CQ/RJ WW RTTY WPX Contest
Call: P43P
Operator(s): P43P
Station: P43P
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: ARUBA
Operating Time (hrs): 28.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Pts
-----------------
80: 18 108
40: 262 1570
20: 344 1023
15: 713 2122
10: 551 1644
-----------------
Total: 1888 6467 Prefixes = 542 Total Score = 3,505,114
Club:
Comments:
Station Description:
Radio's
FT1000MP and Kenwood TS570S
PK232 set up for PSK transmission
WX0B 2x6 sixpack Antenna Switch controlled by 2 TOPTEN Band decoders
WX0B Stackmatch on both radios
TopTen antenna Relay Box
Software: Writelog TRLog v10.39c (on W98)
As usual plenty of aluminum cutting through the salty Aruban air:
5el 10m/5el 15m Force 12 Magnum on 44ft boom @ 75ft
3el 40m/5el 20m Force 12 Magnum on a 36' boom @ 60ft
Sidemounted C4XL Force 12 @ 33ft pointed towards NA
Sidemounted C3E++ Force 12 @ 18ft
80m inverted V @ 56 ft
160m inverted V @ 53 ft
80m Force 12 vertical
Force 12 C19XR on a seperate mast at 35ft
Operating Time: 28.5 Hours
80m:
Could not do much on this band with Low Power.
Many stations heard, but could not work them.
40m:
The 3 element Force 12 antenna on 40m performed exceptional as
many EU's were worked through the noise.
20m:
Was surpised I did not get as many qso's on 20m. Must be because I was
sleeping all night. Love the 30hours in the contest ;-)
20m was clearly dominated by the U.S Stations, since here the U.S. callsigns
were being worked at a rate of 2 us calls for every one EU rtty contact.
15m:
15m was the bread and butter band for this contest. When all other bads were
showing weakness, 15m was really pumping. Looking at the hourly breakdown,
I was surpised by how consistent 15m ended up being. 15m was also a clear
favorite for the U.S. station in this contest.
10m:
Always lots of fun when 10m is open. About 60% of my 10m contacts
were with EU stations, where as I would think that there would be more
U.S. activity on 10m
The contest:
Having had a pretty busy workschedule in the last few days/week, did not
really have the station ready for RTTY. So tried getting home a little
earlier than usual on friday, but still had only 3 1/2 hours to go before the
contest started. Not really enough, but since there would be plenty oftime
in the contest, I could run out a little.
I had already downloaded the latest version of Writelog (10.39C) from the
internet,so it was just a matter of instaling that on the main
Windows 98 computer in the shack.
The actual setup was to do a Single Operator 2 Radio (SO2R) using
writelog software and connecting up two trustworthy PK232's.
The whole connection and setup process went pretty slick and in
no time the equipment was operating correctly.
Since the PK232's don't have auto tuning and all the other nice features that
are
available with the soundboards, I also wanted to have the soundboard decoder
working,
to have separate decoding inputs from 2 sources. So I also installed
writelog on my HP Omnibook 500 and in order to use its portable computer
soundboard inputs for decoding the audio out of both radio's.
Should have been pretty easy if all went according to the game plan,
but there was no way I could get Writelog to get the input to work
correctly and do the RTTY decoding on my main laptop. So much for that option.
By now the contest had already started, but I really would have liked the
additional
decoding. Since I had an additional portabe computer from the office that I had
fixed
a bad hard disk on at home, I went ahead and installed Writelog on this one.
This time the
installation went flawless, but like always, $%^&*()& we still had a slight
problem.
The portable had only a single channel mike input and thus I was limited
in decoding one radio.
I was finally ready to start the contest after telling Writelog to do the
necesary networking chores and share the log from the main computer. By
networking
the computers, I would have a separate log of the contest, but most
importantly,
it would also show me the multipliers in separate colors on the screen of the
portable,
even though the portabe was not hooked up to the radios or was being used for
transmission.
With my first 73 minutes of rest time were already claimed, I was ready to Rock
and Roll!!!!
Started of the contest on 40m, trying to maximize my point ratios.
After the 1st 3 hours I had close to 200 q's and 138 muts on 40m, which was more
than I had hoped for. The 3el 40m antenna was performing like a charm.
Worked Don AA5AU early on in the test on 40m and he was ahead by about 100
q's.
Being quite tired from the days work, I briefly switched to 80m and hit
the sack just after 0413z.
BTW, something went wrong with the WIFI network on the protable, because a few
times
during the contest it started complaining and I ended up just running the
contest with
the PK232's. I am sure I lost some nice multipliers because of this.
It like when you go fishing, it is always the biggest fish that got away ;-)
Woke up the next norning and things started out real nice by immediatelly
working VK3DBQ and VK5GN on 20m for 2 nice mutipliers.
Also worked TI5N early on, but they were way ahead on numbers (658 vs my 213)
They must have been going on all night I thought. M4K was also slighly ahead
of me in numbers. Onwards through the fog, I continued, alternating between
80, 40 and 20 meters ;-)
T77CD was also ahead of me by about 220 q's when I worked him at 1142z
saturday morning. Lot's of EU stations were way ahead of me in numbers, but
I was not too worried about this, since the contest was in early stages still.
Worked HP1/DJ7AA at 2025z and he was ahead of me by just under 100q's (929 vs
830).
By needing to give serial numbers during the test, it gave me a good
indication of where I was standing. And so each time I would come accross
AA5AU's
I had a pretty good indication of where I was. During the 1st day, Don pretty
much stayed
ahead of me in q's (721 vs 563), but by sunday 1314z I had made up for the
difference and was showing a slight increas in q's (1368 vs 1457). Did not know
if Don
was going Low power or High Power, but figured I woud find out sooner or later
anyways.
