ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 32
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 43 41
80: 190 73
40: 1014 104
20: 857 107
15: 689 95
10: 16 13
-------------------
Total: 2809 433 Total Score = 3,635,901
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
This was an assisted operation using only spots from CW Skimmer monitoring my
station antennas.
Two SDRs monitor the antennas used by my two radios and a third SDR can monitor
a third band if an unused antenna is available. The idea is to work only
stations that can be heard on my antennas, with no help from other humans or
remote Skimmers. But I don't consider this at all equivalent to unassisted
operation because it doesn't require me to tune for mults. It's just another
interesting variation that emphasizes certain technical and operating
challenges, and results are 100% dependent on my antennas.
Another reason for doing this is to compare my mult totals with my previous
unassisted operations and assisted stations in this contest to better
understand how much of my unassisted mult performance is skill-related and how
much is antenna-related.
One limitation of this approach is that my antennas are all single or dual
directional, so Skimmer could have missed some mults in other directions. I
tried to compensate by paralleling antennas pointed in different directions,
but this wasn't always possible or desirable, especially on the run radio.
However, Skimmer is awfully good at pulling out extremely weak signals, so many
mults were, in fact, found off the backs and sides of the antennas. Perhaps some
experimentation with multiband verticals will provide more information.
I worked just about every new mult that popped up on the screen while I was
operating. The only exceptions were mults that arrived while I was running at
the highest rates and couldn't pause to work a mult on the second radio without
compromising the rate or losing the frequency. My sense was that most of those
new mults were fairly common and I worked most or all of them later. In fact,
very few new mults showed up after the first 24 hours: over 90% of my mults
were worked on the first day. The second-day mults only contributed about 10%
of my score. I'm sure this was partly due to fewer DXpeditions in ARRL DX than
other major DX contests.
I haven't drawn conclusions yet, but it looks like my mult performance lagged a
bit behind other assisted stations. Some of that may be due to the specific
hours I took breaks, but it looks like some of it may be due to antenna
limitations. For example, I was well behind in mults on my low band antennas,
which are just wires, and I wasn't able to use the beverage for receiving
because the SDR setup isn't configured to listen on the beverage. But it didn't
matter: recently the beverage been compromised by high noise levels that I
haven't been able to resolve, so I couldn't use it for working stations,
either(more on that below).
I would have liked to have done a full 40+ hour effort, but I'm still not in
condition to do that. Too many years of reduced participation and limited
hours, I guess. 32 hours was better than I've done in most contests over the
past few years, so hopefully this is an up-trend and I can work back to full
efforts in the big contests. I tried to optimize the hours I operated, but
fatigue forced me to take some breaks when rates were pretty good and new mults
were to be had.
Conditions were much better than I expected, given the high geomagnetic
activity during most of the contest. Plenty of Russian stations worked, which
is the usual sign of good conditions here. Over-the-pole stations were there --
JAs and a few Asiatic Russians -- but not as many as during peak conditions.
Northern EU stations were a bit weak and warbley at times.
The low bands were particularly good here the first night. I was able to work
just about all the stations I heard on 160, despite my modest trapped 160/80
inverted vee at 90 feet having some SWR problems. I wondered if I'd have been
able to hear even more stations had the beverage been working. 80 was similar,
with some decent running on the first night. Both bands got very noisy the
second night and didn't produce nearly as many Qs.
40 was quite good, as it often is on my Diversity reception setup using a
full-size 2-el beam at 110' and a full-size 4-square. The band opened early and
rates were very good most of the day. Had a really great EU sunrise opening on
the first night from 0500z-800z. Didn't get the same rates the second night, so
I took a sleep break at about 0630z. From other logs I can see there was indeed
an EU sunrise opening the second night. I'm not sure why it didn't show up
here. Maybe I had already worked all the ops who like to get up early :-). I
certainly hadn't worked everyone because the rates were big when the band
opened up at 2100z on Sunday. I was able to work some long-range mults like VK
and JA on 40 around sunrise here.
