Did a little analysis on this weekends ARRL SSB Sweepstakes.

The exchange for sweepstakes is not short and goes something like this with a fictitious op:
Me: CQ sweepstakes from kilo-two-delta-sierra-lima kilo-two-delta-sierra-lima sweepstakes
Op: kil0-seven-zulu-yankee-xray
Me: kilo-seven-zulu-yankee-xray thank you 123 alpha from k2dsl check zero-seven northern new jersey
Op: k2dsl thanks 234 bravo from k7zyx check 98 new mexico
Me: QSL – QRZ sweeps from kilo-two-delta-sierra-lima

When calling CQ on 80m, my best 10 minute rate was 1.8 QSOs logged per minute using the above as a template for what we each said. That equates to 18 QSOs logged in 10 minutes. My best sustained 60 minute rate included the above 10 minute rate and was 1.32 QSOs logged per minute or 79 QSOs logged in 60 minutes. You don’t really have a moment to even take a drink.

I had voice recordings for my call and for CQ. Next time if I’m going to put in a good effort, I will look to record the repetitive portion of the report and have it played back vs spoken by me each time. I would say the other other ops call and serial number and then press the button to say “alpha from k2dsl check zero-seven northern new jersey”.

In analyzing the sections which I logged, the top 5 sections by number of contacts are:

The following sections had only 1 contact logged:

There were 6 DE stations logged and that would mean almost every operator in the state of Delaware was active in the contest. I logged 5 WV stations which seems a lot since West Virginia is usually not as well represented when looking for states/sections. The same goes for the 4 different WY stations logged as Wyoming is usually one you’re desperately searching for. I also logged 3 VI (Virgin Island) stations but one of those was from Guantanamo Bay when I was calling CQ for a short time on 20m.

Lastly, here’s a screenshot of a map showing the contacts made in the 2010 SSB Sweepstakes (click to enlarge):

73,
K2DSL

Sweepstakes is a fun contest. 24 hours long (out of 30 hours total) working any station only once and looking to work all 80 US/Canadian sections. Running low power and no cluster/spotting so I need to find all the stations on my own. I wrote the below during the course of the contest.

Got on Saturday at the start and worked 20m for a bit before it got dark. 15m even had some activity and it was quieter and less crowded then 20m which is typical of a busy phone contest. Switched to 40m when it was well past sundown and ran up and down the band logging all the stations. Switched back and forth to 20m until it was dead. Switched back and forth between 40m and 80m and had a nice run for a bit on 80m on Saturday night. Even 80m was busy and I was up high on the band, but there wasn’t a lot of noise on 80 Saturday evening. Called it an evening at 12:45am (0545z) with 207 Q’s and 61 of the 80 sections logged. What I couldn’t log tonight was Maine and Western PA which could be a problem since 80m is the best band to get those on so maybe I’ll get lucky tomorrow with those two. I heard a Maine station but he was S&Ping when I was too.

2nd contact Sunday morning was Maine on 40m leaving just WPA as a needed nearby section which I found right at 9am (1400z) on 40m. Also got South Carolina early in the morning on 40m. Scanning the band early on 80m and 40m I’m hearing mostly stations I’ve already worked.  At 9am (1400z) I switched to 20m. Within the first hour I was able to log a handful of needed sections as the west coast started to get on the air.

Around 10:30am (1530z) I switched to 15m and there were some stations on and VE8EV from NWT in Canada was booming in and was easy to log. Usually the Northern Territory is a tough one. I heard VE6AO from Alberta Canada on 20m but he has a pile up and found VE6UK on 15m  so I logged all the RAC sections at 10:45am (1545z). After working 20m and 15m though it’s still the middle of the day, I moved to 40m and there was plenty of activity. Worked a bunch of stations and even called CQ for bit.

At 2pm (1900z) I need just MS (Mississippi) and ORG (Orange California). No idea if using the cluster would help here. It might since I’m doing a lot of S&P vs run. Maybe I’ll get lucky in the remaining hours? At 2:50pm (1951z) I found ORG on 15m leaving just MS! On 40m I heard a MS station but it was calling another station and I couldn’t get his attention.

Hit 500 Q’s at 8:29pm (0129z) but no MS yet. I did some CQing in hopes a MS might come back to me but that didn’t happen. Near the end of the contest I was calling CQ on 80m and mentioning I needed MS and one of the ops said there was a MS station at the bottom of 80m so I quickly tuned around and found him but there was a huge pileup so I went back to CQing. With 2 mins left in the contest I went back and he was still there and he came back to me on my 1st call. I logged a N4OGW with 2 mins left in the contest as my last contact and my first sweep!! Wow!!! I will send in for a Clean Sweep Mug.

What allowed me to spend time this year vs the last 2 years was there was no home NY Giants game so I didn’t head to the stadium which usually takes about 6-8 hours out of any contest if that happens. So my # of contacts and total score reflects being able to spend much of Sunday on the air.  Here’s the score summary:

  Band    QSOs     Pts  Sec
   3.5     275     550   25
     7     102     204   13
    14      93     186   32
    21      69     138   10
 Total     539    1078   80

 Score : 86,240

Thank you to all the ops that gave me each of the sections and especially to N4OGW who gave me the clean sweep with MS with 2 mins left in the contest!

73,
K2DSL

I was looking forward to a weekend of CW ham radio contesting and trying for a sweep. I’ve not felt well for over a week but a visit to the Dr earlier in the week turned up nothing.  Not feeling better on Saturday I went back and after some chest x-rays it shows I have some pneumonia, Antibiotics and rest and hopefully I’ll be ready for the WAE RTTY contest and the ARRL SSB SS the following weekend.

73,
K2DSL

Here are unfortunately some disclaimers related to my participation on this years CQ WW SSB ham radio contest. Disclaimer #1 – Friday afternoon at work my wife called to tell me 1 of the ropes holding up my G5RV antenna broke and it was laying on the ground. Oh well, not great news, but the previous weekend I actually put up a 3 band (10m, 15m & 20m) dipole with K2ZB so I had something in the air.   Disclaimer #2 – When I got home from work on Friday I got sick and remained sick (101.5+ temperature) throughout the weekend. I really only operated 2 short stints each on Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the early afternoon.

Friday when I got home I went in the back yard to see what happened and one of the ropes holding one leg of the G5RV had broken. It was dark and cold so I decided to just leave things alone until the sun warmed things up on Saturday. But I wasn’t feeling right on Friday and stayed in bed all night not even turning on the radio. I woke up Saturday morning feeling better and grabbed some material to go work on the G5RV once it warmed up a bit. I worked about 60 minutes on 15m and 20m using the tri-band dipole  before things warmed up enough. I was still feeling ok in the late morning when I went out and got the G5RV back up in the air which took about 2.5 hours to pull up some new ropes into the tree and then get the G5RV attached and back up where it belongs. I then operated for about 2.5 hours using the new tri-band dipole before feeling I needed to head back to bed. 15m was easier for me as the stations were spread out more without so many overlapping stations. I was even  able to work a handful of 10m stations, all south of me and towards South America (see the picture below). In the early evening I came down, made 2 contacts on 40m and went back to bed.

Sunday wasn’t much better for me and I was still sick with a fever. I got on just after noon (1600z) for about 20 mins working a few stations on 20m before I went back to bed for 2 hours. I came back downstairs at 2:30pm (1830z) and was able to stay on the radio for another 2.5 hours. I started on 15m and worked a bunch of stations before switching to 10m and working 8 stations, again all in South America. I then went back to 15m and then to 20m where I worked most of the remaining stations I logged before calling it quits for the contest and heading back to bed.

I worked 1 new DXCC when I logged S79K on 20m just 5 mins before I was done. S79K is in Seychelles above Madagascar on the west coast of Africa. It was also my longest contact in the short time I was on the air. 148 Q’s, 23 different CQ Zones and 58 different DXCCs.

Below is my score summary and then maps of the contacts made (all bands and then by band). I’m disappointed I was sick but glad I was able to get on and even log a new one.

  Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty   ZN
     7       2      4    2    2
    14      50    130   34   16
    21      78    203   39   19
    28      18     52    8    4
 Total     148    389   83   41

 Score : 48,236

Map of all the contacts made in this weekends CQ WW SSB contest (click to enlarge):

Map of the 20m contacts (click to enlarge):

Map of the 15m contacts (click to enlarge):

Map of  the 10m contacts (click to enlarge):

73,
K2DSL

A couple weeks ago was the NA RTTY Sprint and I saw in the ARRL Contest Update that the Log Check Reports were available so I requested mine and received it within a few minutes! My purpose for posting this is not to criticize or blame anyone but to point out that there are cases where you are copying what is being sent isn’t good enough.  I ended up with the following errors in the LCR:

EXCHANGE CHECK RESULTS
———————-
QSO #3 K0YR : T0M Mn should be TOM Mn
QSO #14 K6UFO : MOR Ca should be MORK Ca
QSO #32 W1UJ : JAZ Ma should be JAY Ma
QSO #38 K6UFO : MOR Ca should be MORK Ca

100.0% of your non dupe QSOs had their exchanges checked.

Number of bad exchanges = 4
These QSOs will be removed from your score with no penalty.

CROSS CHECK RESULTS
——————-
QSO #36: QSO not found in log of N7ESU
QSO #51: QSO not found in log of K0AD

81.3% of your remaining good QSOs were cross checked.

There were 2 bad cross check QSOs removed.
NIL Penalty of 2 QSOs will be assessed.

