Contest Impact on DXCC Totals

I entered the CQ WW CW contest this past weekend in the single-operator, unassisted QRP category. The only change I had to make to comply with the rules was to dial down the power output of my KX3 from 10 watts to 5 watts. The loss of 3 db for an already small station worried me before the contest. I am already at a competitive disadvantage against other QRP participants due to the lack of antenna height and gain.

As it turned out my worries were for naught. I did quite well, even surprisingly well considering I only operated part time, not close to the permitted 48 hours. Since this article is about DX rather than contests I want to show just how much impact operating in a contest can have on DXCC objectives. It can be large even if one doesn't work the rare ones.

I summarized my results in the following table. The first column contains my achievements up to but not including the contest. The second column is just the contest. The third is the sum of both. The process of transferring QSOs from N1MM to Ham Radio Deluxe was easier than expected. However I had to fix up some of the entries since my version of HRD made some errors in country determinations.

Band	Nov. 22	CQ WW	Nov. 25
160	1	0	1
80	0	2	2
40	53	53	78
30	87	0	87
20	124	61	136
17	59	0	59
15	78	73	111
12	0	0	0
10	83	48	100
Totals:	177	95	180

WARC bands (30, 17 and 12 meters) are off limits for the contest, which explains the zeroes in the contest column. I have also never operated on 12 meters so those are also zero across the board. I once made a few 160 meters contacts with my eaves trough antenna then never again.

I used a tuner on 80 meters during the contest to snag a few multipliers to boost my score. Nothing more was possible since the efficiency of both the 40 meters delta loop and multi-band inverted vee are very poor on 80, though the latter is less awful.

During the contest alone I nearly reached the bottom rung of DXCC with 95 countries worked. I did not expect this much success with 5 watts and fairly low single-element wire antennas. It just goes to show what is possible with even small stations. Of course a lot of the heavy lifting for these contacts came from the other end where the majority of contesters have yagis, power and height.

QRP DXing is clearly a viable pursuit, with even substantial totals possible with little investment of time and money. It also shows that when it comes to results that CW is very effective. SSB with the same station is substantially more difficult.

Notice in particular the success I had on 40 meters. I think it is fair to conclude that the delta loop is an effective antenna even with QRP. It was remarkable how many stations responded to me on my first call, and copied me well enough to not need me to repeat my call sign or exchange. My 40 meters contacts extended as far away as central Asia (Kazakhstan/UN), South America (Argentina/LU) and west Africa.

Post-contest I have now exceeded 100 countries worked on three bands: 20, 15 and 10. Although the total countries worked only went up by 3 -- FK8, 4U1ITU and V5 -- I can only be very pleased with my results. In retrospect I wish I'd taken the contest more seriously and operated more hours. I am especially regretful of missing the bulk of the excellent 10 meters opening Saturday morning.

Contester or not, QRP or not, if you are passionate about DX you are missing opportunities when you avoid contests.