I posted my 2011 CQ WW RTTY Summary a couple days ago with a couple of maps showing contacts made on 10m and for the entire contest. Here are some stats from what was just a fantastic weekend of RTTY ham radio operating.

My overall summary was the following:

 Band    QSOs    Pts  DXCC Zone States
  3.5      48     58    5     4    23
    7     194    313   34     9    41
   14     256    570   61    19    40
   21     250    624   56    16    23
   28     214    523   49    16    15
Total     962   2088  205    64   142

Score : 858,168

so the # of DXCC, CQ zones and States/Provinces by band are all there.

Of the 962 contacts logged, there were 625 unique callsigns. 4 of those callsigns were logged on the 5 bands (10m, 15m, 20m, 40m & 80m) with 2 being US stations and 2 being outside the US. Surprising to me is that P49X wasn’t one of them. 27 stations were worked on 4 bands – 7 were NA stations and the rest were DX stations.

Of the 625 unique callsigns worked in the contest, 488 of them had previously appeared in my log which makes 137 new stations in my log. It looks like over 100 of those were new DX stations worked.

I worked 24 unique CQ zones and 72 unique DXCCs. Of the 72 DXCCs, I made 1 contact in 9 of them and multiple contacts in the other 63, though a few had multiple band contacts with the same station.

Looking at the breakdown by DXCCs, the US led with 358 contacts or 37% of all 963 contacts logged over the weekend. 2nd was German with 56 contacts followed by Spain, Canada and Italy in 3rd to 5th most contacted DXCCs.

Of the 24 CQ zones worked, the zone with most contacts was my own zone 05 followed by zones 14 & 15 which are Europe.

I’m still amazed at what the conditions were last weekend. Hopefully they will stick around a while.

73,
K2DSL

This weekend was the 2011 CQ WW RTTY ham radio contest and what a weekend it was! The band conditions were never this good since I got my license in 2007 and it was non-stop fun across the bands.

Though I usually post this at the end, here’s my score summary which will quickly show how good conditions were.

 Band    QSOs    Pts  DXCC Zone States
  3.5      48     58    5     4    23
    7     194    313   34     9    41
   14     256    570   61    19    40
   21     250    624   56    16    23
   28     214    523   49    16    15
Total     962   2088  205    64   142

Score : 858,168

I’ve never worked 10m into Europe on my 10m dipole but this weekend it was easier to work EU on 10m than on any other band. 10m was so quiet and you rarely had to send a repeat with stations getting your call on the first attempt. There were points on Sat and Sun when I had more Q’s on 10m than on the other bands. 10m was so quiet and strong I worked ever single station I could hear with the exception of one in the United Arab Emirates. I think that was the only station I heard I didn’t get in the log.

Here’s a map of just my 10m contacts (click to enlarge):

OJ0X in Market Reef was participating in the contest and I worked their DXpedition on 15m, 20m & 40m. I don’t think I worked any new entities beyond Market Reed though I worked many new entities on 10m.

On Saturday evening at 10:30pm I had matched the QSO count from the 2009 CQ WW RTTY contest which was the most Q’s I had logged in this contest. Since I had so many more multipliers than in 2009 with 10m being open, the same number of Q’s this year resulted in 60k+ increase in score. Sunday morning I worked 40m and then checked 10m and even early in the morning I was still copying lots of signals so it seems like 10m would be hot again and it was all day long.

Sunday I spent most of the time moving between 10, 15 & 20m with 20m and just having a blast. There were a few times when the op I worked sent a personal message (beyond something in their canned macro). One in particular was from John GW4SKA just after a QSO I had with OJ0X. Another notable was a nice comment from Randy K5ZD where we were each others last contact at the end of the contest.

Here’s a screen capture of all the contacts made this weekend (click to enlarge):

I’ll be putting together some stats over the next few days and create a new post with anything of interest. N1MM reports a total of 31.5 hours on the air out of the contest 48 hours  based on any off time > 30 mins. Thanks to all for the many contacts and a really fun filled ham radio weekend!

73,
K2DSL

This afternoon was the 2011 BARTG Sprint 75 baud RTTY ham radio contest. Most RTTY contests run at 45 baud (60 words per minute) but this contest and a few others run at 75 baud (100 words per minute) so text sent/received just happens a bit faster. The exchange itself is also short with just a serial number and not even an obligatory 599 so you can whip through a contest QSO quickly.  It’s a 4 hour contest with a rule that you need to stay on any band for 5 mins if you make a contact so you can’t pop back and forth between bands without staying a while on each.

