CQ WW CW 2014 - My first 100+

I most certainly enjoyed the weekend doing what I like most, that is chasing DX on CW.

I am fairly pleased with my results, considering I don’t have any decent antennas to speak of. My best antenna is a rigid rotating dipole for the ten metre band, some 8m agl. The rest of the antennas are simple low wire dipoles.

As a rule I don’t monitor my progress during a contest nor do set specific goals. However, late on Sunday I realized that I had already worked some 90 countries on 10m. As I had never worked 100+ DXCC entities during a single contest, I then I set myself that goal since it seemed within reach.

For the most part I operated in “search and pounce” mode, which is fairly slow but at least could chase the country and zone multipliers I needed.

I tried “running” a few times and the QSO rate was much higher, but found it rather stressful, mostly because I am not as proficient on CW as I would like to be. I find it rather daunting to be at the sharp end of a pileup, I need to practice my pileup skills. Maybe if I used Morse Runner more often I would become more skilled in being able to extract calls from the quagmire.

I was very happy that I was able to reach my goal: 106 DXCC entities worked (on a single band) with a few extras for insurance.

My total score for SOSB(A) 10m = 152,066

ZS6A CQ WW CW 2014 score

ZS6A CQ WW CW 2014 stats