20 was very good on both days, with highest rates during the 1200z hour --
177/hr day one and 141/hr day two. My best 10-minute rate was 240/hr and my
best 1-hour rate was 190/hr. Not bad. 20 had the highest mult totals, though
only three more than 40. Worked some JA in the morning and had a decent JA run
in the late afternoon Sunday after the rate dropped on 40.
15 was decent, but not exceptional. Signal levels weren't quite as high as on
20, but still produced a 131/hr rate during the 1400z hour the first day. Rates
were lower the second day, but the band stayed open a little longer. My mults
were OK on 15, but I think they should have been a little higher.
No 10, except for a handful of Caribbean and South American stations. But that
was expected. However, due to configuration limitations Skimmer was only able
to monitor 10 to the South. Judging from results of other stations it looks
like there were other mults to be had in other directions. Will have to rotate
that antenna more or will have to work out a solution for using other antennas
on 10 with the SDRs. It'll be a challenge because beam patterns tend to be
narrow on 10.
The one technical glitch was the coax to my 4-el 20m beam on a 72' crankup.
It's a secondary antenna used mostly for S&P and Skimmer. The coax lays on
the ground when the tower is retracted, and we've had a ton of snow this year.
On Friday I strapped on snowshoes and trudged down the hill to the tower to
free the coax, which I knew had to be stuck under the bottom layer of ice. It
was a major effort that required returning to the house for a shovel.
Eventually I got the coax free and raised the tower. Unfortunately, I just
assumed everything was OK and used the antenna with the third SDR. It did pick
up activity, but late Saturday I tried to transmit on that antenna and
discovered that the SWR was over 5:1! I may have nicked the coax when trying to
free it, though I didn't see any evidence of that. This might explain missing
some mults on 20 the first day. Luckily, I was able to compensate on the second
day by substituting the bottom antenna on my SteppIR stack, which I usually
don't use on 20 anyway. There were some limitations with that, but all in all
it was a decent solution.
As mentioned earlier, my trusty dual-direction beverage, which has worked
beautifully for many years, has developed a persistent high-noise condition
requiring me to receive on the 160 and 80 transmit antennas. I've tried
replacing the transformers at both ends, putting a choke on the feedline,
replacing worn/uninsulated sections of the ladder line, etc., but all to no
avail. It has to be some sort of interference. My next move is to turn off all
electricity in the house except one radio to see if the noise is local.
Otherwise, it might be coming from one of the neighboring houses, which are all
at least 1/4 mile away. Or, it might be coming from the Comcast cable on a pole
about 40 feet from the beverage, which was put in about a year ago. Not sure
how I could solve the problem if it's not coming from something in my house.
Might be time for a vertical receive array, but no guarantee that wouldn't pick
up the noise, too. Guess I've been lucky to have been in a low-noise location
for over 20 years.
Bottom line -- had lots of fun. See you in the next one.