The money band was 20m though there was some activity on 15m. I’m not sure what impact the 5 min band change rule has on folks trying 15m  more. I guess if folks do make a contact, they need to hang around for at least 5 mins, but I wonder if folks avoided making a contact so they didn’t have to stick around?

My contacts started out being primarily NA based at the start, but the EUs eventually came in strong and stayed strong for me throughout the remainder of the contest. I spent a bunch of time calling CQ and then scanning the band and finding a spot to call CQ again. The band wasn’t too crowded, like it will be next weekend in the CQ WW RTTY contest, so finding a spot even with just 100w wasn’t difficult. I had many DX stations come back to me when I was calling CQ so thanks to all of them for finding me.

I popped over to 40m just near the end of the contest and made a few quick contacts and also the 3 call area which I didn’t log on 15m or 20m. I only worked 2 Canadian call areas and didn’t here any VK or JA stations. Not sure if folks on the west coast logged any VK or JAs.

Here’s a map of the contacts made during the contest (click to enlarge):

You can see from the map that there wasn’t anything logged into the pacific and other than 1 South America station I didn’t hear much in that direction.

Here’s the  N1MM score summary:

  Band    QSOs    DXCC   Areas   Cont
    7      10        0       1     0
   14      88       22      10     4
   21      19        1       1     0
Total     117       23      12     4

Score : 16,380

I’m looking forward to future 75 baud RTTY contests.

73,
K2DSL

Saturday night was a 4 hour NA SSB Sprint ham radio contest. The format is fun and quick as no one maintains a frequency and calls CQ over and over. After a station is worked, the new station takes the frequency and becomes the calling station until they work another station and that next station takes over the frequency.

It started at 0000z (8:00pm local) and all I was all set to get going at the start of the contest, but I wasn’t hearing much activity on 20m. I’d hear a few stations but they weren’t strong and it was much quieter than it should have been. After about 20 mins of no activity, I got up, did a few other things and came back to the radio and realized I had my dual band FM antenna coax plugged into and not the 20m dipole. Doh!!! After switching coax to the proper one, magically I was hearing stations, and they could hear me.

I didn’t spend the remaining 3.5 hours of the contest active on the air, but I kept coming back for short stints while I was doing doing some other things. I didn’t end up with a big number of contests, but I enjoy the format of a Sprint contest and I enjoy the  friendly atmosphere. Thanks to all the ops for the contacts – nice to be on the air!

 Band    QSOs    Pts  Mlt
  3.5      18     18    9
    7      29     29   11
   14      22     22   12
Total      69     69   32

Score : 2,208

73,
K2DSL

The RTTY Rookie Roundup was the 3rd ham radio contest I participated in this weekend.  I was watching TV and process the logs from the other 2 contests when I realized the Rookie Roundup had started (almost 3 hours earlier) so I got back on the air to participate and see what was happening. There wasn’t a tremendous amount of activity but there were a few stations calling CQ and a few stations coming back to them. I worked whoever was calling and then picked a frequency and called CQ for a bit. It’s a 0 point contact to work a non-Rookie but this contest isn’t about the points or certainly not about the points for a non-rookie.

Some folks had a nice clean exchange and some others stumbled a little which is to expected, especially for folks that are really new at it. But they all got out their exchange and got my report and it was a good contest contact. Some folks had the entire year of their report in the exchange vs just the last 2 digits and N1MM didn’t let me click it to store it in the field.

One of the states which seems to never have enough hams is Mississippi and the 2nd rookie I logged a contact with was from MS. I’m really hoping he enjoys contesting and gets on the air in future contests. I have to say it was really a “feel good” contest and if anyone is near their radio for a Rookie Roundup contest, get on the air and make contacts. After just 1 hour, I could hear thunderstorms rolling in so I disconnected the antennas, etc. It was more like a monsoon than a thunderstorm, but it lasted through the end of the contest so that 1 hour was all I had in this contest.

It looks like I ended up with 23 contacts with 13 being contacts with rookies.

Thanks to all the rookies (and non-rookies) for their contacts!
K2DSL

This weekend had 3 ham radio contests I was going to try and participate in – SARTG RTTY, NAQP SSB & the RTTY Rookie Roundup. SARTG consists of 3 sessions each lasting 8 hours with one starting Fri evening, one Sat afternoon and one Sun morning. Fri night we had tremendous thunderstorms pass through so no operating on Fri evening for session 1.

