I received an email a couple days ago that the 2009 ARRL DX Phone contest results were posted to the ARRL web site. They provide a few links to ARRL members that show the web based contest summary article, all the scores and your log check report.

The Log check report (LCR) shows the contacts you logged and how many were in error based on comparing your log to the others. It is useful to review to see if there’s any pattern. For RTTY, all the “print” from across the screen is saved in a text file so I can go back and review those. For CW and phone, there’s nothing to directly compare to but if you might see something that you can pay more attention to in the future. I had 209 contacts and all 209 were valid for a “golden log”.

The LCR also shows others that logged me incorrectly, either by callsign or exchange. There were just 3 logged incorrectly with 1 missing the call, 1 missing the exchange, and 1 missing both. My guess on the one that missed both either took the default exchange (state) they had in their history for the call sign they also missed or they looked up the callsign after the contest on QRZ or some other service and used that for the state.

I then reviewed the web based summary article of the contest and near the bottom it lists the top 10 golden logs and I squeaked in at #10 with my 209 contacts.  I’ll have to see if it makes it into the print edition of the contest summary.

73,
K2DSL

K5ZD put out a request for folks to help enter paper logs that were submitted for the 2009 CQ WW WPX CW contest. I’m a quick and accurate typist so I sent Randy an email and he suggested downloading a program called LM to use to enter in the info. He also sent a PDF for a large paper log that was submitted which was then scanned.  The paper log contained 503 Q’s!! Do you think this op should have used a computer? Well, he actually did as the paper log he submitted was typed into a computer, so there’s no reason he couldn’t have typed it in to any logging program. It would have been much easier for him. It took a couple hours of my time to enter it on a rainy Sunday.

I sent back the log and Randy asked if I’d do another so he sent along a log with 135 Q’s. This one was hand written and once I reviewed the pages I could tell how the op wrote 1’s, I’s, B’s, 3’s, 2’s, Z’s and 7’s. This log took just over 1 hour to enter, review for any mistakes made typing in the call signs or the report (serial number) and then send it off via email.

Over time those that continue to log via paper will likely continue to dwindle as a result of moving to computer logging or going to that big ham shack in the sky. Until then, if you do log in a contest on paper, consider submitting your log electronically if you have any capability (any computer) to do so.  This was an eye-opener for me to see as I’ve only ever logged on the computer for all non-contest and contest contacts.

73,
K2DSL

Yesterday was the 2009 North America CW QSO Party contest which I participated in. I used N1MM for logging and DM780 to interpret the incoming morse code and show it on the screen just like a RTTY signal. I’ll need to film a short clip of this in action and post it in case how it all works would be interesting to others.

I started on 20m and then I spent a little time on 10m and 15m making some contacts which provided additional multipliers more then a large number of contacts. My 10m contacts were to OK, FL (2), TX, Nova Scotia Canada, South Carolina  and Minnesota.

I got Montana as my 2nd contact in the contest, which is unusual since it is rather uncommon, and it took until late in the evening to get NJ and NY. Alaska was had on 20m in thr afternoon and I returned to 20m for a short time in the late evening to see if Hawaii was there and sure enough they were my first contact after going back to 20m to check. Maybe I’m getting the hang of this a bit? It was strange but I didn’t see a Nevada station the entire contest when I was on the air. I did log some of the normal ones that are uncommon for me like WY, ND, SD, NE and though I heard MD at least 2 different times, I think the op was having some issues because there were a lot of folks calling but he just kept calling CQ.  I also didn’t log CT, VT and RI. I logged a bunch of Canadian providences as well and 1 for Mexico.

As you start moving to different bands, repeats are minimized and things seem to move along a bit more consistent since the Op calling CQ has already heard/logged many of the stations so if, as an example, they catch just 2DSL they can safely assume it is me and already have my name/state so there’s no repeats there either. The noise on the bands wasn’t bad at all for me or at least while I was on I didn’t notice much of any noise. Today the weather is much worse here but yesterday was very nice.

I immediately uploaded to eQSL and LoTW and though the confirmations have come in, it isn’t close to the amount of RTTY QSLs you immediately get. I did notice on LoTW that I’ve already received QSLs for new bands with some states on CW, so that’s nice to see.

Here’s my log summary and thanks to all the ops that called CQ and let me make the contact!

        Band    QSOs     Pts  Sec   NA
         3.5      67      67   30    0
           7      69      69   30    0
          14     110     110   35    1
          21      14      14   10    0
          28       7       7    6    0
       Total     267     267  111    1

       Score : 29,904

73,
K2DSL

Yesterday was the 2009 NA RTTY QSO Party. As a single operator you can work 10 of the 12 contest hours. I needed to go pick up my 2 daughters at the airport yesterday so those 3 hours away in the afternoon easily covered the 2 off hours needed so I could operate the rest of the time without having to consider getting off the air.

