I participated in the ARRL DX CW contest 2022 / 2022-02-21

As I'm trying to make more morse contacts the 'easy' way is to participate in contests in morse. Last weekend was the ARRL DX CW contest and I heard quite a bit of contest morse on the 20 meter band. I tried a few contacts and after two contacts got the reply 'USA ONLY'. So I looked up the ARRL DX contest rules and found out that indeed for non-US/Canada stations only contacts with US/Canada are valid. Since I didn't hear any stations from that area in the late afternoon I left it at that. But in the early evening after the sun goes down but before the propagation on 20 meters dies down completely it is possible to make contacts with North America. So on Saturday and Sunday evening I used that 'window' to get several stations in the log. If these get all confirmed I should get several new US states in morse.

It was also a good practise in decoding callsigns and return information in morse with noisy conditions.

Band   160   80   40   20   15   10
QSO's    0    0    0   30    0    0
Mult     0    0    0   16    0    0

Raw Score: 84 Qpts x 16 Mults = 1344.

The objective for this contest is to expand knowledge of DX propagation, so I already met that objective with fine-tuning my operating window to have a good opportunity to work US stations in morse.

Results

Besides the two contacts that didn't meet the rules the rest of the contest went fine: 28 valid contacts, 84 points, 16 multipliers. Score 1344 points. In the very specific category 'Single Operator Unlimited, Low Power, 20 meters, the Netherlands' I am number 2. For all of Europe I am number 29 so it's due to the low number of entrants in my specific category.

As a result I now have the following new US states confirmed in CW: Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey.