ARRL RTTY Roundup
Call: P49X
Operator(s): W0YK
Station: P40L/P49Y
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: FK52al
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band RTTY Qs Dig Qs
-----------------------
80: 188 10
40: 582 74
20: 1037 122
15: 643 55
10: 0 0
-----------------------
Total: 2450 261 State/Prov = 57 Countries = 60 Total Score = 317,187
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
Surely the conditions for RTTY Roundup couldn’t be any worse than what we
experienced last year, right? Well, here in Aruba they were! While there were
periods of exciting rate, there were several hours where only one band was
productive at all, rendering SO2R ineffective. This is the 14th consecutive
year I’ve done this contest from P4 and this weekend ranks third from the
bottom score wise.
10 never opened. 15 was marginal and 40/80 fell far short of making up for the
high band deficiency. 88% of P49X QSOs were with North America and only 9% with
Europe. Partly this divide results from Europe’s relative lower interest in
this contest compared to other contests where a typical split from here might be
60-40 NA-EU.
But wait! We had this new-fangled digital mode: FT8. How would that impact the
contest? More on this later.
So, I enjoyed similar exhilarating QSO rate the first three hours to the best
years from here. Then, activity dropped off faster and further than ever
before. I was 500+ QSOs down halfway through when I took a sleep break, after
Europe daybreak. Sunday morning I feared 15 might never open. The band scope
was empty but I CQ’d anyway until the first call came in at 1410z. Signals
were surprisingly strong, just few and far between until around 15z. I had
exactly one EU QSO on 15m, a relatively strong French station. I’m sure many
others could have been worked, had they tried the band. Still, there wouldn’t
be the tremendous openings to smaller stations that we have in better years.
Usually, we can take solace in the low bands at the bottom of the cycle, but 80
and 40 were unimpressive to say the least. They finally opened late Saturday
night for a taste of how we typically find the bands. I had been on 160m each
night the last week and it was in very poor condition also.
Local Issues
Maintaining a remote station subject to constant trade winds and salt air is a
challenge as I found last week. Arriving late Monday, I didn’t see the
antennas until Tuesday morning when I noticed the skewed reflector on the 20m
Yagi and the same for one T-bar loading element on the 80m dipole. I checked
SWR on all antennas and they were normal. Then, in the middle of operating 80m
Tuesday night, the SWR shot way up. Wednesday morning showed me that the skewed
T-bar was now missing from the 80m dipole. No able to find the T-bar in the
tangled mass of thorn bushes in the open space behind the property, I set out to
add a wire coil at the feed point to compensate for the missing loading on one
side of the dipole element. That worked great to bring the resonance back to
where it was and our switched relay box of other coils gave us the same 4 band
segments in CW and Phone. As I was climbing the tower to install the coil, I
noticed that the 20m reflector was now also on the ground! At the top of the
tower, I could see the reason for both failures: severely corroded U-bolts had
disintegrated. Of course, that doesn’t bode well for all the other U-bolt and
hardware fasteners on all the antennas. I wondered how much more of the overall
antenna system would be raining down soon.
The 20m Yagi actually still works fine and doesn’t seem to be too hampered by
the missing reflector. However, Thursday night the 80m SWR shot up again and
Friday morning I discovered severe RF arcing had blown a hole through the PVC
element-mount insulator. I cleaned it up as best I could, know that once RF
carbon has been created in material, its impossible to return it to the original
insulating ability. I planned to run low power and see if I could sneak by. My
initial idea was, heck, I’ll run FT8 on 80m and take advantage of the weak
signal capability. I soon realized that isn’t currently possible with SO2R
running RTTY on the other radio (to efficiently maintain only one signal at a
time). It turned out that I was able to run 600 watts with no apparent arcing
and it ran fine all weekend like that.
FT8
The telegram is that I planned to run RTTY only this year, but wound up making
about 10% of the total contacts on FT8 during the last 3 hours of the contest.
FT8 is not ready for serious high-rate contesting as we’ve known it on the HF
bands. The theoretical maximum FT8 rate is currently less than half what good
SO2R RTTY operators can achieve in practice. And there are many reasons why the
minimum 4 transmit cycles per FT8 QSO (one-minute) often stretch to more cycles,
or never completes at all.
OTOH, FT8 has significant advantages for a much larger group of contest
participants who are constrained by geography, housing limitations, solar
conditions, power, noise, etc. The amazing explosive growth of FT8 activity
since its introduction in mid-2017 also means that there are many more
participants for all of us to work in contests. In the first-ever FT8 (only)
contest, the FT8 Roundup last month, fully 35% of the logs received were call
signs not in Super Check Partial! It was the first contest for the winner (who
has only been licensed 2 years!) and one other Top Ten finisher. Contests
don’t exist without participants for everyone to work, so these new
“contesters” is great news.
