29-30 November 2014

Update 02/05/2015: I received my certificates today for the 2014 CQWW CW contest, I almost forgot that I also entered as ZS/V51VE on 40m QRP! You can see the 2 certificates below.

10m QRP, #1 RSA and Africa, #2 world, also new Africa record.

40m QRP entry, #1 RSA and Africa, #18 world, also new Africa record, not bad for 1.5 hours of operating!

10M QRP world results.

1	LZ2RS
2	ZS6DX
3	VY2OX
4	JQ1NGT
5	SP5DDJ
6	HA3HX
7	K1SX
8	GJ3YHU
9	JA4DQX
10	G3LHJ

The 40m result surprised me number 1 RSA and Africa, 18 world and a new Africa record, not bad for about 1.5 hours of operating!
I see I also broke the 10m Africa record, the old record was set in 1984! 

Update 01/05/2015: The results are out, well partially anyway. So far they have published the world top 3 in every category and the complete results for the USA and EU, typically ignoring the rest of the world!! Anyway, I managed a second place for 10m, QRP unassisted. I would actually have had first place if my log conversion software, from ADIF to Cabrillo, did not "correct" many logged zones, this cost me over 100 contacts! Lesson learned, only use N1MM+ logging software in the future.

Well, I suppose second in the world is not too bad....  
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Report:

CQWW CQ 2014 is history, and what a feast it was!! Yes, there were problems, for starters I did not feel that well, I have had a lingering cold/flu for a while that did not want to leave but it was not too bad. And then, as predicted, we had 2 "load shedding" sessions of around 2:45 each, as well as 2 thunder storms.... But the band conditions were really great so nothing else mattered much!

I was prepared. or so I thought, for the power outages, unfortunately my plans did no go that well. About 1:45 into the first outage the radio shut itself down due to low voltage. It seems like the battery was not fully charged, I need to look at my charging setup. I also noticed that the IC-756Pro2 was drawing more that 2A on RX! I also had additional load on the battery in the form of a 600W inverter that was needed to power the logging computer and the rotator.

Initially I was using an IC-756Pro3 but after a few hours it developed a problem, every now and then, after I transmitted, it would be deaf on RX, keying it a few times solved the problem but it was annoying and getting worse. I think the antenna switchover relay needed to be cleaned or replace. Since I did not have time to play with that I substituted my old Pro2 and continued. I should have used the FT-950.....

Eventually I ended up reverting to the little Yaesu FT-817 radio that is far more power efficient, this radio I ran from 6000mAh Lipo batteries so not all was lost. Unfortunately the 817's RX is not the best in the world and it suffered on the crowed bands. 10m was really crowded most of the time with strong signals and 40m had lots of noise. I need to check all my radios to find a decent radio with a low current draw for the next time this happens. I must say I was thankful I had installed the additional CW filter in the 817. Considering how tiny it is it did quite well taking me to a reasonable score.

The contest started slowly with some DX on 40m. Due to the fact that I wanted to enter 10m single band as my main entry but also single band 40m as a second entry I had to use a different call for 40m. I ended up using ZS/V51VE, rather long and it caused many repeats but it did the job.

40m only produced 61 contacts in the 3:50 hours I ended up operating on the band. This included 12 countries and 14 zones. Not great but ok for QRP I suppose. The Butternut HF2V is really working well and I managed to work everything I could hear. A notable contact was Mariana Isl, a new 40m DXCC for me.

10m was really amazing. On Saturday it opened around 6am and stayed open till around 9pm with wall to wall strong signals. The band was used all the way up to 28.200mHz. I ended up slowly scanning the band from bottom to top again and again working stations one after the other. With all the strong stations on the band I did not even try to call CQ, I could not find an open spot so the whole contest was spent doing search and pounce. On Sunday the band opened even earlier and by 11pm, when I was too tired to continue, there were still stations I could hear!

The totals were slowly climbing, most of the time I could work a station after a call or two but a few times the pileups were just too large and I saved the frequency in a memory and moved on. A few times I managed to return later to find that conditions had changed and I could make the contact.

There were a few times when I wished for more power but most of the time I hardly noticed that I was running only 5W!

Saturday afternoon I had an enforced rest period, first the power failure and flat battery and the a thunderstorm. The total lost time was about 3 hours on Saturday, unfortunately it was in the late afternoon, a time when 10m is usually at its best! Sunday was a repeat, this time I coped with the loss of power but the storm still forced me to shut down  for about 2.5 hours.

My initial aim was to better the African 10m QRP record that was set in 1984! That did not take long, I think I passed the old record before lunch on Saturday! I then moved my aim higher a step at a time, first 200 contacts, the 100K points and so on. Sunday just before lunch I noticed that I had worked 86 countries so the next, not so easy aim, was to get to 100 countries, a DXCC century, not that easy easy running QRP but it was a nice challenge!

Initially it looked like I was not going to make it, I was stuck for a long time on 87 countries but then propagation changed towards the west and South America. Slowly the countries started coming in again. By the time I was too tired too continue, and the band stated closing down, I had a total of 102 counties, just over 500 contacts and over 200K points. I was more than happy!

What worked well? The Butternut HF2V, the A4S antenna and just about everything else other than the IC-756Pro3 and the backup battery. For the next contest I will run a Yaesu only setup. I just need to decide on the model to use for the times when I need to run from 12V. My FT-2000 and the FTdx-5000MP's are AC only.....

Now the wait starts to see who scored what! I am hoping to at least win 10m QRP in South Africa, maybe Africa? :Looking forward to the next contest, this is addictive....