CQ WW DX 2016 is over

and I did… well, OK.

I didn’t participate in these because I thought I had a shot at winning a prize.  I’m in it for DXCC countries.   So how did that work out?

In the CW contest, I had 226 QSOs in 45 countries.  For phone, I had 150 QSOs in 41 countries.  Total 376 QSOs in 63 countries.  100% search and pounce.  For CW I connected to a cluster to pick up CW Skimmer spots.  It doesn’t matter to me if I’m at the bottom of an assisted or unassisted category.  Plus I have trouble copying a CW callsign sent at >35wpm.

I could hear some European stations but was only able to work a few.  My inverted vee is only up about 30 feet at the peak.  A tower with a beam would make a huge difference in this, but will have to wait til the next QTH.  I worked mostly Carribean, South America, South Pacific and Eastern Asia.

LoTW rate isn’t stellar.  For Phone it’s currently at 90/150 verified.  Maybe some stations were waiting until after the CW contest to submit both.  For CW, it’s too early to give a meaningful number as logs are still being submitted.