I did not think RTTY and FT8 would work well coexisting in the same contest. I
feared that there would be a drain of participation from RTTY by folks who are
enjoying FT8 now, thereby dispersing participation for both modes. I worried
about conflict between FT8 and RTTY easily sharing the same sub-bands and
whether all participants would “get the word” about recommended locations to
operate.
Of course, like many things we can debate ad infinitum, a little bit of actual
experience goes a long way to inform our imagined opinions about these things.
My observation this weekend was that RTTY participation was more affected by the
poor solar conditions than any number of “defectors” to the FT8 mode. And,
the FT8 activity was confined to 1-2 very small 2-3 kHz sections of each band.
The RTTY ops steered clear, mainly because those few kHz were “occupied” by
density of signal strengths that would make RTTY operation unpleasant and
ineffective. Ironically, I think there was nearly as much FT8 activity in 4 kHz
as there was RTTY activity in the other 50 kHz of, say, 20 meters. Another nice
attribute of this new mode.
As Sunday wore on and I watched my rate dropping in the afternoon, plus
consulting my rate sheets from prior years, it occurred to me that maybe the
RTTY rate could get low enough that spending the last few hours on FT8 might be
more productive. In the end, I think it was probably a wash in terms of score.
I also picked up 5 DX mults I doubt would have come via RTTY. Finally, it gave
me actual operating experience in this new dual-digital mode contest.
In theory, the maximum SO2R FT8 rate would be 120/hour and when I switched
modes, my RTTY rate was in the 60s. My goal was to maintain an actual FT8 rate
of 90, which I was able to do for the first hour. Maybe that was dumb luck or
maybe my attempts to “game” the WSJT-X software to maximize rate worked.
The last two hours, the rate dropped off to 65. I don’t think I would have
done much better, if at all, by staying on RTTY and I’m pretty sure I
wouldn’t have worked as many as 5 new mults.
On the plus side, I figured a lot of the FT8 stations would not have been on
RTTY, giving me new blood to work. However, offsetting this advantage might be
an excessive number of dupes by stations I had already worked on RTTY but with
no good way to flag dupes between RTTY and FT8 (no software duping between
software programs and modes), or they didn’t care that a QSO only counts once
per band regardless of mode. I was happy that there were only 10 dupes in the
270 FT8 QSOs, higher than my overall dupe rate, but much less than I feared.
On the down side, I depended on each of the other operators being skilled enough
with WSJT-X to avoid wasted 15-second cycles. Unnecessary FT8 cycles would kill
rate, so I decided to use this 3-hour opportunity to figure out what I could do
on my side to reduce wasted cycles. For example, how long should I let message
re-sends go on before aborting the attempted QSO? What is the best way to do
that? What specific features, configurations and checkboxes should I use to
accomplish this?
I tried a number of things to “game” the software for higher rate. Most of
them worked great at times and not at all at other times. Several times I
thought I found the magic, only to discover several QSOs later that it didn’t
always work. By the end, I had little to show for take-aways. I did learn that
it is a very complex problem that involves WSJT-X software that was designed
without consideration for contest usability and that my QSO partners make any
number of decisions that affect the outcome. And, frankly, I suspect many of
them don’t really care much about “my” rate!
In classic ham spirit, I was excited and honored to be able to participate in an
emerging technology that contesters had their first peek at operating. I’m
confident that over time improvements will be made in operability and
performance of new modes like FT8. For the first dual-mode Roundup, I’m very
impressed with how it all worked out.
