It’s been 4 days since the ARRL Jan VHF Contest ended and I’ve only received 2 QSLs on LoTW out of the 43 contacts. Now 43 isn’t a lot of contacts, but only 2 LoTW QSLs? That’s less then 5%. I’m only noticing this because I really had no logged VHF contacts before this so I was hoping to see some show up. The 2 contacts that are confirmed in LoTW are both 6m contacts with ops in CT and NY. Oh well, maybe 1 or 2 more will trickle in.

I also received a QSL card in the mail from WB2CUT who is in central NJ. When I work the VHF contests with my local club and we are using K2BAR as the call, WB2CUT is always one of the loudest signals we here. Thanks for the card and I’ve already mailed out my reply QSL.

73,
K2DSL

On Saturday morning I participated in the BARTG RTTY Sprint. I was out on Sat afternoon and evening but thought on Sunday I would head over to our unofficial VHF club station at one of the ops houses for some VHF contesting. By the time I would have been able to head out it was after 3PM so I figured instead I would just get on and hand out a few FM contacts to nearby ops. I ended up doing a bit more then that.

My ‘antenna farm’ consists of a dual band vertical I use for FM repeaters and a G5RV wire antenna. It is certainly not a VHF superstation! So I got on 146.580 FM and made a contact with a local operator. I was trying to contact the op of the house I was going to go to but he wasn’t responding on that frequency. I then switched to 6m SSB and worked the same op I just worked on FM. I tuned around 6m a bit and made a couple more contacts. In this contest the op will typically ask if you have other bands and then switch to an open frequency on that other band. VHF contests sees comparably less activity then a HF contest as it is typically local contacts so there is plenty of room on the bands. So for the 1st time ever I tune my Kenwood TS-2000 to 144 SSB and make a contact. I am able to run 100w on 144 but 50w max on 430. We then try 430 and though ops have no problem hearing me, even the strongest ops are weak for me to hear. But in the end I worked 3 ops on 70cm SSB.

Over the next few hours I worked stations on and off on 6m and 2m SSB. I even called CQ on 6m for a short while and got a few ops that came back to me. All contacts were in NJ, NY, CT and PA. I heard a station in the Midwest and in Florida on 6m but they couldn’t hear me and were gone quickly.

As I am familiar with many ops and their call signs I work in HF contests, from operating a few VHF contests since I’ve been licensed I am familiar with the local VHF ‘big guns’ and I worked a bunch I had worked in previous VHF contests when operating under our club call of K2BAR. I was able to work the op of the house I was going to head over to on 6m, 2m and 70cm. I worked 2 other ops on all 3 bands and a few on 2 bands.

Though I had planned a little VHF work on Sunday and then it seemed like I might not be able to, I ended up very pleasantly surprised with what I was able to do. I am interested to see how the other club members I worked made out.

Here is the N1MM score summary for my time in the VHF contest:

  Band    QSOs  Pts  Grid
    50      23    23    7
   144       3     3    1
   144      14    14    3
   420       3     6    2
 Total      43    46   13

 Score : 598
I am looking forward to June’s VHF contest where we go to the top of a small mountain and setup some towers and operate with beams and some power. A VHF contest with my club was my first exposure to contesting and what got me excited about being on the radio.
See you on the air,

K2DSL

I knew I would only be able to put in a couple of hours out of this 24 hour contest because I was going to be out from Sat afternoon until very late. I got on the air a bit after the contest started (7am local time) and worked contacts intermittently throughout the morning and very early afternoon while I was getting ready for the remainder of the day. I stayed in S&P mode the entire contest  just because I was constantly needing to stop and do other things.

A few contacts were made on 40m at the onset and then I moved to 20m for the rest of the day. 20m was fine but not wall to wall and there was a lot of tuning around to find workable stations. I didn’t even try 15m. I ended up working 110 contacts before I needed to leave for the day which was around 1PM local time. When I got home, it was now 1:30AM local time and I told my wife I’d be on for just a few minutes. I spun around 40m and 80m and made another dozen contacts in 15 minutes before working everyone I could hear. I shut things off and went up to bed with 122 contacts logged which is fine with me.

Here is my N1MM score summary:

  Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty  Sec  Cnt
   3.5       8      8    0    2    0
     7       9      9    2    4    1
    14     105    105   30    6    3
 Total     122    122   32   12    4

 Score : 21,472
73,

K2DSL

Back to back NAQP weekends. Last weekend was the NAQP CW contest and this weekend was the NAQP SSB contest.  The contest runs from 1pm to 1am local time for me where a single op can work 10 of the 12 hours. I was out with one of my daughters until the early afternoon but was able to get back home in time to put in close to the 10 hours.  A SSB contest feels like a lot more effort is needed then a CW and RTTY contest but with everyone running 100w, at least for me, the NAQP SSB contest is easier then a DX SSB contest. For all the effort though it is a real pleasure to speak with the ops that during a RTTY or CW contest get a canned message. I recognize a lot of the calls I have worked many times and some of the ops recognize mine and take a moment to say hello, thank you for all the contacts or complement you on your signal or audio.

I started around 3pm local time so I lost 2 hours of 20m time. I worked 20m for the first 2 hours. I tried 15m a couple times but only squeezed out a couple contacts. I thought maybe there would be more activity there since each state is a mult for each band, but 15m, at least for me, was dead. 20m got me the western states from the midwest on out and some of the southern states.

After 2 hours on 20m I switched to 40m for about 90 mins with only occasionally popping back to 20m to see if anything new was going on there but I didn’t find much more on 20m. 40m got me a bit more of the closer states but even some west coast thrown in. I switched to 80m for a few but it wasn’t busy yet and after logging what I could work I popped back to 40m.  I started on 80m around 6:30pm local time and that is where most of the activity was for me with occasional bounces back to 40m. In one of the times I popped back onto 40m I was able to work Alaska right at 8pm local time. Looking at my contacts when I went back to 40m for a few mins, besides Alaska I worked CA, WA, CO and KS.

80m was where I was able to work the nearby states in 3, 2 and 1 call areas, none of which were logged on any other bands. I did some S&Ping and then found a spot and had a productive run for about 1 hour or so where I was able to log a bit over 1 Q per min.  As the run dried out I did some S&Ping to catch what I could and then a couple of much smaller Runs over the course of the evening. From the summary you can see 2/3 of the contacts were on 80m.

I did try 160m once but on my G5RV and a LDG tuner I was not able to get a low enough SWR so my power was reduced and even a NJ contact I could hear fine couldn’t hear me well enough to log.  I’ll have to see what options I have to try and get something functional on 160m.

I didn’t work any Mexico or DX stations this time. For US States I missed Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico, Montana and Nevada.  I didn’t log a bunch of Canadian Providences but those would typically be logged on 20m which I wasn’t on much.

I think about 10 hours straight on a phone contest is all my ears and voice can take. But I really enjoy the NAQP with the more leveled playing field and the very friendly ops. I was too pooped last night to upload everything so I did that this morning. Logs were uploaded to LoTW, eQSL, HRDLog and ClubLog. I’ve also submitted the log to NAQP. Next up in the NAQP is the RTTY contest the end of February. Off to 3830 to post my info.

Score Summary:

Band    QSOs     Pts  Sec   NA
 3.5     210     210   43    0
   7      46      46   22    0
  14      68      68   20    0
  21       3       3    2    0
Total    327     327   87    0

Score : 28,449

73 and happy contesting,
K2DSL

I thought I was going to have to miss a few hours of this but it turns out one of my daughters events is today, Sunday, and not Saturday, so I was able to put in a full time effort. It was another very cold day (20 degrees or less) like the previous week, but no snow and no wind.

I started out on 20m when the contest got going at 1pm local time and stayed there until the sun started to set. I bounced back to 20m from time to time even after the sun went down to see if there were any new stations I could hear. I logged 3 Alaska stations but I didn’t hear any Hawaii stations. I operated without using packet cluster so if they were spotted I wouldn’t know. I checked 15m a few times and normally made a contact or two but there didn’t seem to be much activity there. I even checked 10m twice just for giggles but didn’t hear a peep. I was on 20m from 1:00pm (1800z) through 4:15pm (2115z).

Besides missing Hawaii, I didn’t see Nevada, North Dakota or Nebraska and locally I didn’t see any Vermont or Maine stations. I was able to work 44 of the 50 US States and 8 of the 13 Canadian Providences over the course of the contest.

As the sun started to set I went over to 40m and spent two hours there tuning up and down the bands. There was minimal noise on 40m and conditions seemed to be good.  Other then a quick scan of 20m/15m I was on 40m from about4:15pm  (2115z) until about 6:15pm (2315z).  I popped over to 80m and spent 30 mins logging stations there before heading back to 40m until about 8:15pm (0115z)

At 6:15pm (2315z) I switched to 80m for 30m and logged 27 stations. At 8:15pm (0115z) I came back to 80m, started at the bottom of the band and worked my way up. It was pretty noise so I had the RF gain down a lot so I could stand listening but that didn’t matter as all the signals were strong. I was able to work about 1 QSO per min moving up the band and logged 67 Q’s in 70 mins by the time I hit the top of the band. Each slight turn of the dial yielded another station to work. A quick pop back to 40m to check if there was anything new and a few stations were logged including Puerto Rico. I then went back to 80 and dialed up the band again to work any other stations I might have missed or that came on after my last scan, but that first scan was pretty wall to wall.

Here’s a screen shot of my desktop after scanning up the 80m band the first time. You’ll be able to see the band map on the right showing all those stations worked. If you click the small image it should open a larger image of the screen. In the center you’ll see DM780 which I use to help interpret the incoming CW. All the other windows are part of N1MM from the list of multipliers by band on the top left, some basic stats under that, the main entry window under that and the packet window under that (which is blank since I’m not connected). At the middle on top is the count by band and under that is the check window for call signs entered in the main entry window. On the right side at the top is the list of QSOs made and the far right is the band map which in this case shows everything worked already since the call signs are all light gray.

Here’s my score summary for this years NAQP CW ham radio contest:

Band    QSOs     Pts  Sec   NA
 3.5     131     131   37    1
   7     128     128   39    1
  14      99      99   24    1
  21       8       8    5    0
Total    366     366  105    3

Score : 39,528

Next Saturday is the NAQP SSB (Phone) contest but I am pretty sure I’ll be away from home for most if not all of the contest. If I get on at all it will be late so likely 80m and maybe some stragglers on 40m is where any activity will be.

73,
K2DSL

Happy 2010 all! The start of the new year means the ARRL RTTY Round-Up for the first weekend to get things rolling and I was able to participate throughout the contest.  It starts 1:00 pm local time on Saturday and goes through 7:00pm local time Sunday for 30 hours total of which you can participate 24 hours.  The weather was very cold and very, very windy with gusts of 40-50mph. I don’t think the temperature broke 20 degrees fahrenheit on Sunday and with the wind chill was in the low single digits all day long.

It is easy to get rolling at the start as no one had been worked yet. Started on 20 and checked 15 but 15 wasn’t good for me this weekend – low contact count and low multipliers. It usually isn’t strong but it seemed real crummy for me this weekend and it would have helped during the slower times. I was able to get Hawaii and Alaska early on as the afternoon is usually a good time get them both.  I went to 40m but 80m was better early and throughout the evening so I spent more time on 80. I had a nice run for about 80 mins where I was averaging 75/hour which I think is the best I have done so far. When I called it a night at 1:00am local (0600 Zulu). I then took the 6 hour break as you can only operate a max of 24 hours, not that I was going to go through the night anyway. I under the 1st 12 hours with 405 logged contacts.

Sunday morning I woke up after a bit more then 6 hours sleep and got back on the lower bands to start for a bit. Activity slowly picked up and I moved to 20 later in the morning. 15m still wasn’t working well for me with not too many signals I could hear and work though I bounced back there from time to time throughout the afternoon. As it got later in the afternoon I started to check 40m and worked what was there before heading back to 20m until 40 and then 80 were active enough and little was heard on 20. I tried running on 40 and 80 on Sunday and made a few contacts but nothing like Saturday night.

The contest wrapped up and I headed out to our monthly local radio club meeting. There I spoke with 2 others that were in the contest. 1 uses a wire antenna like I do and runs low power like I do. The other guy is an old time RTTY guy with beams and high power. He runs SO2R and has 2 Flex SDRs. I was amazed that I actually ended up with slightly more logged Q’s then he had though he had a higher score. He also had a problem with RF on 80 so he had no 80 contacts. It is probably the only time I will beat him in total contacts.

As I was moving up the band on 40m on exactly at 0300z I came across DP1POL who was working the contest. DP1POL is the German station in Antarctica and there was no pileup and I worked them quickly. That was a great surprise and Sunday night after uploading my contacts to LoTW, this was immediately confirmed for a new DXCC for me. I am sending off for a paper QSL as well.

I missed DE and WV for 2 states and a few Canadian providences. I saw WV S&Ping but didn’t see them calling CQ and they never gave me a call when I was running. I didn’t see a DE station at all.  Looking at my score summary you can see very few contacts on 15m with minimal mults. A really enjoyable contest I had a blast participating in.

Score Summary:

Band    QSOs     Pts  Sec  Cty
 3.5     297     297   17    0
   7     156     156    9    5
  14     241     241   29   27
  21      14      14    0    4
Total    708     708   55   36

Score : 64,428

73 & Happy New Year,
K2DSL

Happy New Year everyone! In today’s mail the January 2010 issue of CQ Magazine arrived and I was scanning through it I noticed the results of the 2009 CQ WW WPX SSB contest from last March were published.  As I was flipping through the pages I was surprised to see in the US results that I was listed in 1st for the US Low Power Rookie category! A rookie is anyone who is licensed less then 3 years and I was first licensed in August 2007, so I have a few months left in my Rookie status.

I’m looking forward to another fun year of contesting in 2010 and it would be great to make a few more top 10 lists over the next year.  In about 30 mins the 2010 ARRL RTTY Round-Up is about to start and I’m getting everything setup for that now.

See you on the air!
K2DSL

Friday evening through Saturday evening was the 24 hour RAC Winter ham radio contest. I was on the air Friday night before heading to bed and a good portion of Saturday as I was waiting around for a blizzard which showed up later then expected and not as bad as they expected either. This was also the same time the OK RTTY contest was going on but I decided to do this one.

I operated both phone and CW and had a real good time. This is a bit of a slower paced contest and being just before the holidays, most of the operators took a moment out to wish each other happy holidays, merry Christmas and happy new year, making for a very enjoyable exchange.  There was also a Croatia CW contest going on at the same time with both contests using serial numbers, so there were a few DX contacts I’m guessing were in the other contest but I worked a small number of them anyway.

Last years RAC contest was a couple days after Christmas and this years was the weekend before. I think it had more participation this year. Last year I made 88 contacts all on phone and this year I made a total of 247 contacts split evenly with 123 on CW and 124 on Phone. The contest is fun because anyone can work anyone, but the points are higher for working Canadian stations and even higher for Canadian RAC stations. I tried to work anyone I could hear be they US, Canadian or DX stations.

I really enjoy the friendliness of this contest and hope to continue to participate in it in the future. Maybe it can be staggered with some other contests such as the OK RTTY one since both are a single 24 hour contest. All logs have been uploaded to the various log sites and a few paper QSL cards were written out to send via the bureau to the Canadian Cold War Museum station, the Ontario Science Center and the Vancouver Olympics  Amateur Radio Group.

Log summary:

Band   Mode  QSOs     Pts  Sec
 3.5   CW      29     154    5
 3.5   LSB     47     416    8
 7     CW      44     252    7
 7     LSB     27     212    8
 14    CW      44     210    5
 14    USB     40     286    7
 21    CW       6      46    2
 21    USB     10     102    3
Total  Both   247    1678   45

Score : 75,510

73 and happy holidays!
K2DSL

This weekend was the ARRL 10m contest. With my G5RV antenna, 10m isn’t a strong band for me, but I participated anyway. Well, I participated for the minimal time this weekend I was able to get on the air.  I got on Friday evening, but the band was dead and made just a few local (NJ) contacts before calling it quits. Saturday morning I made 2 contacts  with GA and MN before I had to leave for the day/night.

I got back on Sunday morning, made 4 calls and then had to leave for 5 hours. When I got back on Sunday afternoon I was finally able to sit down and work the radio a bit. The first 4 contacts on Sunday after noon were to MO, 2 to OK and one to AR. I then had a few NY/NJ contacts before a real DX contact was made with Martinique, followed by Chile and Argentina, all on CW.  That was it for my DX contacts on 10m though I heard stations in Brazil, Uruguay and Mexico around the same time but they were unable to hear me before I lost the opening.  I then had some stuff to do around the house and wasn’t hearing much on the air anyway so I came back to the radio infrequently through the rest of the contest.

I did chat with K2DEN & K2DBK, 2 local ops that I know, about how they were doing and it seems it was a minimal effort for all 3 of us. I don’t know how others in my club did as no one has sent around an email with their score summary.  I have already uploaded the contacts to LoTW, eQSL, HRDLog.net and ClubLog as well as filling out 2 QSL cards to the CE4CT and LU1HF for the 2 longest 10m contacts to date.  My cabrillo log has already been sent in for the contest as well as to the Super Check Partial database.

ARRL 10m Score Summary:

 Band  Mode  QSOs    Pts  Cty
   28  CW      16     64    9
   28  USB     16     32    7
Total  Both    32     96   16

Score : 1,536

See you on the air,
K2DSL

Friday night into Saturday I operated the TARA RTTY Melee contest. It’s a 24 hour contest that you can operate a max of 16 hours. I started on Friday evening and operated for about 4 hours making 103 contacts on 40m and 80m and primarily US/Canadian stations. I got back on the next morning after 8.5 hours off so I could operate as much as I wanted on Saturday.

Saturday I spent most of the day on 20m. I checked 15m a few times but never heard any stations. Even on 20m I was making contact primarily with US/Canadian stations. In total there were 24 different countries outside of mainland US and Canada I had a contact with so really not too much DX. We started to get snow flurries mid morning and it turned to large wet snow flakes which came down for the remainder of the day.

I left during the day for a couple hours to go and meet Gordon West which was fun. Other then the break for a couple hours I tried to be on the radio as much as I could. As the day/contest wore on, it was more difficult to find new stations that were in run mode, and when I went into Run mode the contacts were sporadic with extended periods of the macro calling CQ and repeating. Some 15m and 10m activity would have helped and maybe the 160m contest had some folks operating there instead.

I ended up with 260 contact which is 61 contacts better then my score in this for 2008. All contacts have been uploaded to LoTW, eQSL, HRDLog.net and ClubLog and the log file sent in. There were a few paper QSL cards to  fill out for this and I did those this morning along with finishing up some lingering from last weekends CQ WW CW contest.  I’ve already seen a lot of eQSL and LoTW QSLs for this contest already on the respective sites.

Here’s my score summary:

Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty
 3.5      82     82   20
   7      61     61   26
  14     117    117   27
Total    260    260   73

Score : 18,980

See you in the log,
K2DSL