ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: DL0MB
Operator(s): W1NN
Station: DL0MB

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Germany
Operating Time (hrs): 37

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   40    21
   80:  147    38
   40:  905    58
   20:  864    57
   15:  651    57
   10:    0     0
-------------------
Total: 2607   231  Total Score = 1,803,879

Club: North Coast Contesters

Comments:

Many thanks to the members of the Mercedes Benz Ham Club in Rastatt, and
especially to Win DK9IP, Wolfgang, DK6UZ, and Suad DK6XZ, for allowing and
encouraging me to use their very effective station and assisting me with
arrangements for my stay.  I am especially indebted to Win for loaning me his
K3, explaining the station and staying with me until very late Friday night,
and helping me clean up late Sunday night at the end of the contest. 

This operation came about because I had business in Germany the week just
before the contest.  I traveled to Germany from Japan, where I was also on
business, so this amounted to a business trip inside a business trip.  My work
schedule for the week (six flights and four cities) was completed at 7:30 PM
Friday night when I arrived in Frankfurt airport.  With the contest beginning
at 1 AM Saturday morning, I had about five hours to pick up my rental car, make
the two hour drive to the station, and get ready for the contest.  Unfortunately
the tight schedule made it impossible to get a nap before the contest.  And
unfortunately I had had a rather poor sleep the previous night in Berlin and
was awake at 4:30 AM Friday morning.  I was not beginning the contest in very
good physical condition.

The MB club station is located adjacent to a large MB assembly plant in
Rastatt, about 100 miles south of Frankfurt.  It is ideally situated in the
sense that there are no houses or residents nearby so no TVI or interference
problems with neighbors.  There is a huge power transmission line passing about
300 meters from the station but it didn't seem to generate any noise and the
QTH was quiet. 

The shack itself is located inside a brightly lit double container and the
operating position is nicely laid out.  There is even a foot warmer to protect
the op's feet from the cold concrete floor and a couch for napping, which I
ended up using more than I should have.  The main antennas are a KLM KT34 at
120 Ft for the high bands, a 4 el Optibeam at 100 Ft for 40 meters, a delta
loop for 80 and an inverted L for 160.  40 Meters is obviously the station's
strength and the DL0MB station was the site of the 40 Meter operation of DA0HQ
in the 2009 IARU contest and performed very well.  I was really looking forward
to operating the station on 40 Meters and thought about doing a single band
effort, but finally opted to go all bands, mainly because I've been doing
SO40 for the past several years from JH1GTV's station in Japan and thought it
would be interesting to spend some time on the other bands.

In the weeks before the contest I did what I could to get ready.  Fortunately I
was familiar with the K3, but it would be my first time to use Win-Test.  I
downloaded the trial version and quickly realized to my relief that the basic
functions are very similar to CT and NA, so I didn't have to worry about
having the kind of surprises that I get every time I have to operate with N1MM.
 (I wished I could make the Win-Test logging screen larger but I couldn't
figure out how.) 

Another useful thing I did in preparation for the contest was to study the 3830
report that K5ZD produced after his operation at OE4A two years earlier.  I had
remembered that Randy had operated ARRL DX CW from somewhere in Europe and it
only took a minute to find his report in the 3830 archives.  Randy had
fortunately included an hourly breakdown of his results, which I found to be
very interesting and helpful, especially in getting an idea of break times.
Although Randy faced considerably different conditions two years ago, I found
myself comparing my rates with his during the contest in an attempt to at least
keep up with his rates. 
   
The table at the end of this report pretty much tells the story of how the
contest unfolded for me.  I include it not because it is any kind of model of
how to operate this contest but because it may possibly be of some use to some
future contester operating from this part of the world as Randy's was to me.
You can tell that it was a pretty strange weekend for me.  The first three hours
started off with a tremendous run on 40 Meters averaging 149 Q's per hour.  I
was feeling pretty good and was hopeful that I could stay alert until the bands
faded at around 0800 zulu.  But after the move to 80, the rate declined sharply
and so did my energy.  I just couldn't get any good runs going on 80.  I
actually felt pretty loud on 160 and had no trouble getting stations to hear me
but there just weren't very many of them.  As time went on, I became more and
more tired, and the rate suffered. 

Much of the rest of the contest is a big blur to me now, with my main memory
being the huge number of times I fell asleep right in the middle of contacts.
I would suddenly realize that someone was sending to me and try to figure out
who it was and log the contact.  Looking over the log, during certain hours
there are quite a few periods of 10 minutes or more without any contacts, where
I must have been asleep at the switch or at least in some kind of fog.  I
apologize to anyone who was affected by my falling asleep in their face!  I
won't be surprised if I end up with a pretty low logging accuracy rate.   

