It was the ARRL DX contest last weekend. I have never taken part in it before. In fact, the last contest I took part in was the UK VHF contest in about 1990 with the Watford Amateur Radio Club. Those were fun weekends, camped out on a hill under the stars and sometimes under the Perseids meteor shower. Of course the 6KVA diesel generator was chugging away in the background and someone was calling CQ contest continually, but they were great times.
That's not what I did last weekend though. I was only interested in working new countries using the homebrew station. Given my very small country total at the moment (9 entities), that was not hard. Of course I was restricted to 40 meters and my 50 watt homebrew amplifier, so it would just be a few stations in the evenings.
The contest opened Friday, but it was chaos. I called several stations but literally no one could hear me. There were pileups for even the most mediocre DX stations. I had trouble working Canada! I soon gave up and went to watch TV with my wife instead.
On Saturday night, things were a little more sensible. I managed to work several European stations in new countries for me, including Spain. I also worked into South America and the Caribbean. But it was tough. Several new countries for me like 9A - Croatia, were impossible. I would call and call. 9A1A was very loud, and from the look of their QRZ page they have a massive super station, but my small signal from a wire dipole which is pointed more at Africa than at Europe, was lost in the Q-R-Mexico. I soon exhausted the stations that I could work, so I gave up for the night again.
I intended to get up early on Sunday and work on 40 meters before dawn, but a long week at work and late nights over the weekend conspired against me and I slept past sunrise. I realize that I probably missed many stations that I could have worked as a result and I regret that. Next time I will be more disciplined.
Sunday evening was by far the best period of the contest for me. The pileups were gone. Everyone in the contest had worked everyone else it seemed. They were desperate for anything new and would spend time to listen for a weaker signal. I was able to work many new countries, adding a total of ten for the contest. Given I had only worked 9 countries so far, that was pretty good, doubling my country count. I'm busy filling out the QSL cards now.
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