The 160m antenna used for CQWW-160-CW contest was a simple low dipole. The centre of the dipole was at about 15m high on a (Spidermast) aluminium pole, with one ending up in a tree at about 20m.. The antenna wire is visible at top of the mast..

As the QTH in OE5 is on steep sloping ground (rising to the West, but falling away to the East), the effective height of the Topband dipole towards the East is higher than it appears. However with rising ground to the West, any contacts with North America are always difficult. Especially when conditions are poor. During CQWW-160-CW only 21 QSOs were made with North America (W=19, VE=2). Most of the time North American stations were barely audible at all.

The two "South Americans" were PJ2T and P40AA.

The Continental Breakdown (with over 95% of QSOs being in Europe!) is a good indicator of the reality of operating CQWW-160 contest with a low horizontal antenna.

Numerous Mults were missed. See the list below.. Throughout the weekend conditions on Topband seemed to be generally poor.                       

The Continental break-down was

EUROPE : 95.2%

NORTH AMERICA : 2.4%

ASIA: 1.4%

AFRICA : 0.8%

SOUTH AMERICA (0.2%) and OCEANIA (nil)

The States/Provinces Multiplier table is again a really sorry sight with only 15 W/VE Multipliers worked: CT, MA, ME, NH, RI. NJ, NY, NC, DE, PA, NC, VA, MI, OH, LB and QC. It was galling listening to some of the UK stations right by the sea (eg G4AMT, MJ5E and MW5B) working bucket loads of W/VE most of whom I could not even hear!

Total operating time in CQWW-160 Contest was just over twenty hours. Started at the beginning at 22z on Friday and operated throughout the first night (with one short tea-break gap) until about 0630z.  Sunrise in OE5 was at 0630z.

During Saturday, OE5TXF did some daytime operating (Single Band 40m) in the BARTG RTTY Sprint Contest

On Saturday evening returned to operating the CQWW-160 Contest at 1500z, but then at 0200z took a planned two-hour sleep break during early Sunday morning. However the operator overslept (as he often does) and only got up again at 0600z. There was no "dawn opening" to speak of. In fact it was quite flat around dawn. It was about one hour before dawn on Saturday that the few W contacts were made.. 

The best QSO rates were during the first few hours of the contest.. After the first two hours at just over 100Qs/hour, it was rapidly downhill on the QSO rate. Much of the operating throughout the contest was in S&P mode, with my low dipole antenna not making it through to many stations. Conditions seemed poor throughout the contest. Never heard a JA (not even JA3YBK) and could barely hear (but not work) JT1CO.

OE5TXF made 862 QSOs in CQWW-160 and 50 QSOs on 40m in the BARTG RTTY Sprint Contest.

The "heard but not worked" list or more probably the "seen but not even heard" list includes : 7A1A, BY1RX/BA4DL, DS3EXX, DV3A/4F2KWT, GI4SJQ/GI4SNA, HZ7C, JA3YBK, JT1CO, KP2M, NP4.., OY1R, TF3SG, TA1NAI, TK1.., V31MA, V31XX, VE9HF/NB, VK2GR and VO1HP/NF.