All good observations, Jim.
One thing you nailed spot-on is that many EU OM don't have the possibility
to have good antennas at home so they must go somewhere. However there
aren't enough big contest stations to accommodate our 400 club members.
Therefore a lot more goes on behind the scenes than meets the eye.
First of all, 75% of the BCC members would not even get invited to operate a
large contest station. Only proven Ops get to go there. So there are lots
of secondary operations going on. Smaller operations where the operators
can practice and learn.
In any given year, for CQWW, we will have about 5 to 10 contest expeditions
to various islands or interesting QTHs around the globe. We have a
permanent contest QTH in Tobago (9Y4A). Operators take turns going there
and operating there.
I quit going on big multi-multi events 20 years ago and focused on
multi-single events. These are small groups of 5 to 10 operators. REASON:
most of mine were pure Ten-Tec events. (hi)
At the end of the day, all the points of all the various small, medium and
large endeavors go into the pot and get turned in as our club's results.
BTW, in any contest at least 50 members stay home and operate alone.
73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt am Main)
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jim Brown
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 7:54 PM
To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] SOFTWARE at WRTC
On 7/25/2014 8:48 AM, John Henry wrote:
> Rick is right, there are a lot of teams that run their contesting on
> the weekends
Duh! That's when contests occur.
> based upon their contest software, period. At the time they chose the
> rig, they also chose the software logging program they wanted to use,
> and standardized on it,
It seems to me that contesting outside of North America is rather different
from our experience here, largely because more of us on this side of the
Atlantic have home stations. In many parts of the world, especially EU,
contesting is done from super-stations built by local clubs. There are some
super-stations in NA, but nearly all have been built by individuals. In
most contests, especially the major ones, they participate as multi-ops.
This demands that logging software be the same for all operating positions.
Some big stations have the same rig in all operating positions, some do not.
When I moved to CA in 2006, I operated a half dozen contests from N6RO, a
super-station about 100 miles from me. At the time, N6BV's Orion I lived in
the 15M station; the rest were MPs that either Ken owned, or that
participants brought. Last I heard, they are all K3s (or perhaps K3s and
the Orion). Then they were using DOS logging - CT and TR, which I found
quite awkward. They have since migrated to N1MM.
W6YX is on a lovely site on a hill overlooking Palo Alto (it's the Stanford
club station), and has a rather nice antenna farm. No stacks, but lots of
antennas, with space between them, so that in some contests (Sweepstakes,
RTTY RU) the site often hosts two or three different stations, each with
their own callsign. There's not a lot of rigs, especially not a lot of fancy
new rigs, that live there, but there are power amps and switching for the
antennas to several operating positions. When operating as a multi-op, they
use WriteLog.
K6LRG is the newest of the superstations, built by a group of younger hams
from the IT world, more or less led by N6WM, who lives in that world, but
also has a VHF site on a small mountain above Livermore. It's still under
development, and is often operated remotely during the week by N6ML, one of
those young IT guys. They use N1MM.
K5RC has buiit a spectacular superstation on a ridge above Reno, NV, and
often hosts both single-ops and multi-ops. N6TV won CW SS this time around
from there. WK6I works RTTY RU from there. They're all K3s. As a single op,
logging software is whatever the operator wants. Don't know what they do for
a multi-op.
W6NL has built a very nice station on his mountaintop property. It's set up
for SO2R, and N5KO uses it for domestic CW contests, most notably NAQP and
Sprint. He's won from there.
The operators at these super-stations are mostly guys who have no home
station, or one with a limited antenna farm. In this respect, they are very
much like those who participate in the EU club stations.
K6XX has a superstation three miles up the road from me. Although it's set
up to be a multi-op, he's hosted a serious multi-op only once since I moved
here 8 years ago. That's because he's in serious competition for a spot on a
WRTC team, so operates all the major contests single-op unassisted. He does,
however, use the multi-op to host new operators.
Bob uses TRWin.
Most serious contesters around here are members of the Northern California
Contest Club, but you'll find the same sort of variety in rigs and logging
software as exhibited among WRTC competitors. A few, most notably N6TV, use
WinTest; a strong majority use N1MM, and a strong minority for WriteLog. I
switched from WriteLog to N1MM around 2007.
Why do I use N1MM rather than WinTest? First, I LIKE N1MM, and I've used it
long enough that it's second nature. Second, WinTest does not support CQP.
A third new reason is what N6TV observed in the summary I posted -- no
ongoing development. Fourth, it's VERY well supported.
N1MM is under constant development, with a TEAM of developers that includes
N2IC. Steve either wins or places well in most domestic contests from his
home station in NM, so he really understands what a contest logger should
be. There's also a very active yahoo reflector, which the developers read
regularly. They are also pretty good about adding modules for new contests,
although there was recently an EU contest a month or so ago for which I
couldn't find the right module.
73, Jim K9YC
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