I plugged away as best I could and managed to do pretty well during certain
hours but the fatigue just wouldn't go away and I ended up operating for only
37 hours and having some pretty low rates during some of the hours I operated.
I should have stayed in the chair until the very end of the contest but I
completely ran out of energy and ended up shutting down two hours early. 

Overall, though, the experience of operating from a first rate station in
Germany was wonderful and extremely interesting, and I will never forget it.  I
am very grateful to the Mercedes Benz Ham Club members for making this memorable
operation possible.  I will certainly be trying to do more operating from Europe
in the future, especially in CQWWDX CW.         

I should mention the most exciting contact of the weekend for me was that with
N6TR on 160.  I remembered reading a recent report by Tree about one of the 160
contests in which he worked something like 300 European stations.  I even looked
up the great circle distances to see how far he is from Europe compared with
East Coast stations.  It was really fun to come across him calling CQ.  He was
easy copy and came right back to my call, showing that whatever antennas he is
using really work.  He was the only West Coast station I worked on 160 and my
last contact on that band. 

One thing this operation did was to make me appreciate the challenge of the
late night start time of this and the other contests that our European brethren
face.  While I suppose some ops are able to get in naps prior to their middle of
the night start times, I'm sure lots of guys never have the chance and, like
me, start out the contest already tired.  In comparison, we in the US have it
easy.  But easiest of all may be the Japanese contesters and others who begin
the major contests early in the morning their time.  How nice it is to begin a
contest rested and refreshed.

Congratulations to DL1IAO for producing a great score from DL0WW.

73 and thanks for the contacts!

Hal W1NN 7J1AAI

QSOs by hour and band
Hour 160  80    40     20     15     10     Total   Cumm   Off
00Z    -       -      150      -       -       -       150    150 
01Z    -       -      146      -       -       -       146    296 
02Z    -       -      151      -       -       -       151    447 
03Z    -      20       75      -       -       -        95    545 
04Z    8      46        -      -       -       -        54    596 
05Z   10      27        -      -       -       -        37    633 
06Z    2      35        -      -       -       -        37    670 
07Z    -       1       44      -       -       -        45    715       
08Z    -       -       15      -       -       -        15    730   44
09Z    -       -       -       -       -       -         -    730   60
10Z    -       -       -      14       -       -        14    744    6
11Z    -       -       -      51       -       -        51    795
12Z    -       -       -       9      50       -        59    854
13Z    -       -       -       -     102       -       102    956
14Z    -       -       -       -      97       -        97   1053 
15Z    -       -       -       -      91       -        91   1144
16Z    -       -       -      64       1       -        65   1209
17Z    -       -       -      39       -       -        39   1248
18Z    -       -       -      89       -       -        89   1337
19Z    -       -       -      96       -       -        96   1433
20Z    -       -       -      86       -       -        86   1519
21Z    -       -       5      11       -       -        16   1535   48 
22Z    -       -      27       -       -       -        27   1562
23Z    -      10       5       -       -       -        15   1577
00Z    -       -     118       -       -       -       118   1695
01Z    -       8      56       -       -       -        64   1759
02Z    4       -      21       -       -       -        25   1784   20
03Z    -       -      79       -       -       -        79   1863
04Z   16       1       9       -       -       -        26   1889
05Z    -       5       8       -       -       -        13   1902   29
06Z    -       -       -       -       -       -         0   1902   60
07Z    -       -       -       -       -       -         0   1902   60
08Z    -       -       -       -       -       -         0   1902   60
09Z    -       -       -       -       -       -         0   1902   60
10Z    -       -       -       3       -       -         3   1905   40
11Z    -       -       -      20       -       -        20   1928
12Z    -       -       -      42       -       -        42   1970
13Z    -       -       -       2      44       -        46   2016
14Z    -       -       -       -      67       -        67   2083
15Z    -       -       -       -     100       -       100   2183
16Z    -       -       -       3     105       -       108   2291
17Z    -       -       -      78       -       -        78   2369
18Z    -       -       -      92       -       -        92   2461
19Z    -       -       -      78       -       -        78   2539
20Z    -       -       -      76       -       -        76   2615
21Z    -       -       3      20       -       -        23   2638   12
22Z    -       -       -       -       -       -         0   2638   60
23Z    -       -       -       -       -       -         0   2638   60
Tot:  40     153     912     873     657       -      2638   2638 9:50
Note:  dupes included.