In 2010 I had a very good performance in the CQ WPX RTTY amateur radio contest and it will be a tough one for me to beat. For a couple of weeks last February the conditions improved and making contacts came easy. This weekend it doesn’t seem like the conditions were as good and the contacts came a bit tougher.  The contest allows a single operator to be on for 30 hours out of the 48 hours a multi-op station can operate.

Started operating Friday night as the contest began and primarily worked 40 & 80 with some quick checks on 20m which showed some signs of light. About 2.5 hours in I worked RI1ANC in Antarctica. It was the first time I worked that particular Antarctica station. I ended Fri night with 176 Qs and 65,682 points @ 0533z logging 16 zones & 33 DXCC entities.

Got on Saturday morning after about a 6.5 hour sleep. I spun through 80m and 40m and then checked 15m to log a handful of stations before moving to 20m. I checked 10m late in the morning and ended up working about 8 DX stations on 10m which was pretty neat. At1948z I worked the S9DX Sao Tome DXpedition for a new entity for me. All stations were calling on top of each other over and over. As soon as they stopped I put my low power call out once and got them. Sometimes smart beats muscle! As it started to get later 40m was the place to be and I moved between 40 & 80 and checked 20m from time to time. Finished Sat night at 0446z (11:46pm) with 615 Q’s and 465,105 pts. Logged contacts in 25 zones & 65 DXCC entities. With that QSO count I was a little optimistic that I could approach last years total.

Sunday I had a conference call that started at 8:30 and lasted through to about 5:30. I left it on speaker phone and worked the contest in between having to be active on the call, which is a length of call that anyone would need to consider Business Phone deals for..  Activity, at least from my seat, slowed down drastically on Sunday. Most of the day was spent on 15 & 20m working anyone I could. A couple of checks on 10m resulted in just 2 additional stations heard/logged. Any station I could hear on 10m I worked easily on the first call. In the afternoon the JA stations were coming in strong and I was able to work a couple. I also heard and had perfect copy on B3C in China. It was the first time I copied a station in China but the pileup was huge and he was working west coast stations so after a few attempts I tuned around to work other stations. In the late afternoon I started checking 40m and was able to make some contacts there as the clock started to wind down on my 30 hours and at 2245z the last contact was made.

I ended up with just under 200 additional contacts on Sunday and came up short vs my 2010 score but it was a good weekend. I worked 25 out of the 40 CQ zones and 72 different DXCC entities. I logged 11 Alaska contacts with KL7RA being worked on 3 bands. I don’t think I worked that many Alaska stations in a single contest. I still haven’t worked an Alaska station on 80m. It’s the only state I haven’t worked on 80m. All the others are worked and confirmed on LoTW.

Here’s a map of the contacts made over the weekend (click to see a larger view):

Here’s the summary from N1MM:

 Band QSOs Pts WPX
  3.5     177     426   70
    7     183     558   96
   14     293     595  145
   21     146     333   61
 28 10 30 3
Total     809    1942  375

Score : 728,250

73 & good DX!
K2DSL

Spent a bit of on and off time in the Mexico XE RTTY contest yesterday into today. The contest runs for 24 hours and in between everything else going on yesterday I got on and made some contacts. Made less contacts this year then last year but I probably spent less time at the radio.

Did mostly S&P but called CQ a little on Sat and near the end of the contest on Sunday. It wasn’t very productive but there is just less activity for this one. Not sure if the contest sponsors even match up anything or just take what is submitted and report that. The latter seems to be the case, but I get on to have fun and make contacts to it doesn’t matter to me.

I guess everyone is resting up for the big one next week. I know I’m looking forward to the CQ WPX RTTY contest.

Here’s my score summary:

  Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty  Sec
   3.5      31     66    2    0
     7      16     38    3    2
    14      97    243   21   10
    21      11     30    4    2
 Total     155    377   30   14

 Score : 16,588

Time to watch the last football game for the year.

73,
K2DSL

I wrote about this past weekends VHF contest but I wasn’t sure yet about sending in my logs because I operated both as a limited rover and as a fixed station.  First thing the next morning after emailing the contest manager with my question, I received a response indicating I should submit submit separate logs for each category I operated. So I created 2 different logs in N1MM where I logged all 46 contacts where 1 log contained the 18 contacts made while I was mobile and operating in the rover category across the nearby 4 grid squares and then a second log for the contacts made when I was at home on my fixed station.

What I end up with are the following 2 submissions for the contest. All were for low power phone (FM or SSB) only:

Limited Rover:

   Band    QSOs    Pts  Grd
   144      15      15    3
   420       3       6    1
 Total      18      21    4

 Score : 84

Fixed:

  Band    QSOs    Pts  Grd
    50      12     12    3
   144      14     14    3
   420       2      4    2
 Total      28     30    8

 Score : 240

73,
K2DSL

I worked the 2011 BARTG RTTY Sprint on Saturday so today I made some VHF contests.  It was about 9 degrees Fahrenheit out this morning so I wasn’t about to put up a temporary 2m beam like I did over the summer so I made do with what I have up. For 6m, I can tune the G5RV which is a big compromise but it works enough for local contacts. I used my 2m/70cm dual band vertical at home and I went mobile/rover through the 4 grid squares in my area (FN21, FN20, FN31 & FN30) where I can operate 2m and 70cm from my car HT to a mag mounted antenna.

