CQWW CW 2014 - a brief summary of DX contacts

I dipped in and out of CQWW CW 2014 over the weekend. I was not active and will not be submitting a log. However, as always, I find this contest fantastic for working new countries on bands and slots and that proved to be the case again. Here is a summary of the contest activity:

Four new DXCC on 80 metres: 9K Kuwait, A7 Qatar, VP9 Bermuda and XE Mexico.

7O2A Yemen (rare one) worked on three bands - 10, 20 and 40. New country on 40 metres!!! The 40 metre QSO was made near the end of the contest through an intense simplex pile-up. Here's a video taken immediately after my QSO when lots of contesters were still trying to work him:

9Y4/VE3EY Trinidad and Tobago, new country on 10 metres.

Three QSOs with VU4KV Andaman and Nicobar - two contest QSOs and one RTTY contact on 17 RTTY. New country on digimodes. They went QRT at the end of the contest!!

HC2AO/8 Galapagos - worked on 10m and 15m.

5K0A Providencia - 10m CW.

A few non-contest QSOs:

TG9AHM Guatemala - 12 metres SSB - new slot.
TG9IIN Guatemala - 10 metres SSB - new slot.
VP8CMH/MM Falklands - 17m CW.

And just to finish, here's a video showing the signal from 9K2HN on 80 metres. I had worked him just after the contest started, at 14 minutes past midnight on Saturday. This was his signal on Sunday:

Three new countries on 80 metres in 24 hours

I'm delighted to see that winter propagation is good on 80 metres. I've worked three new countries on that band in the space of 24 hours.

Yesterday morning I worked VP2EIM Anguilla on 80 cw.
Last night, to my great delight and with not much effort, I worked VU4KV Nicobar, also on 80 cw, battling against an EU pile.
And just now, this morning, I worked HC2AO/8 on 80 metres cw. You can see his signal strength in the video below. He was struggling to hear EU because of QRN and as soon as I stopped making this video he disappeared from the QRG. Lucky me!!