WQ6X Wangles another Weird Multi-contest Weekend

                                   As they say.... "...Be Careful whut You WISH For...".

The 2nd contest weekend of April qualified on this one in all respects.  LooKing at my hand-written contest calendar sheets (inspired by the WA7BNM contest calendar), I thought all the workable GiGs had been identified - until I turned the radio(s) on and discovered otherwise.

The identified radiosport events this weekend included:

1. [X] - Japanese JIDX CW Contest (as NX6T & WQ6X)
   
2. [X] - DIG QSO Party
   
3. [X] - IG-RY Worldwide RTTY Contest
4. [X] - OK/OM Ssb DX Contest
   
5. [X] - Nebraska QSO Party (NEQP)
   
6. [X] - New Mexico QSO Party (NMQP)
7. [X] - North Dakota QSO Party (NDQP)
8. [X] - Georgia QSO Party (GAQP)
9. [X] - Yuri Gagarin DX Contest (GC Test)
   

Now, there is only so much time during a given 48-hour contest weekend; the choice of which GiGs
to participate in depend on a number of subjective factors on my part.  The OK/OM and DIG GiGs didn't happen because I was either in the wrong place (not on Ssb) or at the wrong time (missed the specific time slots for the DIG party).

The MAIN focus was the JIDX contest; joining team NX6T from the WA6TQT Super Station (in ANZA) and running WQ6X as SOAB from the Nashville location.  Starting this year, the JIDX contest has been expanded to include the Multi-2 operating category.  With 9 available operators, running as Multi-2 seemed like the obvious thing to do.  Unfortunately, K3EST (@N6RO) chose to compete
with us in the Multi-2 category; altho the ANZA low band antenna setup (in my mind) rivals the
setup @N6RO, somehow they managed to sneak in more 160 contacts to Japan; probably by
virtue of geographically being 500+ miles North (and a bit more West) of NX6T.

 

 

 

 

As usual, the state QSO parties were (for me anyway) a complete BUST.  I submitted logs for
each of them just to up my contest participation total.  Tuning around the bands on Saturday I heard "CQ GC" calls which sounded familiar.  GC is short for Gagarin Cup, which I have dabbled in before; last year WQ6X made 10x this year's QSO count.  The propagation to EU for this last weekend was dismal, at best.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

While tuning around 40 for the GC GiG, I kept hearing unexpected RTTY signals.  Bringing
up N1MM+ under RTTY decoded "CQ IG Test" calls.  Looking it up in the WA7BNM calendar,
I found the rules, downloaded a contest file for N1MM and jumped in for a couple of hours.

 

Because I frequently run the night shifts, I am privy to all kinds of QRM (intentional or otherwise).

This weekend brought us the motorboat woodpecker squarely on 7028, as I tried to continue the 7026.52 run frequency.

After over 30 minutes of having the Cw copy constantly pecked at, moving down to 7021.21 created enough distance that shifting the I-F "to the left" a bit all but knocked it out.  

 

Of course, with minutes of doing this the woodpecker stopped altogether; only to show up less than an hour later on 3528, while I attempted to run 3535.35.  Beacon-wise, the 40-meter Russian military "F" & "M" beacons came thru nicely, while the "K" beacon was again noticeably AWOL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When it was all over, K3EST snuck by NX6T and took a resounding
1st-place, while we took 1st for So. California and 2nd worldwide.

DiD YOU work the JIDX contest?

How many JA prefectures made it to YOUR log?