CQ WPX

Talk about sweating this one.......My goals were the same as every contest, to beat the previous score and to have fun.

I should have known that this year's contest was going to be be bad when I broke my toe the morning before the contest. It was painful to say the least and I had to take Allyson to go grocery shopping to boot....

I was able to get home and get a nap in the afternoon so I would not have to operate in the contest with just 2 hours sleep. Unfortunately, I had a banquet I had to attend, so I knew that I was going to get a late start to the contest. I was able to get home and get on the air about 2 hours into the contest. I knew I was in trouble when the usual stack of Europeans were not on 40 meters. I went to 20 and worked a number of South American stations and some Americans. 40 meters began to heat up a little and I worked all that could hear my little 100 watts. I picked up a number of stations on 80 meters, so it was not a total waste and even picked up a single station on 160. I decided to try to get some more sleep and see what I could find to work on Saturday morning early.

Saturday morning brought a few good periods, but the Europeans just could not hear me. I would call them and they just kept calling CQ. I did pick up some contacts on 15 and 10 meters from the US, Caribbean, and South America. Things never did improve for Europe. It was like banging my head up against the wall. I was getting rather frustrated because I working everyone I could but they were all the one pointers and I needed lots of 3 pointers and beyond if I was going to get close to last year's score.

Saturday night, I was working some Europeans on 40 and 80 but it seemed like we were going to have another rough time. I put up with it for as long as I could and decided to get up early on Sunday morning as I always do and pray that the band conditions would be favorable to Europe. Well, I misjudged. I probably would have been better off staying up another 2 hours and sleeping in two hours later. Those two hours in the morning were pathetic, to say the least. I had one hour with 2 new contacts and another hour with 6 new ones. Not a very appealing rate. But, I hung in there and worked all I could.

When I got home from church, I turned on the radio and gave the first European on 20 meters I heard a shout. He came right back to me!!! 20 meters was alive!!! Now, I had to make up for some lost time. I put everything I could into working every station I heard on 15 and 20 meters. 10 was not producing anything I had not already worked. 40, 80, and 160 meters had nothing for me. I knew that I had to stop at about 4:45 to get back to church on time for a program there. So, I had a slip of paper with last year's results on it that I put on top of the antenna tuner and focused on making those numbers my goal.

There were tons of US stations on 20 meters doing their part to catch up also and I worked all of them that I could also. I knew that it was going to take everything I could work for me to pass last year's score. I kept praying that the big pointers were going to start falling into my lap. After about 1pm local time, things changed for the better. I wound up working a number of stations and the totals started adding up. When I came home from church, I was at 393 QSOs, 242 multipliers and 227,722 points. I needed to beat 444 QSOs, 291 multipliers and 339,306 points. The race was definitely on!!!! By 3pm I had passed the number of QSOs from last year, but I was lacking in multipliers and QSO points as many that I had worked were 1 or 2 pointers. I was doing some serious clock watching after 3pm. Would I make it or would my score fall short this year???? I was getting the QSOs but the multipliers were just not coming in the way I needed, so my score was not building rapidly. Then my son came out and said that I needed to type his school project before we left for church.......Now I am really sweating bullets because I know it will take at least 20 minutes to type this report.........

I am inching closer to where I want to be at 3:30pm. but it is not looking good and I am already preparing my excuses.......When, all of the sudden, propagation changes and everything I hear I am now working!!! At about 4pm, I finally reached the multipliers I needed to beat last year's score, but the score is still less than last year. Then about 4:10 I reached the goal of beating last years score. Now the only question was how much more could I pad it before I had to leave to type the report. I still had some good propagation and a few minutes, so I went all out in those last moments. At 4:15, I said I would pull the plug.....Then I realized I was still not at the top of the 20 meter band, so I tuned on to hear anyone else that I might have missed. I found only one Canadian hanging up there near the top of the band, so I worked him and called it a wrap......474 QSOs, 298 multipliers for a score of 345,382. I did it!!!! I had succeeded in my goal of beating last year's score. As for the fun part, it was fun, but it was also a little stressful as I am sitting there frustrated that no one was able to hear me outside of the Americas. But, talk about stress relief, when that total inched up over last year's I was tempted to let out a yell that the neighbors could have heard. It was a great source of personal joy to meet that goal. Those who are not contesters probably would not understand what it is like for you to not only have to compete with yourself, but also propagation. Of course, DXers would understand the frustration of trying to work that last one you need but not being able to get it.

So....that is where I am today. I am personally satisfied with being able to achieve this goal and I am thankful that my wife tolerates my little bit of contesting so that I can achieve a little bit of mental cleansing from this rat race that I often find myself in.