ARRL RTTY Roundup
Call: P49X
Operator(s): W0YK
Station: P40L/P49Y
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
80: 318
40: 693
20: 1159
15: 1054
10: 17
------------
Total: 3241 State/Prov = 60 Countries = 63 Total Score = 398,643
Club: Loma Prieta Contest Club
Comments:
Thanks for another fun weekend! The continuous stream of calls challenged my
ability to service them all. When 10 meters fully opens AND enough stations
spend time there, this contest is going to be a 24-hour sprint. With four
bands, my average rate was 135/hour and a new high for me in this contest.
Iâ??m fortunate to be on this side of the QSOs, but it is really the thousands
of other stations that get into the log to create the results. Thanks again
for playing the game!
It was surprising and a little disappointing that the initial rates werenâ??t
higher. I felt the messages were about as short as they could effectively be.
And with some enhanced UI features in WriteLog, e.g., call stacking efficency,
the QSO flow was more streamlined than in the past. Of course, there is only
so much that can be done on this side. A short, quality QSO equally depends on
both stations. As more and more of us employ short transmissions (but
sufficient as conditions dictate) the rate should continue to increase. Dave,
K6LL, gets the award for how to do this properly â?¦ when we work, I know I
better be on my toes for a no-frills QSO! He thinks it is a contest and
behaves accordingly.
15 and 20 were solidly open to both Europe and North America both days. 40 and
80, however, had some disturbing fuzziness and echoing for the first few hours
Saturday evening. Signals were loud, but decoding was sluggish, slowing the
rate. The rate in the early-morning hours (local time) held up much better
than previous years. After the European sunrise, North America continued
calling in at a good clip. There were good openings to JA on 15, 20 and 40.
Sunday afternoon had stronger JA signal levels on 15 than 20 and many stations
moved from one band to the other for me.
As others will note, we had another year without 10 meters. Again though, the
band was able to support a lot more rate than we saw, simply due to lack of
participation by enough stations. I had a third radio (Icom 756ProII)
dedicated to 10 meters all weekend. With its bandscope constantly monitoring
50 kHz centered on 28080, I can vouch for what appeared to be a dead band. I
also had 28080 mixed in with the audio stream of my right radio to alert me.
There would be an occasional signal and finally around 18z Sunday, I couldnâ??t
restraint myself and started interleaving CQs there in between the other two
radios running on 15 and 20. I got a response after the first CQ on 10, so
started pushing it harder. The â??rateâ?? couldnâ??t be called a run, but I
stuck with it for 30 minutes and only worked 17 stations. Several of them
wound up getting P49X on five bands and that was fun.
For the third year in a row, I ran out my 24-hour operating period more than an
hour before 00z Monday. This is about when the 15-meter rate drops off here.
At 0645z Sunday, I took my first break and grabbed two REM cycles of sleep. I
got back on 1007z, intending to stay only 30 minutes and see what mults I could
get. Fortunately, I did get VK3TDX (barely) for my only VK, but no other new
mults. Since the rate was better than usual at about 80/hour, I couldnâ??t
pull myself away and stayed for an hour before taking my second break and
getting some breakfast. Iâ??ve used this tactic a lot over the years and
donâ??t think it is particularly useful, but it makes me â??feel goodâ?? that
Iâ??m checking 40 meters into Asia/Oceania. ;>)
The highlight of this contest for me was inauguration of a complete turn-over
in PC systems. New ThinkPad computers, new USB soundcards, new USB-Serial
adapters, Windows 7, new version of MMTTY, Beta WriteLog, new wireless router
(first time without direct-wired Ethernet between computers), etc. Amazingly,
the wirelessly-networked PCs were 100% solid all weekend with no driver
glitches or other problems. I didnâ??t think this result would be possible,
but I was curious to find out and was very pleased with the results.
Speaking of results, this year got within 1% of my highest score (2009) and
marginally set a new QSO record of 3241. It will take a significantly lower
error rate for this to be a new record. 3500-4000 QSOs are in my sights, but
10 meters is needed. As it was, there were a large number of stations who got
P49X on four bandsâ?"thanks! Mults were disappointing again and while I got
all the US/VE mults that were likely on, my DX mult total will probably be
lower than a few of the NA participants. WriteLog was extended recently to
take advantage of the two receivers in the K3 so that one can interleave S&P
QSOs on the same band used for running. Unfortunately, the best time to find
mults is when the band is open which is also when the rates are highest, making
running on two radios while tuning the second receiver of one of them (plus
monitoring the bandscope and audio from the third radio!) more of a challenge
than Iâ??ve been able to adequately master.