Around 2:15pm I got out to the first location and made some contacts on 2m FM with 3 local hams that were around and listening. I could only hear 1 on 70cm from the car in any of the grid squares. I then drove the short loop to cover the 3 remaining grid squares and I was just finishing up another op came on so went around again. In the car I was able to log 18 FM contacts which is pretty good and more then I recall from past attempts. I really wish more folks in the area would just leave their rig on since everyone can do 2m FM simplex but that never seems to be the case.

After heading home I checked 6m & 2m SSB from time to time and worked folks here or there as I moved back and forth between the radio and the TV to watch the NFL championship games. Being able to work 2 or 3 bands with the same person makes your count go up, but with my setup, unless they are nearby or loud, I won’t know they are around to work them.

Looking at the contest rules, I’m a bit confused on what category (or categories) I need to submit my logs in. It might be that I submit only the contacts not being rover or only the contacts when I was rover and the others are added to the club score but not my individual score. Well, it seems to read that way to me.  My total logged came to 46 contacts contacts of which 18 were mobile/rover and the other 28 were from my home station.  I’ll be on hold for a bit until I get some further info from the ARRL or someone that is familiar with this type of situation. I guess I’ll have a follow-up post once I get some clarification.

73,
K2DSL

I had some high hopes for the BARTG RTTY Sprint ham radio contest, but I woke up in the middle of the night and didn’t feel well and it continued throughout all of Saturday. I spent more time taking naps then I did on the air. None of the bands seemed to be doing very well while I was on, but with being able to work anyone, there was enough activity whenever I sat down at the radio to make a bunch of contacts. In the end I ended up logging 243 contacts across 4 bands. Nothing exotic logged or heard on my side.

Here’s the summary for the day:

  Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty  Sec  Cnt
   3.5      55     55    0    1    0
     7      62     62    3    9    1
    14      94     94   11    6    3
    21      32     32    9    0    0
 Total     243    243   23   16    4

 Score : 37,908

73,
K2DSL

I’m a little late getting this summary out from this past weekends ARRL RTTY Roundup ham radio contest. It’s a great contest and one I felt I had to do well in again since I won my first plaque for this contest last year.  My weekend looked clear and though we received snow the day before, the weather was just fine over the weekend.

I got started right at 1800z (1pm) on 20m and S&P’ed the band. I then switched over to 15m and quickly scanned that band. For a good part of the day I remained mostly on 20m popping back to 15m just a couple of times before the sun set. Started working 40m at dusk flipping back to 20m which was still active. I was all S&P so far as there was enough activity and stations to move at a good pace. There wasn’t a lot of DX that I heard so the DX mults were low. Once evening hit, other then some quick checks of 20m, I bounced back and forth between 40m & 80m alternating between S&P and running. Both 40m and 80m weren’t bad, noise wise, which was nice for a change.  On one check of 20m around 7pm local time there was a JA station booming in later then normal, but he wasn’t able to hear me. I ended up after the 1st 12 hours of the 24 hours you can be active with 459 Q’s vs 407 Q’s last year at the same time. Time for a 6 hour nap.

When I got started Sunday morning right at  1200z (7am), 80m was pretty busy and 40m was lighter so I S&Ped both bands. 15m had some nice DX and mults early in the morning. I was able to surpass last years 15m total quickly Sun morning. 20m starting to show some DX as well, but nothing too substantial. Had a nice run on 40m between 1500 & 1530z. I hit 600 Q’s @ 1600z. I hit 100 Q’s on 15m @ 1840z where last year I had 14 total 15m contacts. Matched my score from last year @ 701 Qs and 1906z. I reached 709 Q’s at 1925z matching last years logged total. At 2040z I finally worked VT for all US sections other then DC. Hit 800 Q’s at 2238z and finished with 848 total contacts. As the contest ended, I shut things down and headed out to my local ham radio clubs monthly meeting.

Though I didn’t log a DC station, I worked all states in a weekend. I did miss logging a bunch of Canadian territories. Even though I had 140 more contacts this year I worked only 2 additional multipliers then last year. I think a big reason for that was that there weren’t a lot of DX stations calling CQ and it’s rough for a 100w wire antenna guy to call CQ on 20m and be productive. A beam or amp would probably make a world of difference in that area.

Here’s the score summary from N1MM with my logs uploaded to LoTW, eQSL & QRZ:

 Band    QSOs    Pts  Sec   Cty
  3.5    209     209    8    1
    7    247     247    8    5
   14    283     283   36   19
   21    109     109    4   12
Total    848     848   56   37

Score : 78,864

In last years RTTY Roundup, I was able to take 1st place Low Power in the Hudson division with a score of 63,336 so I’m hopeful the jump to 78,864 (before any deductions) is good enough to repeat.

73 & thanks for all the contacts!
K2DSL