So when I got home from work I pulled up the MMTTY log file that was captured from the contest. The MMTTY log file records all the sent/received information.  So I looked up each of the above and I found, based on what I received, what I logged is correct but of course, what I printed/logged in a RTTY contest is all I really have to go on. Again, hopefully none of the ops mentioned here take this the wrong way and there is no blame. It’s just part of contesting. Here’s what I copied/sent for each of the above exchanges, unedited other then to remove any blank lines.

QSO #3 K0YR : T0M Mn should be TOM Mn
CQ NA K0YR TESTZL
<101010 00:10:12 TX>
K2DSL K2DSL
<101010 00:10:16 RX>
K2DSL TU 007 T0M MN I
<101010 00:10:26 TX>
K0YR TU 003 DAVID NJ K2DSL
<101010 00:10:34 RX>
TU K0YR QSY ET
The actual received/logged name for me was T0M (with a zero) and not TOM (with the letter O). It was just sent once in the exchange and with RTTY it is point & click to add the exchange to the log.

QSO #14 K6UFO : MOR Ca should be MORK Ca
<101010 00:42:58 TX>
CQ NA K2DSL K2DSL CQ
<101010 00:43:04 RX>
DE K6UFO K6UFO
<101010 00:43:08 TX>
K6UFO 014 014 DAVID NJ K6UFO
<101010 00:43:16 RX>
K2DSL 35 35 MOR MOR CA CAUFO
<101010 00:43:25 TX>
TU
Received MOR MOR vs MORK seems odd. I looked at the 2nd contact and it was MOR MORK.

QSO #32 W1UJ : JAZ Ma should be JAY Ma
<101010 01:25:17 TX>
CQ NA K2DSL K2DSL CQ
<101010 01:25:22 RX>
W1UJ W1UJ
<101010 01:25:26 TX>
W1UJ 032 032 DAVID NJ W1UJ
<101010 01:25:34 RX>
X K2DSL 052 JAZ MA W1UJ
<101010 01:25:40 TX>
TU
Print/logged JAZ. Maybe if the name was sent twice, it might have printed Jay for one of them, but that didn’t help for MOR(K).

QSO #36: QSO not found in log of N7ESU
<101010 01:36:48 TX>
CQ NA K2DSL K2DSL CQ
<101010 01:36:54 RX>
DE N7ESU N7ESU Z
<101010 01:37:01 TX>
N7ESU 036 036 DAVID NJ N7ESU
<101010 01:37:09 RX>
K2DSL DE N7ES 029 JIM ID K2DSLEE
<101010 01:37:25 TX>
TU
Sure looks like we had a good exchange. Same goes for the next one.

QSO #51: QSO not found in log of K0AD
<101010 02:30:50 TX>
CQ NA K2DSL K2DSL CQ
<101010 02:30:56 RX>
K0AD K0N
<101010 02:31:02 TX>
K0AD 051 051 DAVID NJ K0AD
<101010 02:31:10 RX>
K2DSL K0AD 76 76 AL M
<101010 02:31:18 TX>
TU
Again it looks like a good exchange. For both the NIL entries, I was calling CQ and they came back to me and sent their exchange after I sent mine so you figured it would be in the log.

To me it is extremely interesting to review the LCRs to see what occurred and hopefully learn from the mistakes. I have a macro set up to send my name once or twice depending on the condition I’m receiving the other station. Of course, how they are receiving me might be different but I use that as the barometer for what I send. Maybe I’ll always send my name two times and when logging an op on subsequent bands, just send it once.

73,
K2DSL

The 2010 JARTS RTTY ham radio contest this past weekend uses the operators age as the exchange. Operators are supposed to send their age and this analysis is based on what they sent being accurate. A YL can send 00 if they desire and I had 1 operator send 00. There was also at least 1 YL and there could have been more that sent their actual age. Any multi-op participants needed to send 99 as their age. I did this analysis for the 2009 JARTS RTTY contest and the numbers haven’t changed much.

I threw out the 00 and handful of 99’s and out of my 300 contacts and that left 287 Q’s. I eliminated the dups so each operators record occurred just once in the data and that brought it down to 219 unique calls, again excluding the 00 and 99 records. Here’s what the data shows:

Youngest logged was 28. I saw in the 3830 reports that someone logged an operator (young lady) that was sending 10 as their age. Very impressive!

Oldest logged was 85. I logged 4 operators at 80+ years old.

Average age across all the contacts was 58 years.

Median age is 60. Median represents, the middle age (what record #110 out of 219) shows. Half the entries I logged fell at or below that and half the entries I logged were at or above that age.

Mode is 62 which means of all the ages I logged, 62 years old was the most popular age.

US average age logged is 60.5 which is above the overall average across all contacts. The youngest op sent 33 as their age.

Canadian average age logged is 57.5 which is just below the average across all contacts. The youngest op sent 41 as their age.

International (non-US & non-Canadian) age logged is 54.5 which is 3.5 years below the average across all the contacts I made.

Again, the numbers from this year which represent a slightly smaller sampling then my contacts last year are very close to being the same with some numbers identical to last year.

73,
K2DSL