CQ Zones (Courtesy CQWW website)

Anita and I had the opportunity to use our new station as part of the 2012 CQ Worldwide Phone Contest this past weekend. We were both looking forward to working some new DX entities using our new antenna system and we were not disappointed! The contest also gave us the change to evaluate our new antennas in an environment where more DX stations are on phone than just about any other time of the year.

We each operated individually in the high power, single transmitter assisted category. We did not operate the full contest period due to a combination of travel on Fred’s part and the need to take time out to prepare our home and antennas for the approaching Hurricane Sandy. Our goals for the contest were mostly to work new DX entities and we did quite well in this area. Between the two of us we probably worked 200 new band-countries. Fred was also able to complete several SSB QSOs on 160m with our new Inverted-L antenna. Together, Anita and Fred completed about 400 QSOs during approximately 12 hours of combined operating time.

We are certainly much stronger into Asia with the new setup. Anita and I both worked modest stations in China, Japan, South Korea and several other countries in Asia during the contest. We are much more effective at making contacts into Africa than before and we were able to work several new countries in that region as well. We were also able to hold a frequency and run during the contest which was a new experience for us. We worked QSOs on all bands 80m – 10m (including a few on 160m).

Fred’s main goal was to get to 100 countries in the log on 80m and 40m to complete a 5 Band DXCC. He got close to this goal and finished with 96 Countries worked on 40m and 68 Countries worked on 80m. Anita wanted to make calls into Asia and complete her phone DXCC.  She did quite well, finishing with 97 countries worked on phone and she worked a number of new countries in Asia including China, Indonesia, Guam, Mongolia and many JA stations.

All in all, we had a lot of fun working the contest and we are looking forward to upcoming RTTY and other contests. Where time permits, we will work a few for a “real score” to see how we do.

– Anita (AB1QB) and Fred (AB1OC)