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