Sunday, November 19, 2023

Taking the side road......

This weekend the LZ dx contest was up and running, I have never taken part in this contest and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of activity. It's a 24-hour contest that started at 8 am out my way and it gave me a nice workout for the upcoming weekend for the CQ World Wide DX CW contest. I took part for about a total of 4 hours and made 120 contacts for a score of 13,110. 


Midway into the contest I was taken down a side road for a pleasant surprise. At some point on Saturday afternoon calling CQ contest was slowing down on 20m. I decided to make a left turn and head down the 10m side road. There were very few LZ contesters there but I did notice a commotion on the waterfall. When I went to investigate it was H44WA DXpedition in the Soloman islands calling CQ North America (CQ NA) and he was all alone. I put the Icom 7610 in split and dual mode (hearing both VFOA and VFOB) and made the mental change from CW contesting to CW DXpedition. After a few short tries, I was in the log. I was glad I made a left turn and took a side road from the contest.

2 comments:

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hello Mike, congrats on the contact with H44WA. It's incredible how many good DXpeditions are on air now. With incredible signals as well. I saw you spotted on the DXcluster a few times this weekend for the contest. Well done. Do you participate in the CQWW next weekend? 73, Bas

VE9KK said...

Good morning Bas, yes I was shocked to see them on 10m,calling only NA and very little sign of a pile up. Yes the LZ contest was fun and it was raining all day here on Saturday so it gave me a nice way to pass the time. I for sure will be on the CQWW this coming weekend it is a great time to get some DXCC's, give my CW a workout and enjoy myself.
73,
Mike
VE9KK