this can only be used on local or regional events. For special worldwide ones the ED, EF, and EE were assigned, so I chose and being approved ED2A (previously used on other contests by the Radio Club of Pamplona EA2URP). These callsigns are actually assigned by the PTT -where asked- for no more that two consecutive years. If another licensed operator ask for it, he/she shall be given.

I presented to the category of Single Operator Assisted All-bands Low-Power and Tribander/Single Element (TB-WIRES) overlay category (it means have no more than a tribander for high bands and 1 antenna for each of the low ones.) In my case, all of them were just one. Software used was N1MM (classic) and VE7CC cluster client.

With the G5RV Jr. dipole, I could work only from 40m to 10m, but it was work enough for me. Focusing all the time on 40 and 20, with low power you are oblied to work almost S&P all the time. I did about 20 min of running (CQing) along all the contest with poor results. At the end of the fisrt night (fri-sat) I was clear that I have lost the habit of contesting, and I was pretty tired, tempted of leaving it out. But later, after a 4 hours sleep, I went back to the chair.  

G5RV at 6m over the roof
As I forgot how may hours you might rest (being on SO category), finally I worked 3 hours less than abled, but it was a eventual participation. Next year I'll try to make it better.

Despite all this, I reach my previos goal, passing the 1M points milestone, with some 1,8 million points (before checking) at the end of the contest.

Summary
More detailed can be seen here
Read the contest report from Jon EF2A
Read the contest report from Angel M0HDF

Edited 2015-06-11: Published Contest Raw Score at www.cqwpx.com website: