Tag Archives: ARRL DX

ARRL DX Contest SSB 2013

By Ondra OK1CLD | Published: March 5, 2013

Last weekend I participated in SSB part of ARRL DX Contest. Unfortunately I had not enough time and was QRV only for 2 hours…

Short contest summary:

  • Time On: 2 hours
  • Bands activated: 10/15/20 meters
  • QSO count: 43 (40 to the USA and 3 to Canada)
  • Multipliers: 29
  • Claimed score: 3 741 points
  • Contacted U.S. states: CT, MA, NH, RI, VT, NJ, NY, MD, PA, AL, FL, GA, TN, VA, TX, MI, IL, WI
  • Contacted Canadian provinces: MB, ON, PEI

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ARRL DX Contest SSB 2012

By Ondra OK1CLD | Published: March 5, 2012

Just two weeks after CW part of ARRL DX Contest, it was the time for SSB part. I was determined to try for my best result in SO AB LP category, but it didn’t start well.

After the contest start, I could hear only a few U.S. stations, but not very well and they couldn’t hear me. After about 20 minutes I gave up and went to sleep, having my alarm clock set for 2 a.m. However, CONDX on the band were even worse then before! After short lookup on the Internet I learnt that reason was probably M Class Solar Flare and decided to go to bed.

ARRL DX SSB 2012 - QSO map

ARRL DX SSB 2012 - QSO map

Mistake was that I woke up quite late, after 7 UTC. My friend told me he managed to make a few QSOs between 4 and 6 o’clock… At about half past seven I managed to make only 2 QSOs, to Pennsylvania and Maryland – and just hoped higher bands would be better… Read More (score summary and rest of the story) »

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ARRL DX Contest CW 2012

By Ondra OK1CLD | Published: February 21, 2012

Last weekend I participated in CW part of ARRL International DX Contest. I decided for SO AB LP category.

My equipment was:

Unfortunately, I couldn’t have been QRV for the whole time, because I had to stay in Prague until Saturday morning. I started contesting at 11:30 UTC, on 20 meters band. Start wasn’t very good for me, during first two hours I made only 22 QSOs. Problem was, that it was a quite difficult for me to find U.S. and Canadian stations between stronger European ones.

ARRL DX CW 2012 - QSO map

ARRL DX CW 2012 - QSO map

Read More (score summary and rest of the story) »

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ARRL DX Contest(s) 2011

By Ondra OK1CLD | Published: March 6, 2011

This year I participated in both CW and SSB part of ARRL DX Contest. I didn’t try
to win in any category, I just wanted to enjoy these contests – in fact the only goal I set was to try to make contact with at least some of nine U.S. states I still need for WAS award (AK, CA, HI, ID, LA, ND, NV, UT and WY).

ARRL CW was three weeks ago and for me it was a big disappointment. As I said here before, I have a little problem with a Morse code and so I managed to make only 53 QSOs (almost all of them on 14 MHz band – only one on 21 MHz band) from 24 states/provinces. Futhermore, I didn’t contact any of the nine states that were mentioned before…

Last weekend I had a much better time in ARRL SSB. I started on 20 meters band and during Saturday afternoon I managed to make 37 QSOs with 18 states/provinces. I know, it’s not very much, but some of them were very interesting for me, e.g. U.S. states of Oregon and Washington and Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia.

In the evening I switched to 15 meters and very quickly made a few QSOs there. However, the band closed soon after that, so I had to stop and wait for the next day…

On Sunday I began at 12:00 UTC and spent the whole time on 15 meters band. It was going very well and I managed to make 83 more QSOs… Nevertheless, I wasn’t completely happy, since once again I didn’t contact any of nine states I listed before. I already made up with the fact that I’d fail this goal and started to close my station, when at 17:35 UTC I noticed some station from Louisiana spotted on the DX cluster… Even though my train to Prague (where I study) was leaving in less than hour and I wasn’t even packed, I decided I have to make QSO with it… After tuning my radio I could clearly hear W5RU working quite a big pileup… It took me some time to call him, but at the end he heard me and before quarter to six I had Louisiana in my log! (Many thanks to W5RU for both the QSO and confirming the contact via LOTW.)

During the whole contest I managed to make 132 QSOs into 32 states and 7 provinces. It’s been probably my best result so far and I’ve been very happy with it, especially since (as I said before) I contacted one new state (LA).

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