Russian DX 2012

Last week I participated in the Russian DX contest. One of the support wires of the inverted vee was broken, so the wire ran from the top of the mast to the raingutter and then vertically along the house to one meter above the ground. Still I made QSO's with very low power.

The conditions on 14 MHz were good, so I used to lowest possible power.
On 7 MHz I had to use the maximum power of 2.7 watts in all QSO's.
The most remarkable QSO was made with PW7T with a power of 2.7 watts.
The numbers in red are indicating more than 1000 Miles/Watt QSO's.

UBA DX CW Contest (2)

In most contests, I use the lowest possible power in each QSO.
Also in this contest I started with search and pounce with low power.
But because a station from the Netherlands is a wanted station in this contest, I also tried to called CQ myself, using 2.7 W.
Very occasionally I was heard by more than one station, who would than call at the same time. But on other moments my QSO-rate dropped, when I called CQ. So then I would go back to S&P after a few QSO's.

QSO-rate
I calculated that I made one QSO in two or three minutes, while searching on the band, answering stations that are calling CQ.
When not too many other stations are also answering, I don't have to wait long to make a low power QSO.
I tent to answer, with more power than needed, when I have to wait for a longer time.

The bands
14 and 21 MHz were good. On 14 MHz the lowest power was used.
On 14 MHz 80% of the QSO's were made with QRPp and on 21 MHz only 50%.

When the S-meter goes up, the power goes down.