QSO/DX by hour and band
Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm
OffTime
D1-0000Z --+-- --+-- 121/31 6/6 --+-- --+-- 127/37 127/37
D1-0100Z - 43/23 40/1 11/11 - - 94/35 221/72
D1-0200Z - 24/7 33/33 - - - 57/40 278/112
D1-0300Z 10/10 14/14 5/5 - - - 29/29 307/141
8
D1-0400Z 10/9 9/9 - - - - 19/18 326/159
60
D1-0500Z 10/10 8/8 49/7 - - - 67/25 393/184
D1-0600Z 6/6 2/1 118/2 - - - 126/9 519/193
D1-0700Z - 2/2 119/2 - - - 121/4 640/197
1
D1-0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 640/197
60
D1-0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 640/197
60
D1-1000Z - - - - - - 0/0 640/197
60
D1-1100Z - - 8/7 50/17 - - 58/24 698/221
19
D1-1200Z - - - 177/20 - - 177/20 875/241
D1-1300Z - - - 31/2 104/53 - 135/55 1010/296
D1-1400Z - - - 5/5 131/3 - 136/8 1146/304
D1-1500Z - - - - 103/13 2/2 105/15 1251/319
D1-1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 11/11 6/6 10/10 27/27 1278/346
1
D1-1700Z - - - - - - 0/0 1278/346
60
D1-1800Z - - - 1/1 2/2 - 3/3 1281/349
34
D1-1900Z - - - 32/11 2/2 - 34/13 1315/362
34
D1-2000Z - - - 65/3 7/2 - 72/5 1387/367
D1-2100Z - - 104/2 4/4 - - 108/6 1495/373
D1-2200Z - 1/1 99/6 4/4 - - 104/11 1599/384
D1-2300Z - 23/1 28/1 19/0 - - 70/2 1669/386
1
D2-0000Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 1669/386
60
D2-0100Z - - - - - - 0/0 1669/386
60
D2-0200Z - - 10/0 - - - 10/0 1679/386
51
D2-0300Z 2/1 5/2 26/3 - - - 33/6 1712/392
D2-0400Z 2/2 34/2 26/0 - - - 62/4 1774/396
D2-0500Z 3/3 7/1 23/0 - - - 33/4 1807/400
D2-0600Z - 16/0 12/1 - - - 28/1 1835/401
30
D2-0700Z - - - - - - 0/0 1835/401
60
D2-0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 1835/401
60
D2-0900Z - - - - - - 0/0 1835/401
60
D2-1000Z - 2/2 - - - - 2/2 1837/403
48
D2-1100Z - - 2/1 112/0 - - 114/1 1951/404
D2-1200Z - - - 141/0 - - 141/0 2092/404
D2-1300Z - - - 58/2 61/3 - 119/5 2211/409
D2-1400Z - - - 22/3 59/4 - 81/7 2292/416
D2-1500Z - - - - 103/1 - 103/1 2395/417
D2-1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 1/1 78/2 1/1 80/4 2475/421
D2-1700Z - - - 1/1 12/1 - 13/2 2488/423
8
D2-1800Z - - - - - - 0/0 2488/423
60
D2-1900Z - - - 48/2 1/1 2/0 51/3 2539/426
10
D2-2000Z - - 6/1 18/0 20/2 1/0 45/3 2584/429
D2-2100Z - - 114/0 - - - 114/0 2698/429
D2-2200Z - - 24/1 22/1 - - 46/2 2744/431
D2-2300Z - - 47/0 18/2 - - 65/2 2809/433
Total: 43/41 190/73 1014/104 857/107 689/95 16/13
Antennas:
160M - trapped vee @90'
80M - delta loop @75, trapped vee @90'
40M - Cal-Av 2D-40A @110', 4-square
20M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50', 4-el @72' (not
working)
15M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50', 5-el @50'
10M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34' on TICs, C3E @50'. 6-el @115'
Tower#1: Force 12 EF-610, Cal-AV 2D-40A, 4-el SteppIRs, 160/80 trapped vee
770-MDP: Force-12 EF-420 (not working)
AB-577 #1: Force-12 EF-515
AB-577 #2: Force-12 C3E
Delta loop hung from a tree
dual 580' beverage aimed 20/220 degrees (not working)
Equipment:
Elecraft K3 + Afedri SDR-Net + Alpha 87A, Elecraft K3 + Afedri SDR-Net + Acom
2000A + Afedri SDR-Net on unused antenna, Writelog, YCCC SO2R Box, homebrew
Windows antenna switching/tuning software ("AntennaMaster"), HDSDR,
CW Skimmer, iPad running Touchmon USB for touch-screen "button box",
K1XM MOAS II USB Switch, TopTen and KK1L SO2R switches, Green Heron and Hy-Gain
rotor controllers, microHam Stack Switch and StackMax
73, Dick WC1M
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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