CQWW-CW: Close but no cigar

Here is the quick summary of the single operator marathon of the year, CQWW CW.

Propagation was nice with some good DX on Ten meter and also a few surprises on low bands. I recently replaced my 40 meter array and have a new 160 meter vertical in the air, both working great in the contest. Being a smaller station I was pleased with my pileup busting abilities. There where only a few occasions where I didn’t cut through the big piles on the first or second call. 

Click to enlarge

I ended up logging about the same number of contacts as last year but spent more time picking zones and country multipliers on the second radio which helped the score a lot. I was mostly running but the last 2-3 hours was almost exclusively S&P.

Band    QSOs    ZN  Cty
 1,8     178    17   64
 3,5     470    19   69
   7     796    35  118
  14     732    33  106
  21     575    36  127
  28     285    35  115
Total    3036  175  599

I did not got the opportunity to rest as much as I needed before the contest, so I faded after about 24 hours of operating and decided to take a 3 hour sleep to be fresh for sunrise. This is where I believe I lost the SM record.

My claimed score at 4,280,994 points is a great improvement, but it is still about 50k below the current SM record.

Close but no cigar!