Thanks to Andy, P49Y/AE6Y, and John, P40L/W6LD, for sharing their Aruba cottage
with me. Iâ??ll be back for WPX RTTY (and also ARRL DX CW with John) in four
weeks. It was nice having an eyeball QSO with Robert, P40P/W5AG, over dinner
at seaside last night. He operated low power at Sue and Carlâ??s new station
(P40YL/AI6YL & P49V/AI6V), so no one should have missed P4 this weekend.
Ed â?" P49X (W0YK)
Hour 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm OffTime
D1-1800Z - - 98/21 100/28 - 198/49 198/49
D1-1900Z - - 104/9 106/8 - 210/17 408/66
D1-2000Z - - 96/7 93/4 - 189/11 597/77
D1-2100Z - - 104/3 71/3 - 175/6 772/83
D1-2200Z - 22/5 79/0 25/1 - 126/6 898/89
D1-2300Z - 92/5 83/3 - - 175/8 1073/97
D2-0000Z --+-- 88/1 58/1 --+-- --+-- 146/2 1219/99
D2-0100Z 20/1 83/0 16/0 - - 119/1 1338/100
D2-0200Z 51/2 87/2 - - - 138/4 1476/104
D2-0300Z 67/0 81/0 - - - 148/0 1624/104
D2-0400Z 58/0 72/0 - - - 130/0 1754/104
D2-0500Z 46/1 78/3 - - - 124/4 1878/108
D2-0600Z 30/1 46/1 - - - 76/2 1954/110 13
D2-0700Z - - - - - 0/0 1954/110 60
D2-0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 1954/110 60
D2-0900Z - - - - - 0/0 1954/110 60
D2-1000Z 33/0 33/1 - - - 66/1 2020/111 7
D2-1100Z 13/0 11/0 - - - 24/0 2044/111 39
D2-1200Z - - 2/0 11/0 - 13/0 2057/111 53
D2-1300Z - - 52/0 74/4 - 126/4 2183/115
D2-1400Z - - 43/1 88/1 - 131/2 2314/117
D2-1500Z - - 56/0 82/1 - 138/1 2452/118
D2-1600Z --+-- --+-- 62/1 81/2 --+-- 143/3 2595/121
D2-1700Z - - 46/1 62/0 - 108/1 2703/122
D2-1800Z - - 54/0 31/0 17/0 102/0 2805/122
D2-1900Z - - 50/0 53/0 - 103/0 2908/122
D2-2000Z - - 44/0 71/0 - 115/0 3023/122
D2-2100Z - - 63/0 59/0 - 122/0 3145/122
D2-2200Z - - 49/0 47/1 - 96/1 3241/123
Total: 318/5 693/18 1159/47 1054/53 17/0
80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
NA 256 480 918 849 16 2519 77.7
EU 59 199 173 167 0 598 18.5
AF 0 2 2 3 0 7 0.2
SA 2 5 6 11 1 25 0.8
OC 1 2 0 3 0 6 0.2
AS 0 5 60 21 0 86 2.7
-------------------------------------------------------------
9A 1 2 1 2 6
CN 1 1
CT 1 1
CX 2 2
DL 8 16 23 28 75
EA 3 16 20 18 57
EA8 2 2 2 6
EI 1 1
EU 1 2 3 2 8
F 1 4 12 12 29
FO 1 1
G 3 8 10 21
GI 1 1 2
GJ 1 1
GM 1 1 1 3
GU 1 1
GW 1 1
HA 2 4 4 2 12
HB 5 2 1 8
HC 1 1 2
HI 2 2
HL 2 2
I 3 21 44 21 89
J3 1 1
JA 2 56 21 79
K 237 452 846 789 13 2337
KH6 1 1 1 3
KL 4 3 7
KP2 1 1 1 1 4
KP4 2 1 2 1 6
LA 1 1
LU 4 1 3 8
LY 1 1 2
LZ 1 2 1 1 5
OE 1 2 3
OH 1 4 4 5 14
OK 6 12 7 6 31
OM 3 8 2 3 16
ON 1 3 1 3 8
OZ 1 1 1 3
P4 1 1 2
PA 2 11 4 9 26
PY 1 2 5 8
S5 2 5 4 11
SM 1 3 1 2 7
SP 3 15 6 6 30
SV 1 2 1 1 5
TF 1 1 2
UA 7 14 7 3 31
UA2 1 1
UA9 1 2 3
UN 1 1
UR 10 36 4 9 59
V3 1 1 2
VE 12 24 62 51 2 151
VK 1 1
VP9 1 1 2
XE 1 2 1 3 7
YL 1 1 2
YO 3 7 3 5 18
YU 3 3 2 8
YV 1 1 2
ZC4 1 1
ZL 1 1
ZP 1 1
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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