Saturday I got on at noon local time and started to make contacts. 20m & 15m were active so I flopped back and forth between the 2 bands. 10m was dead with no activity that I could hear.  On the 1st 2 hours I worked 47 stations and then flipped to the NAQP SSB contest to make some contacts as it just started. After 2 hours making SSB contacts I popped back to the SARTG RTTY and made another quick 9 contacts on 20m before I needed to head out to a charity event.  After I got back home, the bands were still active and in just over 1 hour before the 2nd session ended I was able to make another 39 contacts on 20m, 15m and a handful on 40m. Nothing exotic logged but a fair amount of activity which netted me 96 contacts for the session. The NAQP SSB was still active so when this session ended I switched over to SSB and finished the evening out with that contest.

The final 8 hour session started 4am local time and I had no burning desire to wake up any earlier than I normally would. I actually ended up sleeping longer than normal (or going back to sleep after I woke up when my alarm would normally go off) and I got back on the air at 8:30am local time. I sometimes have good luck in the morning and today ended up to be a pretty good morning too. After a brief scan of 15m and 20m I picked a frequency on 20m and started calling CQ. The 4th op to come back to me was a strong JA station followed immediately by 2 other JA stations. I never had 3 JA stations call me before in any contest, let alone 3 calls in a row. Those 3 JAs were 3 different call areas so 3 different mults as an added bonus. After a couple of more contacts the auto-repeat on my CQ was going and going so I switched back to S&P and noticed a station that I had a good copy on sending DV1/JO7KMB which is a station in the Philippines and an entity I haven’t yet worked. The station wasn’t spotted yet and no one else was sending their call except me. He knew someone was there but he couldn’t get a copy on me. He tried hard, but my 100w into a wire dipole wasn’t enough. I then spotted him on the cluster and went to wake my daughter up to wish her a happy 16th birthday.

After my daughter opened her birthday cards and presents, about 45 mins had passed and I got back on the radio. The same Philippine station was still there but there were a couple of other stations calling so I didn’t bother. I tuned around the band and the first station I came across was another DV1 station calling CQ and no one sending their call back. This time it was DV1JM and I had a good copy on him so I sent out my call. He heard someone there, as the other DV1 station did, but after a couple more attempts he had my call and then I send the report a few times and I was in his log! Woohoo! After that 1 contact I took another 30 min break and hung out with my daughter before she was going out for the day. I spent about another 90 mins in the contest making a few more contacts on 20m and 15m and called it a day (until the Rookie RoundUp). I ended the contest with 135 Q’s in the log and a big smile on my face.

I checked LoTW and it looks like DV1JM (Jun) is an active LoTW user so hopefully I’ll have a new one confirmed shortly. In checking the rules, it shows a Single Op Single Transmitter category but I don’t see how to specify it in the cabrillo file so I posted to the RTTY reflector and pretty quickly received a reply from the SARTG contest manager that they will update the page. Once that is done I’ll send my log in.

Here’s a map of the ham radio contacts made in this contest (click to enlarge):

Here’s my N1MM score summary:

 Band    QSOs    Pts  Are   DXC
    7      10     60    3    3
   14      82    880   30   12
   21      42    470   22    6
Total     134   1410   55   21
Score : 107,160

73,
K2DSL

There were a couple of contests this weekend with the NAQP SSB taking place Saturday. Its a 12 hour contest and you can operate for 10 hours, though I spent much less time on the air for this one. Though a SSB contest feels to be the most work, I really enjoy being able to chat with folks, especially those I’ve come to know be it from many contests, comments on my blog or discussion lists, or even some I’ve met in person.

I took a break from the 2nd of 3 sessions in the SARTG RTTY contest and made a bunch of contacts in this contest. When things slowed down I switched back to the SARTG contest for a bit and then came back later. Conditions were dead for me on 10m whenever I took a quick check and 15m wasn’t all that good either, so most time was spent on 20m. After about 2.5 hours I needed to head out for a few hours.

I got back on around 8pm and worked  20m and 40m for another 2.5 hours before calling it quits pretty early. I didn’t work much  on 80m but maybe activity picked up after I ended things on my end. At least on Saturday the weather was ok with no thunderstorms like we had Friday evening and what looks like is about to happen here again as I’m writing this up.

I didn’t notice any oddball names since names are part of the exchange. Sometimes you get some good ones that make you chuckle. All the ops were super friendly and it was nice having a quick hello with the likes of K5ZD, N1SNB, and others.  Looks like I worked about 37 states & 5 Canadian provinces with a few nearby states missed I’d normally/easily work on 80m.  Here’s my score summary:

  Band    QSOs    Pts  Mlt
   3.5       4      4    3
     7      41     41   25
    14      81     81   28
    21      13     13    8
 Total     139    139   64

Score : 8,896

Thanks for the nice contacts!
K2DSL