CQ/RJ WW RTTY WPX Contest
Call: WX5S
Operator(s): AC6JT, W6ZZZ, W1SRD, K0BEE, NI6T, WX5S, K6UFO, W7SW, W6LD,
AE6KU, K6ENT, N6DE
Station: W6YX
Class: M/M HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs Pts
-----------------
80: 184 438
40: 388 1418
20: 596 987
15: 600 1231
10: 577 1110
-----------------
Total: 2345 5184 Prefixes = 498 Total Score = 2,581,632
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
Station 1:
Yaesu FT-1000MP MkV, Alpha 87A, Hal DXP38, MMTTY
Station 2:
Yaesu FT-1000MP, Acom 2000, Hal P38, MMTTY
Stations 3 and 4:
Kenwood TS-850, Alpha 78, Hal DXP38, MMTTY
Antennas:
10m: Hygain 105CA at 31', Telrex 6-el at 75'
15m: Hygain 155CA at 25', Telrex 6-el at 75'
20m: Hygain 205CA at 36', KLM 6-el at 65'
Tribanders: Force12 C31XR at 60', Mosley Pro67 at 50'
40m: Rotatable dipole at 65'
80m: Inv-V at 55'
Networked Writelog v10.39.
Operators: AC6JT, W6ZZZ, W1SRD, K0BEE, NI6T, WX5S, K6UFO, W7SW, W6LD,
AE6KU,K6ENT, N6DE
Visitors: W6OAT, N7MH, W6KNS, W6GEM, Diana (K6ENT XYL)
What a blast! We had a tremendous group of extremely talented and
enthusiastic folks join us for the weekend. The experience was a new
homecoming for NI6T and AC6JT, as they were Stanford University grad
students years ago, and had not seen the current W6YX station.
Another well respected Stanford alumnus, Jim Maxwell W6CF (sadly an SK
on February 6), was clearly in our minds during the contest. Many of us
were good friends with Jim over the years. Jim was an amazing man in so
many ways. We already miss him dearly.
THE CONTEST
The stations were set up mainly from the personal equipment of our
operators, which made a four station M/M possible. K6ENT and I reminded
ourselves that it was a non-trivial task to set up four complete
stations for RTTY, and configure Writelog on all of them. We observed an
interesting interaction between one USB-serial converter and a laptop
infrared port. Thanks to AC6JT for helping to solve an MMTTY problem on
one machine, and also realize my brain fart of having the slope tune
controls on my TS-850 improperly set.
I tried to set up all four stations with the same Writelog window layout
and identical macros. I configured the macros so that F2-F4 performed
the same functions as what some of us were used to in previous RTTY
contests (ala AA5AU's macro suggestions), but also added CT-like
compatibility (Insert and + key definitions), TR-like functionality
(Enter key sent what it supposed to when TR-mode enabled), and an Fkey
window so that macros could be driven entirely by a mouse. Everyone
could then choose what they liked best. During the contest, we realized
there were a few macros that I should have included, and will add them
next time.
We had been experiencing an intermittent receive problem on an FT-1000MP
in the days before the contest. Sure enough, the problem decided to
reappear in the middle of a 20m run at the beginning of the contest.
Thanks to Mark K6UFO who brought his FT-1000MP as a backup in case this
happened! We swapped in his rig and suddenly heard signals again, but
no one was answering our CQ. This was until a helpful station told us
we were transmitting reversed polarity, which reminded me that I had
forgotten to set the FSK polarity on Mark's rig to REVERSE. Upon
setting that properly, more stations suddenly started answering us.
Amazing how that works!
Thanks to Matt WX5S for allowing us to use his callsign for the weekend.
On occasion, we wished we had been operating from 5-land (or even
1-land, for that matter) to get some more Europeans in the log! But we
gave it a maximum effort from California, and enjoyed good JA and HL
activity. Our night warriors (Garry, Matt, Kent) were not overwhelmed
with exciting pileups, but those hours proved valuable for higher point
QSOs, particularly on 40m for 6-point QSOs with Asia. Surprisingly,
even with a wind damaged 40m beam (now a rotatable dipole), 40m was the
highest point yielding band for us!
Europe was open for about 2 hours each morning in Northern CA on 10m and
15m. 20m stayed open a little longer, but the volume of EU there seemed
less. Bryan had fun working UN, EY, and other good DX on 20m. We were
surprised to work S21 and 9G on three bands. Thanks to everyone for all
the 5-band sweeps. It was fun to get VY1JA in the log on all five bands!
We were pleased to see the AE9B/0 and KA4RRU M/M efforts in this
contest, keeping us motivated to push ourselves! We ended up with more
total QSOs, but fell short on mults and the overall points/QSO ratio.
Our QSO numbers were well balanced between 10, 15, and 20m. Our
continent QSO distribution is attached below.
There were a few stations who called in and made our day by telling us
it was their first RTTY QSO. RTTY activity in contests certainly seems
to be rising, thanks to MMTTY.
OTHER NOTES
We had terrific food all weekend! Much of it was prepared by Doris
K0BEE, who we owe many, many thanks for all the great entrees! My
favorites were the ribs and Asian peanut slaw! Garry pitched in by
preparing some tasty chicken wings. We had a minor crisis on Friday
night, as the rice cooker was not operational. Steve and Garry
proceeded to take the entire unit apart, finding a blown fuse. A look
around the shack turned up empty on locating an appropriate fuse
replacement. Rusty joined the group on the quest to fix the rice
cooker. Time was running out and a desperate crossroads had been
reached. I started getting rather nervous when I heard statements
through my headphones such as, "It'll be OK if we use some thick copper
wire" and "Maybe we should plug it into an outlet on a different circuit
from the radios." I turned up the AF gain on my radio, pressed the
headphones against my hears, and hoped for the best. And "the best" is
what happened, as the rice cooker was back in service with no harm to
the W6YX electrical system! Good job, team! Now that is the
DXpeditioner defined!
Delicious looking cream puffs were prepared for dessert. They were
frozen, and we wanted to avoid a nuking mess in the microwave. How to
solve this problem? Ahhhh, the amplifiers seemed to be warming the room
quite nicely. Let's place them on top of the Alpha 78 and watch them
transform into wonderful, lightly browned masterpieces. Marc was
thereby ordered to keep up the rate for the sake of the cream puffs! No
excessive CQing without answers, or the cream puffs would get too mushy.
No S&P, because the cream puffs would never warm. A sustained run was
required. One look at the log shows Marc played his cards perfectly,
with a job well done on the radio and the cream puffs!
With apologies to Mel Torme, it wasn't exactly Chestnuts Roasting on an
Open Fire, but rather, Cream Puffs Thawing on an Amplifier!
Although it's Been Said Many Times, Many Ways,
Merry Contest to You!
Thanks for all the Qs!
73...
-Dean - N6DE
80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
OC 2 7 8 8 12 37 1.6
AS 9 136 86 191 162 584 24.9
NA 173 241 425 305 327 1471 62.7
SA 0 2 17 25 27 71 3.0
EU 0 1 56 69 44 170 7.2
AF 0 0 4 3 4 11 0.5
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