I operated about 90 mins from the start of the contest before I needed to leave for the airport and it was all 20m and a few 15m contacts. I got back from the airport a bit before dark and spent more time on 20m before moving to 40m. 40m was pretty noisy at times with stations so on top of each other (they probably couldn’t hear each other but I could hear both) that even with the tightest RTTY filter they interfered with each other.

I moved back to 20m if I saw some spots such as for Alaska which I hadn’t yet logged but for the most part once it got dark I moved away from 20m. As the night went on 80m picked up and more activity moved there so I was moving back and forth between 40m and 80m. I probably spent about 40% of the time in run mode and 60% in S&P. Once I would go for a bit without anyone coming back to me in run mode I’d start spinning through the bands. At least for this contest finding a spot to Run wasn’t much of an issue, or I’m just more comfortable jumping in to spots now then I was a year ago.

Score summary:

        Band    QSOs     Pts  Sec   NA
         3.5      78      78   33    0
           7     132     132   44    1
          14     109     109   34    2
          21       4       4    3    0
       Total     323     323  114    3

            Score : 37,791

73,
K2DSL

This past weekend was the 2009 IARU HF World Championship. I started out when the contest began Saturday morning and worked it for a few hours before taking my kids to the airport for a trip to visit their grandparents.  After returning from the airport I operated a bit before heading out to dinner. In the evening I operated a bit more before thunderstorms rolled in and I called it a night.

I ended up logging 202 contacts with a just bit more CW Q’s then SSB Q’s. Because of the storms at night, 40m and 80m were noisy and I got off the air (mostly because of the storm but I was pretty beat anyway) so I missed out on the prime 40/80m time and US contacts and multipliers.

I didn’t notice anything exotic when making or reviewing the contacts other then my 2nd contact with a station in Nigeria that I’ve already sent a QSL card to via the bureau.

Here’s my score summary:

        Band  Mode  QSOs     Pts  Sec
         3.5  LSB      2       2    1
           7  CW      20      48   10
           7  LSB     11      23    6
          14  CW      77     195   25
          14  USB     75     181   23
          21  CW       7      21    0
          21  USB      9      25    4
          28  USB      1       3    1
       Total  Both   202     498   70

            Score : 34,860

73,
K2DSL

This weekend was a 24 hour RTTY contest that ended up being fun and I think I did well. It’s always nice to hear the diddles in your ear as you tune up a RTTY contact.

The contest started Sat morning at 1100z and lasted for 24 hours. I started working it a bit after the contest started and most of the morning through the afternoon. Took some breaks, ran some errands, went outside to enjoy the gorgeous day and blew off fireworks for a couple hours since it is July 4th here. I didn’t stay up overnight, or even late, but woke up and made 3 or 4 contacts in the morning after I woke up and before the contest ended.

The DX really picked up in the afternoon as expected and that was the vast majority of the long distance contacts. That is until I got on late in the evening after the fireworks and before heading to bed. I made more local contacts in 40m and decided to call CQ on 20m at 0345z. To my surprise, ZM2B is the first station to come back to me. I asked AGN? because I was shocked. Yup, ZM2B in New Zealand! I exchanged reports, made 2 more US contacts before the next call comes in as VK7AD. I thought maybe it was K7AD so I again said AGN? and it comes back VK7AD again. Holy cow – an Australian station coming back to me calling CQ. We exchanged reports, had another US station come back and then a KH6 station from Hawaii. In the span of just a few minutes of calling CQ I logged New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii on my 100w and G5RV wire antenna!

I think this contest favors, on the scoring side, the west coast US states over the east coast states as the multipliers are the call areas in the US, Canada, Japan and Australia. Japan and Australia are more difficult for the east coast states. What else would have helped my score is more contacts/multipliers on 15m. 15m seems very weak on my G5RV and I never do well on that band. In this contest, the 3 contacts I made were all in the 4 call area so only 1 multiplier there. If I spent time getting more mults on 15m and on 80m the score would have gone higher.I just wasn’t on the radio for the prime 80m time which might have helped.

I did have a good number of longer distance 40m contacts to Europe and had fun both S&P’ing and calling CQ, A fun 1 day contest.

        Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty   Sec
         3.5       5      35    2    4
           7      59     450   11   13
          14     172    1590   34   14
          21       3      15    1    1
       Total     239    2090   48   32

            Score : 167,200

73,
K2DSL