Ed P49X/W0YK
********************************************************************
Cabrillo Statistics (Version 10g) by K5KA & N6TV
http://bit.ly/cabstat
CALLSIGN: P49X
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OP
CATEGORY-TRANSMITTER: ONE
CONTEST: ARRL-RTTY
OPERATORS: W0YK
-------------- Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour 160 80 40 20 15 10 Rate Total Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1800 0 0 0 114 51 0 165 165 6.1
1900 0 0 0 115 119 0 234 399 14.7
2000 0 0 0 105 84 0 189 588 21.7
2100 0 0 8 97 29 0 134 722 26.6
2200 0 0 92 104 0 0 196 918 33.9
2300 0 0 59 63 0 0 122 1040 38.4
0000 0 0 88 27 0 0 115 1155 42.6
0100 0 14 85 0 0 0 99 1254 46.3
0200 0 24 78 0 0 0 102 1356 50.0
0300 0 27 46 0 0 0 73 1429 52.7
0400 0 31 41 0 0 0 72 1501 55.4
0500 0 33 37 0 0 0 70 1571 57.9
0600 0 23 43 0 0 0 66 1637 60.4
0700 0 31 25 0 0 0 56 1693 62.4
0800 0 4 0 0 0 0 4 1697 62.6
0900 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1697 62.6
1000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1697 62.6
1100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1697 62.6
1200 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1697 62.6
1300 0 0 0 27 0 0 27 1724 63.6
1400 0 0 0 96 26 0 122 1846 68.1
1500 0 0 0 83 56 0 139 1985 73.2
1600 0 0 0 56 87 0 143 2128 78.5
1700 0 0 0 45 58 0 103 2231 82.3
1800 0 0 0 41 56 0 97 2328 85.9
1900 0 0 0 47 45 0 92 2420 89.3
2000 0 2 0 39 27 0 68 2488 91.8
2100 0 0 0 43 49 0 92 2580 95.2
2200 0 0 19 36 11 0 66 2646 97.6
2300 0 9 35 21 0 0 65 2711 100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 0 198 656 1159 698 0 2711
Gross QSOs=2762 Dupes=51 Net QSOs=2711
Unique callsigns worked = 1639
The best 60 minute rate was 234/hour from 1858 to 1957
The best 30 minute rate was 252/hour from 1904 to 1933
The best 10 minute rate was 270/hour from 1922 to 1931
The best 1 minute rates were:
6 QSOs/minute 9 times.
5 QSOs/minute 36 times.
4 QSOs/minute 122 times.
3 QSOs/minute 226 times.
2 QSOs/minute 448 times.
1 QSOs/minute 415 times.
There were 1473 bandchanges and 933 (34.4%) probable 2nd radio QSOs.
----------------- C o n t i n e n t S u m m a r y -----------------
160 80 40 20 15 10 Total Pct
---------------------------------------------------------------------
North America 0 177 540 995 676 0 2388 88.1
South America 0 2 8 19 19 0 48 1.8
Europe 0 18 101 123 1 0 243 9.0
Asia 0 0 3 22 0 0 25 0.9
Africa 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 0.1
Oceania 0 0 3 0 2 0 5 0.2
--------------------------------------------------------------
Total 0 198 656 1159 698 0 2711
Number of letters in callsigns
Letters # worked
-----------------
3 2
4 1153
5 1040
6 509
7 6
8 1
------------------ C o u n t r y S u m m a r y ------------------
Country 160 80 40 20 15 10 Total Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------------
9A 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 0.1
CE 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0.0
CM 0 0 2 1 1 0 4 0.1
CT 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 0.1
CX 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0.0
DL 0 2 14 16 0 0 32 1.2
E7 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0.0
EA 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 0.1
EA8 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 0.1
EI 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 0.1
ER 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 0.1
ES 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0.0
EU 0 0 3 2 0 0 5 0.2
EY 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0.0
F 0 5 7 9 1 0 22 0.8
G 0 1 4 10 0 0 15 0.6
GI 0 0 1 2 0 0 3 0.1
GM 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0.0
GU 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0.0
