The plan was to hangout for several hours during the ARRL International DX CW contest this weekend in hope of snagging some needed DXCC. I hung out, but the pickings were pretty slim. I would say band conditions were “meh” but they were a little better than that. Big contests always tweak the ionosphere. I ended up working 57 entities (105 stations worked) with a few ATNO’s in the mix, if they confirm. There could also be a nice chunk of slot fillers. I’ve been watching them slowly hitting my LoTW account this morning.

As it turned out, I couldn’t resist working DX even if it wasn’t needed. I don’t really care about a score for this event, but cherry picking only what I need seems a failing strategy for me because I just enjoy working DX. For instance, I have more than fifty ZL’s in the log already, but there is ZL1BBW calling “CQ TEST” with a big signal, what, I’m not going to answer?

Most notable for me was working noted DXpeditioner Ken Opskar, LA7GIA as we are long-time friends via the internet, but this was the first time I’ve worked him from his home station.

The K4 performed admirably and I operated only a few hours on 20,15, and 10 meters - barefoot, LP, 100 watts into the vertical. I was tempted to fire up the amp and run at least a KW, but I’m still chasing a couple of goals that I want to accomplish without the amp. Trust me, it won’t sit idle in future DX contests…