Last weekend I participated in CW part of CQ WW DX Contest. Since I haven’t used Morse code in last 2 years – and frankly have never been good at it – I didn’t try to reach some high score and just enjoyed the contest.
I turned on my FT-897D on Saturday at 7 AM. I started on 20 m band, found the first strong station and tried to read its callsign. Unfortunately it was 5B/G4IRN – great callsign to hear after 2 years of not using Morse code! :-)
However, after some time I read the callsign and answered the CQ… and 1st station was in my log! And soon a few others were following… I was amazed how well other stations were reading my signals – most of them recognized correctly my call on 1st attempt, which doesn’t happen so often to me in phone contests.
And what was my surprise after about 35 QSOs, when I found out that I was transmitting with just 20 Watts! (I’d been doing some experiments with digimodes the day before and had forgotten to set power back to 100 W)
During the whole contest I made 146 contacts with 33 DXCC countries and 13 CQ zones, most of them on 20 meters band. I was a little disappointed that I made only 11 QSOs on 15 meters – there was quite a strong QRM, sometimes even S7-S8. On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by 40 meters band – for 1st time I managed to make contact with U.S. station.
To sum up, I must say I really liked the CW contest and decided to work on my “Morse code reading skills” to be better next time.
Here you can see a table of contacted DXCC entities:
| DXCC entity |
3.5 MHz |
7 MHz |
14 MHz |
21 MHz |
28 MHz |
All bands |
| United States of America |
0 |
10 |
35 |
1 |
0 |
46 |
| European Russia |
1 |
4 |
12 |
0 |
0 |
17 |
| Asiatic Russia |
0 |
3 |
4 |
7 |
0 |
14 |
| Spain |
1 |
6 |
7 |
0 |
0 |
14 |
| Ukraine |
0 |
2 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
| Italy |
0 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
4 |
| Portugal |
0 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
4 |
| Bulgaria |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
| Cyprus |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
| Israel |
0 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
| Canada |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Canary Is. |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Fed. Rep. of Germany |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| France |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Kazakhstan |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Latvia |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Lithuania |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Serbia |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Sweden |
0 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Turkey |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Armenia |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Balearic Is. |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Brazil |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Croatia |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| England |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Estonia |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Georgia |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Greece |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Hungary |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Romania |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Sardinia |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| Sierra Leone |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| Sudan |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
And here is table of contacted CQ zones:
| CQ zone |
3.5 MHz |
7 MHz |
14 MHz |
21 MHz |
28 MHz |
All bands |
| 05 – E Z of N. America |
0 |
10 |
27 |
1 |
0 |
38 |
| 14 – W Z of Europe |
4 |
8 |
12 |
0 |
0 |
24 |
| 16 – E Z of Europe |
1 |
6 |
15 |
2 |
0 |
24 |
| 15 – Central European Z |
5 |
5 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
13 |
| 20 – Balkan Z |
1 |
7 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
13 |
| 17 – W Z of Siberia |
0 |
4 |
2 |
5 |
0 |
11 |
| 04 – Central Z of N. America |
0 |
1 |
9 |
0 |
0 |
10 |
| 33 – NW Z of Africa |
0 |
4 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
| 18 – Central Siberian Z |
0 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
| 21 – SW Z of Asia |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
| 11 – Central Z of S. America |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
| 34 – NE Z of Africa |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| 35 – Central Z of Africa |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
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CQ WW CW DX Contest 2009
Last weekend I participated in CW part of CQ WW DX Contest. Since I haven’t used Morse code in last 2 years – and frankly have never been good at it – I didn’t try to reach some high score and just enjoyed the contest.
I turned on my FT-897D on Saturday at 7 AM. I started on 20 m band, found the first strong station and tried to read its callsign. Unfortunately it was 5B/G4IRN – great callsign to hear after 2 years of not using Morse code! :-)
However, after some time I read the callsign and answered the CQ… and 1st station was in my log! And soon a few others were following… I was amazed how well other stations were reading my signals – most of them recognized correctly my call on 1st attempt, which doesn’t happen so often to me in phone contests.
And what was my surprise after about 35 QSOs, when I found out that I was transmitting with just 20 Watts! (I’d been doing some experiments with digimodes the day before and had forgotten to set power back to 100 W)
During the whole contest I made 146 contacts with 33 DXCC countries and 13 CQ zones, most of them on 20 meters band. I was a little disappointed that I made only 11 QSOs on 15 meters – there was quite a strong QRM, sometimes even S7-S8. On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by 40 meters band – for 1st time I managed to make contact with U.S. station.
To sum up, I must say I really liked the CW contest and decided to work on my “Morse code reading skills” to be better next time.
Here you can see a table of contacted DXCC entities:
And here is table of contacted CQ zones: