CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 43.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 31 12 26
80: 270 17 63
40: 391 26 85
20: 670 33 96
15: 659 28 87
10: 56 22 44
------------------------------
Total: 2077 138 401 Total Score = 3,111,108
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Antennas:
160M - trapped vee @65'
80M - delta loop @75', trapped vee @65'
40M - 40-2CD @72', 4-square
20M - 4el SteppIR @75', C3E @50'
15M - 4el SteppIR @75', C3E @50', 5-el @50'
10M - 4el SteppIR @75', C3E @50'
580' beverage aimed 20-degrees
All yagis on separate tubular towers (no vertical stacks)
Equipment:
Orion + Alpha 87A, FT-1000D + Acom 2000A, Writelog, TopTen band decoders
and switches.
Congrats to K5ZD and N9RV for terrific scores considering the conditions. Gotta
say N9RV's accomplishment was truly outstanding. As K1DG said, "he's in
INDI-freaking-ANA!?!" Whatever happened to the black hole?
What a contest! Despite crummy conditions, CQ WW CW is the best of them all and
I had a blast. For me, the allure of this event is the size and breadth of
participation, lots of DX and DXpeditions, stiff competition, the double
multiplier format, and a short exchange with location information. The rate is
always highest in WW and mult hunting is the most fun. It challenges and rewards
the operator like no other contest.
I usually do exceedingly long writeups after each major effort, and this
promises to be the longest ever. As W1ECT says, this is really a diary entry. I
do it mostly to work through what happened, remind myself of needed
improvements, and publish tidbits that might be of use to other contesters. But
if you're in a hurry, here are the highlights:
- Made significant antenna changes in October (and was rewarded with poison
ivy)
- Did numerous complicated upgrade/repair projects in the shack
- Preparation was the best ever
- 40 sucked at the beginning
- Had the worst start ever: 25 Qs/hr for three hours
- Conditions were odd after that -- good and bad
- Decided to do a full effort anyway because I need the practice
- Made several really stupid mistakes (one was funny/not-so-funny)
- 4-el SteppIR is a great antenna and lots of fun
- Was thrilled by every mult, elated by every double mult
- Frustrated by pileups on stations not signing their call
- Have never been called by so many VEs, even in Sweepstakes
- Had some strange sleep deprivation experiences
- Score can be improved, but not enough to overcome antenna limitations
- Despite conditions, mistakes and general travail, I had fun
- This is the best contest of them all!
Last year it became clear that my only 10m antenna, a C3E up 50' at the end of
450 feet of coax, was not performing well enough to compete. I had previously
taken down a 6-el monobander for 10m to make room for the C3E. After analyzing
New England score results in CQ WW CW and ARRL DX CW for the past 20 years, I
decided that 10m wouldn't be a big factor from 2003 through the bottom of the
sunspot cycle, and figured the tribander would give me more mileage than the
monobander. Wrong. 10m opened to Europe in several contests last year, and even
when it didn't I missed a bunch of 10m mults.
My performance on 15m was lagging other New England stations, too. I had a 15m
monobander up 50' at the end of 400 feet of coax, plus the two elements on the
C3E. 15 was sort of a crap shoot from here -- sometimes I did OK and other times
I lagged quite a bit.
In contrast, my station has been reasonably competitive on 20, 40, 80 and 160,
despite the lack of tall towers. Last year I had a 4-el monobander up 72 feet
for 20, a 40-2CD up 75' and a 4-square on 40, a delta loop up 75' and a trapped
vee up 65' for 80, and the same trapped vee on 160. A 580' beverage pointed
20-degrees helps a lot on the low bands. [I use a beverage splitter so I can
share it between the two radios. Last year I discovered that with some band
combinations one radio would experience severe attenuation when both were using
the beverage. It turned out the splitter was not designed to operate on 40m, so
if either radio was tuned to that band it would suck out the signals on 80 or
160 on the other radio. The manufacturer kindly rewound the splitter so it would
operate on 160, 80 and 40, which was a big help this year.]
So, the question was -- how to improve 10 and 15? NT1Y's new super-station is
just up the road from me (well, a 40 minute drive is just up the road here in
the boonies of New England), and I had helped assemble a few antennas for him
during his big construction project last summer. One of the antennas I worked on
was a 4-el SteppIR, part of the world's first 4-el SteppIR 3-stack
(90'/60'/30'.) I got to operate the stack in the station's debut M/2 effort in
CQ WW SSB last year, and was impressed with the design and performance of the
SteppIR. I decided that this antenna would offer the best of both worlds for my
station: multiband versatility with 4-el monoband performance. One of the great
things about this antenna is that it optimizes gain and F/B for narrow frequency
segments. Unlike traditional yagi designs where there are three variables to
juggle (gain, F/B and bandwidth/SWR), the SteppIR only has two -- gain and F/B.
In addition, you can tweak the element lengths to optimize gain over F/B or vice
versa. Also, the SteppIR has some irresistible bells-and-whistles, like
near-instant 180-degree and bi-directional modes, and coverage for 17m, 12m and
6m. I figured if in the long run I'm restricted to one large tower here, my best
bet will be to put up a 3-stack of SteppIRs like the one at NT1Y. I could top
the stack with a 40-2CD or perhaps a larger 40m beam, up at least 100 feet. This
would be a big step up for me on all four bands.
Early in the year, I started planning just such an installation -- a single 100'
tower with a 3-stack of SteppIRs at 90'/60'/30' and a 402CD at 105'. After
showing my wife pictures of guyed and stand-alone towers, she had a strong
preference for a particular stand-alone tower -- the fixed Bertha from Array
Solutions. This is a marvelous and massive tubular tower, but very, very
expensive. Installation is challenging, too -- a huge block of concrete for the
base and a large crane are required. But my wife was willing to accept the price
differential ("Oh, it's like buying a new car" -- yeah, a really *nice* car!)
But in the spring it became clear that I had to move my mother from New York
City to an nearby assisted living facility, which required an enormous amount of
personal time and energy. In addition, my trusty 12-year-old car was showing
signs of breaking the bank for repairs, and I had to lay out cash for a brand
new car. The result was deferral of the tower project until at least next
year.
So, how could I improve 10 and 15 without adding or changing any towers? I
figured if I could get a SteppIR up at least 70' it would be a big improvement.
Readers of my previous posts know the unusual tower configuration I use to
camouflage my antennas from the XYL and neighbors -- a 72' tubular crankup and
three AB-577 tubular military masts, two at 50' and one at 75'. After much
analysis with HFTA (a fabulous tool -- thanks N6BV!), I discovered that my 40m
tower location is the best place to have a tower on my property. In contrast, my
20m tower (the tubular crankup), appears to be in one of the worst locations.
The towers supporting the 15 monobander and C3E are in bad locations, too, near
the crankup. All three of those towers are about 10-20 feet lower in elevation
than the 40m tower. HFTA indicated that I could pickup 3dB, 4.5dB and 8dB
respectively on 20, 15, and 10 by installing a 4-el SteppIR near the 40m tower.
The best course would have been to take down the C3E AB-577 and install it with
a 75' extension kit near the existing 40m tower, and put a 4-el SteppIR on it.
Then I could have put the C3E or the 5-el 15 monobander on the 72' crankup.
However, I did not have a second 75' extension kit, and it would have been
nearly impossible to conceal a second AB-577 near the existing 75-footer. Also,
this plan would have required new coax and rotor cable runs to be buried, and
time was running short.
So, I decided to move the 40-2CD to the crankup and put the SteppIR in its place
[Note: Don't try this at home. The 4-el SteppIR is at the max limit for the
AB-577, well-entrenched guy anchors are a must, and it wouldn't be safe in areas
with greater than 70 MPH max winds.] I ordered a 4-el SteppIR in August, but it
would be 10-weeks before delivery (second week in October.) In the first week of
October, I started the project by moving the 40-2CD to the crankup. Just as I
was getting set to do this, the fellow who loaned me both the 40-2CD and the 75'
extension kit for the AB-577 called and said he wanted them back -- in time to
set them up before the snow flies. I really can't complain because what
originally was supposed to be a one-season loan had turned into two-and-a-half
years. Also, it was fortunate that the call came *before* I put the SteppIR up
using his extension kit, not after! Anticipating that I'd have to surrender the
40-2CD eventually, a couple of years ago I bought K1KI's old 40-2CD (Cushcraft
production unit #5 or #6, I believe.) This beam served not only as a contingency
against the owner of the other 40-2CD wanting his beam back, but also could be
loaned to my local club for Field Day without having to take down the one at 75'
every July. Tom's beam was in OK shape, but required a bit of refurbishing --
mostly new stainless steel hardware. It was all set and ready to go when I got
the call about the other beam.
The big problem was the 75' extension kit. The primary source for AB-577 towers,
Ontario Surplus, has been sold out of extension kits for 4-5 years (they're out
of the 50' towers now, too -- glad I bought three!) Miraculously, they just
happened to have an extension kit on hand three years ago when my friend dropped
by the warehouse to pick up his AB-577, and he grabbed it. I had hoped to talk
him into selling it to me, but no dice. So, after some consultation with Ontario
Surplus, I decided to make my own extension kit out of parts they could supply.
This included five aluminum tube sections, a middle guy ring (they had a bunch
custom manufactured for a military deal and they're quite pricey now), and guys
sets.
Guy sets of the proper length for the extension kit are almost impossible to
find. Ontario had a few sets, but some were in questionable condition and others
used galvanized cable instead of the original stainless steel wire rope. Most of
the cables were kinked. So, the only option was to make my own guy sets. The key
part for this is the "snubber" which is used to grip and tension the guys at the
anchor end. To make a new guy, I had to add the appropriate length of stainless
steel wire rope and an eye hoist hook at one end (the snubber grips the other
end.) I could have used wire rope clips to attach the eye hoist hooks, but
they're not rated for load. The original guy sets use metal thimbles swaged
around the cable ends that run through the eye hoist hooks (this is called a
"Nicopress fitting".) Stainless steel thimbles require a hydraulic press, but
zinc-plated copper thimbles can be swaged with a relatively inexpensive hand
tool. The original fittings on the AB-577 cables looked like they had been done
by a machine, but they were made with zinc-plated copper thimbles and I figured
a hand swaged joint would be good enough -- and a lot better than wire rope
clips. So, I bought some spools of stainless steel wire rope (precut to the
right lengths at no charge by the supplier), some zinc-plated copper thimbles
and a swaging tool. I also bought every spare snubber Ontario Surplus had --
some with cables at the right length for the extension kit, others with random
lengths. I removed the cables, took off their eye hoist hooks by hacksawing the
cables, and added my own custom-built cables. This worked out better than I had
expected, and now I have enough snubbers to eventually make 75' extension kits
for my other two AB-577s. I tell all this because some of you might be
interested in AB-577s or the engineering details, while others may be amused at
the lengths to which we sometimes go for contesting!
The next step was to mount the "new" 40-2CD on the crankup. First, I did some
major weed-whacking to prepare the area around the crankup. Weed-whacking is
putting it lightly -- a bunch of saplings had grown up to 1"-2" in diameter,
requiring a steel blade whacker and chain saw. In the course of this, I smartly
cut through the shallow-buried coax and control cable for my 4-square, requiring
a complete replacement. Next, I painted the 40-2CD to better conceal it when the
crankup is retracted. Mounting the 40-2CD on the crankup was pretty
straightforward, though of course I had to take down the 4-el 20 monobander
first. I used a top pulley and snatch block arrangement with a custom clamp I
built for the snatch block to mount on the base of the tubular crankup. I had
help from W1ECT lowering the 20 and raising the 40, though the two-pulley
arrangement was so effective I could have done it myself. Although I have a
tiltover fixture for the crankup, I've found it's much quicker and easier to
lash an extension ladder to it with many cargo straps and climb it like a
lattice tower (using a climbing harness, of course.) All went well with this
part of the project, though I noticed that the 40-2CD driver was drooping a bit
because the center section was slightly bent. I figured this must have happened
from decades of ice loading at K1KI. I don't think it will affect performance,
but one of these days I'll replace that section (yet another project in a long
list.)
Up to this point, I had not taken down my friend's 40-2CD yet. Comparison tests
between the two 40m antennas pretty-much matched the HFTA predictions. In most
directions, the new 40-2CD had about 2-3dB less gain than the old 40-2CD. This
was due entirely to the difference in tower locations. Although this was a
tradeoff to get better gain on the high bands, my feeling was that I'd still be
reasonably competitive on 40m. In fact, I had done pretty well even with the old
40-2CD at 50' before I borrowed the extension kit. Performance at 50' was about
the same as the new 40-2CD on the 72' crankup.
Once the extension kit was ready, I took down the old 40-2CD and extension kit,
and returned it to the owner. While waiting for the SteppIR to arrive, I ran a
200' length of 16-conductor control cable (ordered in advance from Fluid Motion)
and attached it to a pair of Polyphaser lightning suppressors I mounted at the
single-point ground entrance to the shack. In the course of burying the control
cable though a small section of woods, I picked up a nasty case of poison ivy on
my forearms that caused much suffering and annoyance for nearly two weeks. I
didn't even know we had poison ivy on the property. Again, this is an example of
the pain and suffering that sometimes goes with our obsession for contesting.
I also replaced the mast-mounted Alliance HD-73 (!) I had been using to turn the
40-2CD with a refurbished mast-mounted Tailtwister from Norm's. [Yes, the HD-73
actually did fine with the 40-2CD for over three years, though sometimes strong
winds would turn the motor a few degrees (no brake in the HD-73) but the pot
would turn too so I didn't have to realign the beam. Just to explain myself, at
the time I put up the original 40-2CD, the HD-73 was on hand and I figured if it
failed it would be relatively easy to lower the AB-577 and replace it. I was
amazed that the rotor did so well.]
The SteppIR finally arrived, exactly on time, and it took a couple of days to
assemble. For the most part, this antenna is very well designed and built.
Although the unguyed AB-577 is an incredible and scary wet noodle with nearly
100 lbs of antenna and rotor when it's extended over 55', I had no trouble
raising it to 75'. I had help again from W1ECT, but I could have done it myself.
In fact, due to a ridiculous Fedex Ground mixup that delayed the last two
extension tubes by about a week (believe it or not, Fedex Ground is more mixed
up than UPS), I ended up raising the tower the last 10 feet myself. This can be
done safely by slowly paying out the guys 4-8 inches at a time, depending on how
close the tower is to the top. It's a lot of running around, and you have to
keep a sharp eye on the mast to minimize the lean. The key is to do it on a
windless day. Otherwise, you need one person on each guy, along with a cranker
and a spotter. Again, don't try this at home [liability disclaimer :-)].
The SteppIR performed exactly as expected. Although I could no longer compare
the SteppIR with the 20 monobander, comparisons with the 15 monobander and C3E
matched HFTA predictions fairly close for all headings. Performance during the
contest confirmed the tests -- the SteppIR was always the best antenna for any
band, usually by a wide margin, especially to EU. The 15 monobander and C3E are
almost as good to the southwest, west and northwest, where my land drops off
sharply, and they're OK for S&P purposes, though sometimes I had to swing the
SteppIR around to crack a big pileup -- which it did without fail every time. I
found the SteppIR 180-degree feature to be very helpful, especially when
checking for long path openings. Two really stand out -- VK on 20 at 1829z
Saturday and JA on 20 at 2123 Saturday. Bottom line, the SteppIR is a great
antenna for SO2R, M/S and M/2 stations with limited tower options.
Other October/November station upgrades included rewiring my auto-antenna
selector to account for the antenna changes (more complicated than it sounds),
adding an Idiom Press rotor preset board -- a great product -- to the Hy-Gain
controller for the SteppIR, and building/installing the N8LP Tuning Relay kit
for the SteppIR controller (prevents transmitting at high power when the antenna
is tuning.) I spent considerable time designing and building an interface
between the Top-Ten band decoders and the SteppIR controller so that the SteppIR
would follow the frequency of whichever rig was using it. Although the SteppIR
can monitor the frequency information flowing between the rig and contest
logging program and automatically tune to the selected band, it's not easy to
switch this capability between two dissimilar rigs and it doesn't work very well
with Yaesu rigs (e.g., my 1000D) due to the poor protocol implementation in
those rigs. My interface connected each band decoder output to a 555 timer in
one-shot configuration which would momentarily trigger a relay tack soldered to
the appropriate front-panel band button on the SteppIR controller. Long story
short, it works, but it's not 100% reliable due to too much bouncing on the band
decoder outputs. I'm not enough of an electronics engineer to figure out how to
clean it up for the 555 timers, so I've redesigned the circuit to be based on a
Basic Atom microprocessor that will debounce the signals and communicate with
the SteppIR controller via RS-232 (eliminating surgery to the SteppIR
controller.) Eventually, I may take it a step further and have the
microprocessor monitor the communications protocol to/from each rig and
eliminate the band decoders altogether.
Finally, everything seemed ready for the contest. But a few days before the
start, I discovered that my Alpha 87A was fault tripping on 10m. It had done
this occasionally during SS CW earlier in the month, but now was failing hard
every time I transmitted on 10. I quickly eliminated the SteppIR as the cause by
hooking up a dummy load. Since the amp performed flawlessly on all other bands,
and there were no components in the output network dedicated to 10m, it appeared
that there was a problem with the band switch. I spent much time cleaning the
wipers and contacts and gingerly bending the wipers with dental picks to improve
contact. No help. I was suspicious about the input wafer on the band switch, but
there's no way to get at the contacts. It did pass a continuity check, but that
may not mean much. Finally, noting from the schematic that the 10m and 12m
output networks were identical and the input networks only differed by a few
inductor turns, I tried manually moving the band switch to the 12m position and
transmitting on 10 m -- and it worked! This means there's definitely something
wrong in the band switch path for 10m. It's possible that the input network has
a problem -- maybe the inductor is shorted. In the 12m position the input SWR
was only 1.5:1, so I figured it would be safe to use the amp on 10m with the
band switch in the 12m position. The techs at Crosslink confirmed this by
e-mail. Very fortunately, I was able to patch the firmware so the amp would
automatically use the 12m position for 10m. I found out how to do this patch a
number of years ago when I had a problem with the band switch registration on
15m and got instructions from the factory for patching in a slight adjustment.
Lucky, huh? So far, I've been able to resolve/fix every problem that's come up
on my 87A over nearly 10 years of heavy use, without sending it back to the
factory (knock on wood...)
So much for hardware preparation. Over the years, I've found that physical and
mental preparation play just as important a role. After putting in so much
effort to get ready for CQ WW CW this year, I was bound and determined to do the
best I could to get my mind and body ready. The most important ingredient is
motivation. If I'm not really psyched to do the contest, it's very hard to put
in a good effort and/or last through the many sleepless hours of noise in the
headphones. One thing that really helped this year was being on the winning USA
M/S team at KT1V in CQ WW SSB (well, at least until the UBN check.) Great
conditions, a great station and great ops made that a truly fun experience, as
did coming in at the top. Thanks Ted, Stu and Mark! After that, all through the
month of November I psyched myself up for CW. I couldn't get it up for a full
effort in Sweepstakes so soon after the big effort in WW SSB, but managed 750 Qs
and a full sweep. More important, I got into the swing of CW. The long SS
exchange is great practice for WW CW, which seems like a piece of cake by
comparison. I also got a chance to shake down the station for the big event and
was able to fix a few minor problems.
As many have said, physical conditioning can be a big help, especially in a
48-hour marathon like CQ WW. Beginning in January of 2004, I dropped 50 lbs by
eating a well-balanced diet and matching calorie intake to my activity level. It
took about five months to lose the weight. I did no additional exercise until
I'd lost 35 lbs, after which I wanted to exercise -- it's a lot more fun when
you aren't overweight and I figured making one lifestyle change at a time was
more than enough. I did a lot more mountain hiking this year than I've been able
to do in the last few years, which helped my conditioning even more. I've tried
to keep it up this fall: in mid-November I climbed up to Franconia ridge,
encountering full winter conditions requiring much gear, crampons, etc.
Yesterday (12/5) I climbed Mt Mousilauke, 4800 ft, through wild summit
conditions -- high winds, poor visibility, rime ice, and all. Not bad for 51
years old. So far, I've been able to maintain my new weight. The result is that
I'm in the best shape since about 1991. The real test will be if I stay at this
weight for at least a couple more years -- through the holiday and vacation
temptations -- and make the new eating habits a permanent lifestyle.
Being in better shape really helped in WW CW this year. I'm not going to pretend
that 44 hours of operating didn't take its toll. There were many times that I
felt awful, and I fell asleep in the chair more than once. But all-in-all, I
felt better this year than in any previous WW CW. This was especially true the
first day, which is traditionally the hardest for me. I highly recommend
physical conditioning for better contest performance and enjoyment (and maybe a
longer and more pleasant life...)
I've found that time management is always difficult in the week leading up to a
major contest. Ideally, I want to have everything done and cruise into the
contest with a mellow attitude and no worries about contest or non-contest
related issues. This is easier said than done. Often the stress levels are
pretty high in the fall, especially as we head into the holiday season. This
year, we decided to host Thanksgiving dinner and I'm the chief cook at our
house. So, part of the pre-contest week was taken up with shopping for food,
preparation and cooking. I managed to reduce the stress by preparing several
items on Wednesday, making the effort on Thursday much easier. I also laid out
my contest food plan (which always sparks a lot of deep thinking) and prepared a
few items in advance. I was successful in minimizing food prep time this year,
but my feeling is that I ate more than I really needed. I think minimal food
intake is better for long single-op stints, but this is easier said than done,
too.
The object of my pre-contest-week time management is to get everything done so I
can lay down for at least three hours of sleep Friday afternoon. This is a lot
harder to arrange than it sounds, but I think it's essential. Otherwise, it's
not a 48-hour contest, it's more like a 60-hour contest! I got up early on
Friday morning, did a few last-minute chores, and got into bed at about
2:30-3:00 PM local time. But I wasn't very tired and ended up sort of
half-sleeping for 3-3.5 hours. This was better than no sleep, but I don't think
I ever made it to REM sleep. Next year I may try to get up a few hours before
dawn on Friday and do some heavy exercise or something so I'll really feel like
sleeping in the afternoon. It would be ideal to sleep from noon to six local
time on Friday.
So... after everything described above, I was very well prepared and psyched as
I sat down in front of the rigs at 2345z. I tuned around a bit to get a sense of
the bands, and they seemed OK. I didn't hear any EU on 20 and decided to start
on 40. About five minutes before the start, I sent a few CQs at the low end of
40 to see how I was getting out. No one answered. Hmmm. I kept CQing, and
actually got bumped off the frequency by a loud European. OK, I'll move. Still
no answer. I think a US station or two stopped by, and perhaps a weak G, but
definitely not the usual stream of pre-contest Europeans. I didn't think much
about it until the starting bell at 0000z. I immediately lost my CQ frequency
and had to spend a couple of minutes finding a new one. I called a few times and
got bumped again. A couple of more minutes went into finding another frequency.
I called and called, finally snagging VY2NT (thanks, Andy!) It was 0006z, and I
was somewhat worried about losing 10% of the first hour. OK, back to CQing. Six
minutes later, I had my second QSO, with D4B. I can't remember whether he called
me (unlikely) or I was S&Ping while trying to find yet another clear frequency.
In any case, he was going about 100 WPM and I felt good about copying him on the
first call. But only *two* contacts in the first 12 minutes?!?!? What gives?
VE2UJ came in seven minutes later, followed by a W8. At 25 minutes past the
hour, I worked my first EU -- HB9ARF. In the first 30 minutes I worked only 10
stations: 4 EU, 3 US, 2 VE, and D4B. Dismal! But that was just the beginning...
By the end of the first hour I had worked 23 stations, including 6W1RW on 20 on
the second radio. Only nine of these were EU, and eight were W/VE. What the heck
was going on? Had I made a grievous error by moving the 40-2CD to the crankup?
The 4-square wasn't any better, but it always lagged the 2-el yagi by a good
bit. The second hour wasn't any better -- in fact, the percentage of VEs was
increasing. Why the heck were they calling me instead of working EU? I've never
worked so many VEs in a DX contest! To while away the time, I hit 80 on the
second radio and worked a few EU stations there. I worked a grand total of 28
stations in the second hour, 16 on 40 and 12 on 80. This was far and away my
worst start ever, and I figured it precluded any hope of making the top ten.
At this point I have to fast forward to today (12/6.) A top ten station just
sent me his log and it looks like I made a critical mistake by not S&Ping 40
during the first couple of hours. It looks like he didn't waste much time trying
to CQ. Evidently, he quickly realized that conditions were so bad that running
wouldn't be possible, and immediately S&Ped 40 in earnest. VY2NT said much the
same thing in his report. Meanwhile, I stubbornly kept trying to run. I have to
get it through my head that you do whatever you have to do to maximize contacts,
and this is not always running.
The third hour I decided to S&P 160 on the second radio. That's a tad early for
160, but it turned out to be a good move -- I picked up 15 new mults working 10
stations on 160 that hour. While this was going on, I alternated running on 40
and 80 -- only 10 Qs on 40 and 9 on 80. I was up to 29 Qs for the third hour,
still terrible.
Things picked up in the 0300z hour. I alternated running and S&Ping on 40 and
80, and wound up with 45 Qs. This isn't an unreasonable number for that hour
from my station when conditions are bad, but together with the dismal
performance in the first three hours, I was way, way behind. Alas, the Qs
dropped back down to 19 in the 0400z hour, mostly running 40 and S&Ping 5 new
mults on 160. By this time, the only bright spot in the contest was 160 -- I was
doing pretty well there, ending the evening with 36 mults on 160, about 5 per
hour after the first 15 in the 0200z hour -- pretty good for an inverted vee at
65'. 160 was bad the second night, producing only two additional mults, so I was
lucky to have hit the best of 160 the first night.
My log shows I only worked 5 stations in 0500z hour, for 6 new mults on 160. My
log also shows 35 minutes of off time. This was not planned or desired. What
happened was that I was calling stations on the second radio (a 1000D) and no
one was responding. Boy, I thought, conditions are really bad! But after more
than half an hour of getting no response on S&P, I began to get suspicious. Some
of the stations I was calling were pretty loud, and they weren't coming back.
Usually if a station is S7 or better I can work it on the first call or so. My
sleep-deprived brain finally realized that something was very wrong. I tuned the
other radio, an Orion, to a station I had been calling to no avail on the 1000D,
and worked it on the first call. What the... ? After much testing and confusion,
I determined that the 1000D was transmitting on the frequency shown on its
display, but was listening about 1.2 KHz lower. Huh? No wonder no one could hear
me! My face must have turned a deep shade of red as I realized I had been
randomly QRMing stations all over the place! To those stations my profound
apologies -- I had no idea what was happening for the better part of an hour. I
checked and rechecked all the 1000D controls. Something definitely was wrong. I
speculated that it might have something to do with the tuning speed mod I'd
installed several years ago, or perhaps a bad oscillator. I once had a similar
problem on the 1000D, which I traced to an SMT resistor in the master oscillator
that had popped off one of its solder pads.
My addled brain finally realized that I might be able to solve this problem with
RIT or XIT. Sure enough, if I set the XIT to -1.22 KHz, the 1000D transmitted
and received on the same frequency! The receive readout wasn't right, but that
didn't matter. I proceeded to use the 1000D this way, after having lost about an
hour not getting a response, isolating the problem, and determining the fix. But
this problem continued to plague me throughout the contest. Every now and then,
I'd be calling and calling with no response, only to realize that the XIT had
been cleared. It took me a while to realize that Writelog was clearing it
because I'd configured the "automatically clear RIT after QSO" feature for the
run radio, which is normally the Orion. The few times I used the 1000D for
running, Writelog would clear the XIT after each QSO (don't ask my why "clear
RIT" clears XIT.) I think the XIT was sometimes getting cleared by a front-panel
sequence, too, but I never confirmed that. The bottom line is that this
off-frequency problem returned over and over time during the contest, wasting
much precious time and probably QRMing the living daylights out of innocent
bystanders. Sorry!
OK, here's the funny/not-so-funny part: After hours and hours of frustration
with the problem returning, and knowing that I was so far behind the leaders
that a little offtime wouldn't have significant impact, I decided to take a wild
stab at fixing it. I QSYed to 75m and found that I couldn't tune in SSB signals.
That was the same symptom I had when the master oscillator broke. I just
happened to have a TXCO-4 oscillator left over from upgrading a 1000MP to a
TXCO-6, and knew that the 1000D master oscillator was plug compatible. So at
about 0915z on Sunday morning, when the rate died down, I decided to swap the
oscillators. Had to move lots of boxes to access the 1000D cover and pop it off.
Luckily, only the top cover had to come off. I swapped the oscillators and... no
help. Oh well. I tried tuning SSB signals to see how they were affected and I
still couldn't tune them in. Hmmm, I thought, sounds like the passband is
shifted...
It was about this time that I glanced down at the IF shift knob. For those of
you who don?t know the 1000D, the IF Width and Shift controls are concentric,
with the width control on the outside. The normal position for the width control
is full clockwise, while the normal position for the shift control is 12
o'clock. The IF shift has a faint red line indicating its position, and it's
hard to see in the low light I prefer for contesting. I couldn't see the red
line. Looking more closely, I realized that it was set fully CCW! Holy cow! What
have I done?!?! Sometime the first night, in an effort to tune in a weak station
on 160 by narrowing the bandwidth, I had mistakenly grabbed the IF shift knob.
When this was not effective, I returned the knob to its normal position, which
my sleep-deprived brain thought was full CCW, or exactly opposite to the width
control. This is the default setting on some other radio I used to own -- I
think it was the High-Cut/Low-Cut knobs on a Kenwood 940/950 or an Icom 751.
Somehow what little was left of my mind must have seized on that as the correct
setting for these two knobs, and I set them at opposite extremes. The result was
that the 1000D's passband was shifted -1.20 KHz. Oy!
Centering the IF Shift control solved the problem, of course, and everything was
fine for the rest of the second day. But I felt like a real idiot -- I had
wasted probably 1.5-2 hours calling stations in futility, tying to diagnose the
problem, testing and "fixing" it. I had also QRMed a lot of stations. Now let's
have a vote -- funny or not funny? Definitely memorable. The crazy things that
can happen during a contest never cease to amaze me.
Sometime the first night, not really comprehending how bad the conditions were,
I decided that with such a low QSO total and so much lost time, there was no way
I could make the top ten. But there was no way I could quit either, and feeling
relatively good I couldn?t see doing a partial effort. I'd done several of those
last year and they were not very satisfying. So, I decided to do as much of the
48 hours as I could, practicing my technique and endurance. I especially wanted
to work on using the second radio and doing some rapid stand-alone S&Ping for
new mults. So I started focusing as much effort as possible on grabbing new
mults, figuring I would crawl back on Qs in the morning runs. I had a lot of fun
working low-band mults to the W, SW and NW in the wee hours, and in spite of the
poor propagation earlier, these seemed to be coming in just fine on 80 and 40.
It's always a thrill to work JA, VK/ZL, 3D2 etc. in the hours before sunrise.
Saturday morning started off with a bang, with good solid rate on 20 beginning
around 1120z. I knocked off about 100 stations, then jumped to 15. Whoa!! 15 was
hopping, good for back-to-back 145 hours, followed by a 116 hour. The rate meter
hit 190 several times. I was very pleased with the performance of the SteppIR
and delighted that the bands were open. This was a sharp contrast with
incredibly poor propagation the night before.
20 and 15 worked out OK, but I regret to report that despite significant
improvement in my 10m antenna, I ended up about 75 Qs and 15-25 mults behind the
top ten stations on that band. Why? When I first saw the score reports, I
thought the third hour running 15 was a mistake and that I should have jumped to
10. But comparing my log with a top ten station shows that the real problem was
not starting to S&P 10 on the second radio soon enough. I didn't start until
nearly 1600z, by which time this other station already had 33 countries in the
bag on 10. He didn't get those mults by running, he got them by starting to S&P
at about 1300z and continuing until the band was pretty-well wrung dry. I kept
checking 10 throughout the 15m run to see if it had opened to EU, but only heard
the very loudest Europeans. Nevertheless, I should have been pounding that
second radio on 10. Part of the difficulty is that I can't S&P with the second
radio much with the 10-minute rate meter pushing 190, so I tend to put it off.
But I'm going to have to learn how to keep turning that knob. The other station
didn't do much S&P when 15 took off, but did settle down to it after the first
hour. Regardless of the effect on rate, I've got to force myself to do that,
too, or I'll never increase the rate at which I can make maximum use of the
second radio. It's not clear whether I'll get a chance to redeem myself next
year. 10 has been more open than I would have thought at this point in the
cycle, and I'm not very optimistic this will continue.
I haven't had time to compare logs to see why I was behind on 20 and 15 mults,
too. I'm sure I'll find that I didn't work the second radio enough, but since my
QSO numbers are behind too, it may be that I'm just not loud enough for the
mults to come to me or my antennas aren't high enough to get the extra time at
the start and end of band openings. The logs should tell the story.
The rate dropped off precipitously Saturday afternoon. In fact, the EU opening
on 20 at about 1800z never seemed to materialize, so my totals on 20 lagged what
I thought they should have been. It looks like I made another mistake here. I
kept checking 20 on the second radio and didn't hear much EU, so I delayed
jumping to 20 until about 1815z. Log comparison shows that the band really
opened to EU about an hour earlier. It could be that my antenna wasn't high
enough to catch the opening, but I probably should have tried a few CQs
anyway.
I moved to 40 relatively early, about 2130z, and it was in somewhat better shape
than the first night. Between 2130z and 0100z I picked up about 120 Qs and 11
new mults while S&Ping 20 and 15 for more mults. At about 0100z I jumped to 80
and ran/S&Ped for about five hours. I did a little S&P on 160, but nothing much
doing there. I jumped back to 40 at around 0600z-0700z, EU sunrise. The rate was
very low all night, and hardly any new mults to come by.
By the wee hours of Sunday morning, I was feeling the effects of sleep
deprivation with a vengeance. I desperately wanted sleep, but knew there was
great danger that I would oversleep and miss the morning runs. From this point
in the contest, I found myself frequently falling asleep while running. It's
hard to know how long these blackout periods lasted. Most of the time they
seemed to occur after I had responded to a caller and gotten his report. I would
momentarily black out, then awaken with my finger over the "+" key to log the
QSO. I have no idea how much time elapsed, but I don't think it was much.
Perhaps a second or two, perhaps a little more. I never heard the other station
asking for confirmation, so it couldn't have been very long. These episodes were
kinda scary.
What was even stranger was the distinct sensation that I was sleeping *while*
continuing to run. Several times I could have sworn I had fallen asleep for
minutes, but the 10-minute rate meter was hanging steady. One time in particular
I remember waking over and over to see it at 60/hr. I wish I had a video camera
running to confirm whether I actually ran while asleep! Probably an
hallucination, and an eerie one at that.
Sometime between 0800z and 1000z, I took several deliberate cat naps while
sitting in the chair. The rate was very low, so I didn't think I was missing
much. In all, I think I burned about 20 minutes in little five-minute naps.
During this period I took about 15 minutes for a bathroom break and to prepare
some eggs for breakfast. Unfortunately, at 1000z I embarked on one of my little
five minute naps and woke up 50 minutes later -- having burned an hour of run
time on 20. I'm pretty sure 20 was open during that time, so I probably lost
50-100 Qs or more. Next time, no naps unless I set an alarm! Still, I'm pleased
that I slept less than 75 minutes through the whole contest.
When I woke up at about 1050z, I found that 20 was wide open, good for another
162 Qs in about an hour and a half. I jumped to 15 at 1245z, but the rate was
far lower than the first day. 10 seemed completely dead to EU, so I stayed on 15
all morning while S&Ping as best I could on 20 and 10.
20 opened back up to EU at 1600z, and was good for another 250 Qs over the next
2.5 hours. By this time it was 1900z, and the rate died. I S&Ped for a while,
turning the antennas like mad, then went to 40 for some running between 2000z
and 2300z.
I always enjoy the last few hours of CQ WW CW. I get an adrenalin rush knowing
that I'll surely make it to the end, and it seems like lots of needed mults
always pop out of the woodwork about this time. I swing the antennas to the
west, northwest, southwest, northeast, east, picking up new mults from all over
the world. I had some nice, though brief, JA runs on 15 and 20 to close out the
contest, picking up new mults like HL along the way.
I was happy to have broken 2000 Qs and 3.1 million points. The mults were far
behind the competition, but about the same as I did last year with over 1000
more Qs. I'm still trying to figure out what that means.
My beef this year? DX station in big pileups who don't give their calls for long
stretches. Seems like there were more than ever. As K5ZD says, we don't all have
packet. Besides, there are plenty of busted spots on packet, which means many
logs will have the wrong call. No problem if it's only off by one character, but
what if it's more? I don't think rate is impaired one bit by signing after every
QSO. What you lose by signing every QSO is more than exceeded by general
confusion and stations obliterating each other by sending CL? I heard 8P5A
running about 300/hr and signing after *every* QSO. It was a pleasure to listen
to Tom smoothly working the pileup, which was relatively well-mannered and
efficient (though he might have thought differently at his end.) In contrast,
the pileups where the DX didn't sign were chaotic and inefficient. It's hard to
believe the rate was any better, and it was probably worse. Sure, it's OK not to
sign for a few Qs to thin out a pileup, but I wouldn't go more than three or
four. Frankly, in addition to being of questionable value in terms of rate, not
signing is just plain rude.
My performance wasn't great, and I made some dumb mistakes, but it looks like
I'll end up somewhere in the top 15 or 20 -- about the usual from my home QTH.
This year's antenna changes definitely improved the picture on 10 and 15, but
with no stacks and no antennas higher than 75', I have to concede that I can't
compete effectively with the big guns in the big one. Even so, I continue to
believe that I can improve my skill level enough to move up a few slots in the
standings. To get a better handle on this, I plan to do two things. First, I'll
finish analyzing a few top ten logs that have kindly been sent to me. One are of
interest is the source of mults -- run or S&P. The idea is to determine whether
I'm not loud enough to attract mults when running or whether my S&P skills are
lagging (or both.) Second, I think it's time for me to hit the guest-op
circuit. Before I invest the time, money and effort into major antenna upgrades,
I need to get a handle on how much it will help. If my skills are really the
limiting factor, I'd prefer to concentrate the effort there. If you have a big
antenna farm that will be idle for one of the majors this year, and you wouldn't
mind having a guest-op, please let me know.
One antenna project I might consider is a four-square on 80, or perhaps a 2- or
3- element inline vertical array on 80. I'm not lagging on 80 as much as I am on
the higher bands, but I'm still behind by 100-200 Qs and 10-20 mults. My delta
loop and beverage are more competitive than I would have thought, but more is
needed.
Late word passed on from K5ZD -- here's an excerpt from the report of HS0ZAR
(K3ZO):
"Who had the loudest 20 meter East Coast signal? I was able to
observe things for several hours over two days and in my judgment
VC3L was the champ this time. WC1M was a close second. W1KM had
a very nice clear sound with less flutter than the others.
Of course most if not all were beaming Europe so this may simply
say that their beams have broader lobes. I should add that "the
usual suspects" were all plenty loud enough; there's not as much
difference as you might think. For example, if you would ask me to
compare the signal N3AM had with that of W3LPL, I would have to say
it was a wash."
Me? Second loudest signal on 20 from the East Coast? My compass and rotor
indicator aren't broken, and the 4-el SteppIR shouldn't be much broader than the
beams of "the usual suspects", so maybe the antennas here work better than I
thought. As far as HS0 goes, this must have something to do with the steep
dropoff in terrain to the north (actually, the dropoff runs from 225 degrees all
the way to 15 degrees -- too bad it doesn't go all the way around to EU!.)
So, that's another one for the books. Thanks for reading this exceedingly long
diary. I hope there will be some helpful information for others in here.
And thanks to all the VEs for working me -- without you it would have been very
lonely indeed!
73, Dick WC1M
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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