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