GW 0 0 1 2 0 0 3 0.1
HA 0 0 3 1 0 0 4 0.1
HB 0 1 3 1 0 0 5 0.2
HC 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0.0
HI 0 0 2 3 0 0 5 0.2
I 0 2 17 20 0 0 39 1.4
*IT9 0 0 2 2 0 0 4 0.1
JA 0 0 1 21 0 0 22 0.8
K 0 168 495 920 625 0 2208 81.4
KG4 0 0 3 1 3 0 7 0.3
KH6 0 0 1 0 1 0 2 0.1
KL 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0.0
KP2 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 0.1
KP4 0 0 3 3 0 0 6 0.2
LA 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 0.1
LU 0 0 3 5 3 0 11 0.4
LX 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 0.1
LY 0 0 2 1 0 0 3 0.1
LZ 0 0 3 2 0 0 5 0.2
OH 0 1 2 3 0 0 6 0.2
OK 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 0.1
OM 0 0 2 3 0 0 5 0.2
ON 0 0 1 5 0 0 6 0.2
OZ 0 0 2 1 0 0 3 0.1
P4 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0.0
PA 0 0 3 11 0 0 14 0.5
PY 0 0 3 10 12 0 25 0.9
S5 0 0 5 2 0 0 7 0.3
SM 0 1 1 4 0 0 6 0.2
SP 0 3 3 3 0 0 9 0.3
SV 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 0.1
TA 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0.0
UA 0 0 1 2 0 0 3 0.1
UA9 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0.0
UR 0 0 7 5 0 0 12 0.4
VE 0 9 35 63 47 0 154 5.7
VP8 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0.0
XE 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0.0
YB 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0.0
YL 0 1 0 1 0 0 2 0.1
YO 0 0 1 2 0 0 3 0.1
YU 0 0 2 2 0 0 4 0.1
YV 0 2 2 2 1 0 7 0.3
Z3 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0.0
ZL 0 0 1 0 1 0 2 0.1
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 0 198 656 1159 698 0 2711
------------ M u l t i p l i e r S u m m a r y ------------
Mult 160 80 40 20 15 10 Total Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------
-DX- 0 21 123 174 23 0 341 12.6
CA 0 18 48 82 65 0 213 7.9
NY 0 15 29 45 41 0 130 4.8
PA 0 9 24 51 42 0 126 4.6
VA 0 13 26 54 28 0 121 4.5
FL 0 9 24 55 28 0 116 4.3
IL 0 7 19 42 34 0 102 3.8
OH 0 9 19 40 32 0 100 3.7
TX 0 5 24 37 27 0 93 3.4
MN 0 6 19 40 25 0 90 3.3
ON 0 5 18 28 26 0 77 2.8
WA 0 0 13 40 19 0 72 2.7
MD 0 6 17 28 17 0 68 2.5
NC 0 5 16 28 18 0 67 2.5
TN 0 8 15 19 14 0 56 2.1
MA 0 6 13 20 16 0 55 2.0
NJ 0 6 13 21 15 0 55 2.0
IN 0 4 11 18 14 0 47 1.7
MO 0 4 9 16 15 0 44 1.6
AZ 0 1 14 18 11 0 44 1.6
WI 0 1 8 23 11 0 43 1.6
CO 0 3 5 16 18 0 42 1.5
MI 0 2 10 19 10 0 41 1.5
AL 0 4 9 15 12 0 40 1.5
SC 0 2 12 16 8 0 38 1.4
KY 0 0 10 17 11 0 38 1.4
OR 0 0 9 20 9 0 38 1.4
CT 0 1 9 17 10 0 37 1.4
GA 0 4 15 10 5 0 34 1.3
QC 0 3 8 15 6 0 32 1.2
IA 0 2 8 12 8 0 30 1.1
KS 0 1 7 10 6 0 24 0.9
LA 0 3 5 11 5 0 24 0.9
ID 0 0 6 8 7 0 21 0.8
BC 0 0 6 8 6 0 20 0.7
NM 0 2 7 5 5 0 19 0.7
UT 0 1 3 10 5 0 19 0.7
NV 0 0 4 6 4 0 14 0.5
OK 0 2 3 5 3 0 13 0.5
MS 0 2 1 6 3 0 12 0.4
AR 0 1 2 5 3 0 11 0.4
NH 0 2 1 5 3 0 11 0.4
SD 0 1 2 3 4 0 10 0.4
ME 0 0 1 5 3 0 9 0.3
RI 0 1 2 2 3 0 8 0.3
WV 0 2 1 3 2 0 8 0.3
SK 0 1 1 3 2 0 7 0.3
NS 0 0 2 2 3 0 7 0.3
VT 0 0 0 6 1 0 7 0.3
WY 0 0 1 4 2 0 7 0.3
AB 0 0 0 5 2 0 7 0.3
NE 0 0 2 2 2 0 6 0.2
DE 0 0 0 3 1 0 4 0.1
MT 0 0 1 2 1 0 4 0.1
MB 0 0 0 1 2 0 3 0.1
DC 0 0 1 1 1 0 3 0.1
ND 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 0.1
NF 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 0 198 656 1159 698 0 2711
U.S. Call Areas Worked
Area QSOs Pct
--------------------
0 248 9.1
1 142 5.2
2 241 8.9
3 215 7.9
4 372 13.7
5 179 6.6
6 239 8.8
7 191 7.0
8 184 6.8
9 197 7.3
--------------------
Total 2208 81.4
Multi-band QSOs
---------------
1 bands 930
2 bands 421
3 bands 213
4 bands 75
5 bands 0
6 bands 0
------- S i n g l e B a n d Q S O s ------
Band 160 80 40 20 15 10
----------------------------------------------
QSOs 0 34 201 515 180 0
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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