2000 ARRL RTTY Roundup (ALL PSK31)
CALL USED W2UP State or province: PA
SCORING: 267 QSO points x 68 multipliers = 18156 claimed
score
Power Output KW Hrs of Op 15.5
Equipment Description:
Rigs:......FT-1000D/Acom2000A FT-990/Acom2000A...Writelog
10.13.......................................
Antennas:..Phased TH7s (12/23m) .TH7 @ 7m..40-2 el Yagi @
26m..80-slopers...............................
States worked:
CT MA VT NJ NY DE PA FL GA KY SC TN VA
MS NM OK TX CA AZ ID
OR WA MI OH IL IN WI CO KS MN MO
Provinces worked:
NB ON AB BC
DX:
CN DL EA EI ER F G GI GU GW HA HB
I JA KP4 LA LU LZ OA OE
OK ON PA S5 SM SP TF UA UR XE YL YO
ZL
Comments:
I wasn't planning on operating the Roundup, since I don't do much
in stateside contests, and Saturday was my older daughter's 10th
birthday, but the blurb in QST about The QST Editors PSK31
Plaque caught my attention. Soooo, I decided to go for it, time
permitting.
Dupes - Why argue with someone about it being a dupe? If he calls
you, obviously, he doesn't have you in the log. For example, about
an hour from the end of the contest, I called a 5-land station. The
first call, he ignored me. The second call, he said "sri you are a
dupe on 20m." I answered him "no, you are in my log on 15m, not
20m." He comes back "I have you in my log today at 1631Z on
20m." I scroll back to that spot in the log, and I wasn't even on 20m
at that time - I was bouncing between 10 and 15. So, I say "you
are not in my log on 20. Let's work again and you can delete that
first QSO cuz it's not in my log." All this back and forth must have
taken 5 minutes. Isn't it easier just to work dupes?!
"I'm not in the contest"
Have you ever called someone and they tell you they are not in the
contest? What do you do? You say "Tnx for the 599 Vlad (names
changed to protect the innocent), so this is nr 001 for you, right?"
"No, I'm not in the contest, so I can't give you a number." Duh
PSK31!!!
Well folks, the time has come. PSK31 is to Baudot what SSB is to
AM. While I've had some PSK31 QSOs, I've never used it in a
contest. It's amazing. I don't recall who coined the phrase
"paradigm shift," but PSK31 is a paradigm shift when it comes to
RTTY contesting. Let's say you call CQ contest. You listen in your
speaker, you don't hear anything in reply, so you hit F1 again.
Right? WRONG! With PSK31, you don't hear anything in your
speaker, but you better look at the screen cuz you have 100%
solid print! I can't tell you how many times I was ready to push the
F1 key again (and I was running 2 radios and alternately CQing on
2 bands, so I was real quick to get that other CQ going), but wait -
there's an inaudible signal printing on the screen. It was awesome.
At times, I just turned the audio all the way down, and just watched
the screen (an advantage being you don't still hear RTTY in your
head after you turn the radio off, hi). There was none of that TOO
PPQ stuff. There was no mixup between 0, 5, and 9 because one
bit was dropped in selective fading. Everything printed. Yes, the
tuning is more critical, but out of my 250+ QSOs, less than five
were off far enough where I had to retune or use the AFC feature in
Writelog. I'm a believer!
73 Barry
--
Barry Kutner, W2UP Internet: w2up@mindspring.com
Newtown, PA FRC alternate: barry@w2up.wells.com
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