IARU HF World Championship
Call: WX0B
Operator(s): AD5Q
Station: WX0B
Class: SOABCW HP
QTH: Dallas
Operating Time (hrs): 23.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Zones HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
160: 19 4 2
80: 148 13 14
40: 536 27 29
20: 708 31 25
15: 340 18 20
10: 16 6 1
-------------------------------------
Total: 1767 0 99 91 Total Score = 1,076,540
Club: DFW Contest Group
Comments:
Looking at the forecasts before the contest, I saw the high K-index and sunny
skies for all weekend (with no sunspots). I expected the long delayed openings
on 15, but not the QRN which increased all afternoon. The weather forecast was
dead wrong. I finally looked out the window when there was a flash of lightning
since I can't hear thunder with the homebrew headphones I used. It had been
raining for some time, which explained the constant QRN on 15. I pulled the
coax and rotor plugs and took a half hour of down time.
The 80M opening to EU was the best I've ever heard it, and several of the HQ
mults were easily logged. As for the other bands, I was mostly pre-occupied
with an experiment: interleaved runs. With the K-index at 4 it was a good
contest to try this, especially on the stateside runs.
I'm sure many of you have seen the video of ZF2MJ in the last CQWW. Here is the
link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no8nGGa99cE
Though I was intrigued by the high QSO rates, I felt the hardware setup could
be greatly simplified for less operator fatigue. The use of two keyboards and
monitors requires the constant shifting and reorientation of hands and eyeballs
between them, along with a more retro method of SO2R switching which must be
homebrewed. There are also separate keyer paddles and a little box with lights,
which tells the op which keyboard to use. I thought of a software-only solution
to this which would work with an existing SO2R setup. In a very complusive way
I wanted to do 2 things: 1) Code it. 2) Try it. I wrote the code late last year
as a new "scenario" in WinTest and labeled it "Dueling ESM",
which is exactly what it is.
Operation differs from conventional Dueling CQ in that a new QSO can be
commenced immediately while another is ongoing: interleaved. Entry for both
radios is entered into the same fields onscreen (the "primary" side).
The background colors of these fields change to indicate which radio you are
copying, and the only time you need to know this is when you have to tweak an
RIT. Mostly, you just keep banging in callsigns and pressing ENTER.
Transmitter, headphone and log switching is fully automatic. INS & PLUS are
still fully supported. When stations answer on both bands it is more intense,
but actually great fun - not difficult at all. The correct word is
"slick".
Prior to the contest I had almost no experience in using this method. If two
PC's are used, it's possible to practice your technique using a copy of Morse
Runner on each PC. I did not see a way to practice interleaving using a single
copy of Morse Runner, so the only way to acquire this skill is in a real
contest. I tried it briefly in the ARRL CW and it worked. I had started an EU
run on 20 a half hour before sunrise, and interleaved some 160M run Q's with JA
at the SR peak without giving up my frequency on 20. The right contest for a
more extensive test, however, was this one - with the K-index at 4.
I was running on two bands for most of this contest, especially trolling for
situations where I could do a lot of interleaving. These periods were usually
brief. I never did get the rate over 300, which would have required two bands
running at 150+/hr at the same time. We didn't get that, so I'm a bit
disappointed. At slower rates, dueling ESM more closely resembles dueling CQ -
and with the same drawbacks: When running on 2 bands, you aren't tuning other
bands or checking propagation with the 2nd radio (missed mults and missed
openings).
Another problem is that some runs are easier to do than others. In some you
need lots of fills (weak sigs, bad QRN, EU's calling out of turn, etc). These
contacts require a lot of attention and too much time, and this kills the rate
on both runs. It is also possible to leave an ongoing QSO twisting in the wind
as you dig out a call on the opposite radio, but I don't think that happened.
When interleaving two runs, it's important that both runs be easy copy and
fairly orderly. If these conditions aren't met, it's probably better to stick
with conventional SO2R and pounce the 2nd radio. These are the things I
learned, and my score is significantly lower than it would have been without
all the experimenting - both in Q's and mults.
I also got the bugs out - AFTER the contest. These caused me to fumble a few
QSO's, so, sorry. Any time I needed to use the paddle, it would key the wrong
radio. The easy fix was to add functionality to the ESCape key to switch it to
the primary. The other problem was a loophole (forgetting to press ENTER) where
I would answer a caller on the wrong radio, then CQ in his face (one time) and
work him on the 2nd try. I think I've eliminated the wrong radio situations and
made this easy. This can't happen anymore.
So I have a new tool, and will use it only when the situation is right. The
next sunspot peak (when both 10 & 15 are running EU's all morning) comes to
mind.
Roy -- AD5Q
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|