January Contest Activity

By | January 17, 2019

January Contest Activity Report

Happy New Year.

Just one “counter” for the Northwest Trophy Competition in this (RTTY Roundup) report plus a couple that are in the “fun” category. In February, there will be the WPX RTTY test, which will be the half-way point for the Trophy Competition, followed by the ARRL DX CW test.  The first weekend in March will the ARRL DX SSB and it’s the week BEFORE the Swap Meet in Puyallup so nobody should have an excuse for getting (or getting rid of) a load of goodies. There used to be an award within the WWDXC for the highest Low Power,  Single Op score in the ARRL DX CW. Don’t recall hearing about that lately.

Here’s what people were up to in the past few weeks:

Stew Perry Topband

Call        QSOs    Op Time    Score

Multi-Op HP

W6OAT       267      05:00     1,396

Single Op HP

K7CW        317      10.5      1,892

K7RL        285       4.5      1,506

K7SS        136       3          688

Single Op QRP

KX7L         31       2          216

Stew Perry Topband Soapbox

K7RL   Much better conditions than anticipated, except no EU. Best DX was KV4FZ.  HNY to all!

KX7L   Just managed to put in a few hours, too much else going on.  Most QSO’s were surprisingly easy, even with just 5W, I think condx were pretty good.

RTTY Roundup

M/S HP

Call         RTTY Qs  Dig Qs  State/Prov  Countries  Op Time  Score

K7RU(@K7BTW) 1226       33       56          34       24      113,310

K7RI          939        0       53          18       23       66,669

Single Op HP

N7QT          924        0       54          21       14       69,300

WC7Q          479        0       52          12        9.7     30,656

K6KR           19       22       20           4                   984

Single Op LP

W7OM          540        0       57          13                37,800

WA7BRL(CHUCK) 149        0       37           7                 6,556

WA7CPA         83        0       35           4        9        3,237

SO Unlimited HP

W7VXS         652       62       52          17       13:47    49,266

K7RL            0      471       47          10       21       26,847

SO Unlimited LP

W7CD            0      430       51          39      ~12       38,700

KX7L            0      132       34           2        7        4,752

N6KW            0        7        2           2                    28

RTTY Roundup Soapbox

WC7Q   Bad windstorm in the PNW and lost power at about 3AM Sunday morning and off until about 1 PM Sunday afternoon. Otherwise if was a fun contest.

KX7L   Started out thinking I might do both modes, but when I realized that both N1MM and WSJTX really want to talk to the rig, I decided not to fight that, and went FT8 only. An interesting experience, definitely a learning experience. I had a few funnies with WSJT-X – occasionally I would call someone and it would put the rig into transmit but not generate any tones, then on the next interval all was normal. I thought maybe I could import the ADIF file into N1MM+ at the end to calculate the score, but N1MM didn’t parse the received multipliers, so all the QSO’s were worth zero! Took a little manual massaging of the WSJTx cabrillo file to get the header right – it wanted to make me “non-assisted” but as I understand it, if you use WSJTx, you are automatically “unlimited”.

K7RL   FT8, SO1R only. Wanted to see what was possible in a contest. Rate is extremely slow compared to other modes. Best hour was 32. I suppose 60 Qs in one hour is technically possible, but timing has to be perfect on both sides of the QSO with no repeats and only one CQ per round – something I was never able to achieve.

I should have tried SO2R, but wasn’t sure how the software would perform or its stability. After 21 hours, I’m pleased to report WSJT-X 2.0 and N1MM+ worked perfectly together.

Thanks to all for the Qs.

K7RU(@K7BTW)   We operated under the callsign K7RU from the station of K7BTW for this year’s RTTY Round Up. The callsign was appropriate! We wanted to be ready for anything, so we were prepared to operate both RTTY and FT8. Most of the team members have used FT8 before, so all are familiar with the mode’s capabilities. If it helps the rate, or increases the score, we’re all for trying something new.

On Saturday morning a few hours before the contest start, the bands held such promise — Asia was coming in on 40m while EU was workable long path. We never saw anything like that on Sunday morning.

During the contest, our use of FT8 was specialized: we kept a station on FT8 on ’the other open band’ looking for multipliers that we’ve not worked or rarely worked before in the ARRL RU. We perceive that we worked perhaps 6 multipliers on FT8 that we wouldn’t have with just RTTY. Had we known that EU wasn’t to be, we would have spent more time using FT8 chasing EU mults.

The windstorm that left nearly 300K without power (and still affects) on late Saturday night / early Sunday morning hit during our rest period. Despite our rural location near Olympia, Washington, our power was only out for about 10 minutes.

Our overall score is reduced compared to last year. We worked about the same number of stations, but had 10 fewer mults. Overall, our mult count was also about the same as last year.

After the contest, we discussed how much fun it might be to do this contest next year from one of the Caribbean venues where we’d be really popular as the only station on the air. Or maybe North Dakota.

Happy New Year!

N6KW   Small effort from home, FT8 only…operated at K7RI for the serious stuff.

K7RI   Thanks to all our ops and those who worked or tried to work us. First time contest of any type for one of our ops and the first RTTY one for another. Also, first time in RU for the station itself in a number of years. Everyone had fun.

WA7CPA   First time ever operating RTTY. Had a lot of fun!

January NAQP CW

Call    QSOs    Mults    Op Time    Score       Team

Single Op LP

K7RL    1180      212    10        250,160     WWDXC Corner Pocket #1

N7QT     918      199    10        182,682     WWDXC Corner Pocket #2

W6OAT    890      198    10:00     176,220     WWDXC Corner Pocket #1

N7WA     882      168    10        148,176     WWDXC Corner Pocket #1

K7SS     767      181     9:52     138,827     WWDXC Corner Pocket #3

K7BTW    731      169     9:58     123,539     WWDXC Corner Pocket #1

W7OM     681      167     9.2      113,727     WWDXC Corner Pocket #2

WC7Q     681      151    9.1       102,831     WWDXC Corner Pocket #1

K6KR     422      168    10         70,896     WWDXC Corner Pocket #2

N6KW(@K7RI)533    113               60,229     WWDXC Corner Pocket #2

N7BV     429      128     9,75      54,912     WWDXC Corner Pocket #2

K7HBN    250       96     7         24,000   

K7WA     184       63     5         11,592     WWDXC Corner Pocket #3

W7UDH    157       64     3.5       10,048     WWDXC Corner Pocket #3

WA7BRL    72       41                2,952   

K7PAX     12        7                   84     WWDXC Corner Pocket #4

January NAQP CW Soapbox

K7PAX   Had radio difficulties the first half, but got it straightened out and was able to do some search and pounce for the afternoon. Did best on 80 meters. I’m just a beginner in CW contesting.

K6KR   I can sure hear better on 160 than I can be heard. Summer project!

W6OAT   What happened to 40m? It seemed to have gone long and closed early. Great fun to hear all the WWA stations on for this event.

N7BV   Thanks for all the contacts. Had a lot of fun doing SO for the first time in a long time. Propagation was pretty good in the morning on 15 and 20m but as the sun started going down so did props. 40m never did come into its own; same for 80m. Had to go out on my tractor to fix the 160m antenna at around midday, saw some more damage to the 80m sloper system. Looks like the winds and heavy rains are taking their toll on the trees. 73, Chuck N7BV

K7SS     …now THAT WAS FUN !! CW ALIVE AND WELL   

Great rate right out of the chute.. 140 first hour.

Super to work all the WWDXC team boys, cant recall a recent contest with so many locals on to work on all bands. Good job organizing the troops Dink, Rusty, Rod.  Shoulda/coulda dept: more time on 15, but hard to leave 20 alone with band so good in all directions.

LOW POWER does the job nicely across the country on all bands. Even able to work and hear some E coast on 160.  Planned on part time, but feeling good so stayed on.

Thank you for the contacts … lets do this again, real soon !

WA7BRL   LEARNED MORE ON THE USE OF N1MM+ LOGGER AND SETTING UP MACROS. SHOULD HAVE STARTED WITH 10 AND 15 METERS, SO MISSED THE OPENINGS.

K7RL   Wasn’t sure about starting on 15m, but glad I did. Once the opening bell rang, the band opened nicely and it was off to the races. That lasted about an hour before it was time to QSY to 20m.

Decided to take my break in one big two hour chunk. The master plan was to arrive on 40m as fresh meat around sunset with 20m starting to fade in the late afternoon and the east coast moving to the low bands. Felt like a solid plan. What could go wrong?

40m was unusually bad stateside – that’s putting it mildly. Static levels were abnormally low and the band appeared almost completely empty. It was so pronounced that I had to check I was on the correct antenna. Adding insult to injury, W1 and most of W3 was completely absent, including the eastern Canadian provinces. I can’t ever remember hearing the band so bad. It never did bounce back. What a huge disappointment.

After reading some of the other comments, it appears only ops in Washington and British Columbia were affected? More Qs and mults on 80m versus 40m? That tells the tale.

Aside from an absent 40m band, this was a blast. Great operators and great fun. Thanks to all for the Qs and another outstanding NAQP!

Congratulations to N2IC on a monster score! Wow! Well done Steve. The bar has been set!

Special thanks to fellow WWDXC members and N7WA for organizing four teams this year. Great showing!

N7WA   It was a fun test as usual. Pretty much matched last years score. I setup for SO2R this year but it was more for practice than real value. (I haven’t done SO2R for over two years.) I did get some value when running 80M and sweeping 40M for Q’s and mults.

N6KW(@K7RI)   First, thanks to Tom K7RI for the use of his station. It was my first time being on a team in a contest…had fun working the other team members on as many ban