Worked Will HP1/DJ1AA again on 20m at 2317z and the difference in q's was still
at about 100 in his
favor (1164 vs 1060)
On Saturday evening I got a very pleasant surprise, when I was called
by N1RCT. Working Dick in this contest on 3 bands, really was special,
since I recall spending many hours reading through his web pages
trying to learn about the intricacies and finer points of RTTY
operation. Thanks N1RCT.
Being called by A51B (Glenn, W0GJ from Bhutan) on 10m was also a pleasant
surpise.
Would have really enloyed working him on some of the other bands.
A few other noteworthy stations worked were: TF3VS, 8p2k, jy9nx and quite a few
others.
About an hour before the contest was over, I was still low on multipliers,
but suddenly, out of nowhere, I started hearing JA's on the top 5 element 15m
monobander and was real glad that JA2BY made it in the log on 15m.
The 5el force 10 monobander at 75ft was the only one (of the 4 15m antennas)
that was able to pick up any JA's stations.
I made sure to concentrate on this and was able to pick up an additional 11 JA
multipliers in that
last hour of the contest. It really was nice to get that JA opening and last
station worked was JG6BKG for the final QSI and multiplier!!
Overall, I can say that the antennas made a big difference in this contest.
Especially when working low power, the force 12 antennas always made me feel
like I was REAL LOUD!! Still had to give up my run frequency quit a few times
due to QRM, but that is a fact of life when you are running low power.
Overall, having two radios to work with is a natural with RTTY. Since the
exchanges normally take quite a while, it becomes just about second nature
to be able to sustain a good rate on 2 frequencies. My apologies
to those of you I left waiting a little longer for an exchange, since
it was not always I could answer right away.
Finally regarding Writelog V10.39C, I believe that Wayne (WX5D) has done a
excellent job
over the last few years improving this program. Most of the issues I wanted to
have addressed
have been addressed in the continues updates Wayne and Ron (K5DJ) have been
providing. Keep up
the good work.
Congrats to Will HP1/DJ7AA with the new claimed HP record and also TI5N with
their impressive numbers.
Thanks for each and every QSO, to VA3PC, N2WK and KA4RRU for working me on 5
bands and to
the organisers for supporting this contest.
BTW, Don I missed you on 80m this time.
QSL Information is via MARIO (I2MQP). I2QMP accepts QSL cards direct or via
Bureau.
Thanks for being a #1 QSL manager!!!
73's de P43P
Jacobo (Jacky) Oduber
Some more numbers follow:
QSO/Pref by hour and band
Hour 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm OffTime
D1-0000Z - - - - - - - 60
D1-0100Z - 60/50 - - - 60/50 60/50 13
D1-0200Z 2/1 59/48 - 1/1 - 62/50 122/100
D1-0300Z - 67/38 - - - 67/38 189/138
D1-0400Z 10/2 - - - - 10/2 199/140 47
D1-0500Z - - - - - 0/0 199/140 60
D1-0600Z - - - - - 0/0 199/140 60
D1-0700Z - - - - - 0/0 199/140 60
D1-0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 199/140 60
D1-0900Z - - - - - 0/0 199/140 60
D1-1000Z - - 4/3 - - 4/3 203/143 41
D1-1100Z 2/1 3/3 9/3 4/2 19/8 37/17 240/160
D1-1200Z - - - 30/7 66/30 96/37 336/197
D1-1300Z - - - 23/9 62/29 85/38 421/235
D1-1400Z - - 4/2 11/5 57/21 72/28 493/263
D1-1500Z - - - 16/4 61/17 77/21 570/284 5
D1-1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 570/284 60
D1-1700Z - - - 1/0 2/1 3/1 573/285 58
D1-1800Z - - - 54/17 62/19 116/36 689/321
D1-1900Z - - - 36/10 52/15 88/25 777/346
D1-2000Z - - 43/5 17/2 11/3 71/10 848/356
D1-2100Z - - 48/8 10/1 16/2 74/11 922/367
D1-2200Z - 9/1 17/2 48/14 5/2 79/19 1001/386
D1-2300Z 1/0 4/1 14/3 40/18 2/0 61/22 1062/408
D2-0000Z --+-- 16/4 10/1 28/4 3/2 57/11 1119/419
D2-0100Z - 14/1 21/2 - - 35/3 1154/422 31
D2-0200Z 3/0 6/1 47/11 - 1/1 57/13 1211/435
D2-0300Z - 6/0 15/5 - - 21/5 1232/440 41
D2-0400Z - - - - - 0/0 1232/440 60
D2-0500Z - - - - - 0/0 1232/440 60
D2-0600Z - - - - - 0/0 1232/440 60
D2-0700Z - - - - - 0/0 1232/440 60
D2-0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 1232/440 60
D2-0900Z - - - - - 0/0 1232/440 60
D2-1000Z - 1/0 - 7/0 - 8/0 1240/440 40
D2-1100Z - - - 36/4 16/2 52/6 1292/446
D2-1200Z - - 18/2 39/9 1/0 58/11 1350/457
D2-1300Z - - 13/1 44/7 6/0 63/8 1413/465
D2-1400Z - - - 2/0 - 2/0 1415/465 47
D2-1500Z - - 2/0 48/8 21/5 71/13 1486/478
D2-1600Z --+-- --+-- --+-- 38/11 26/2 64/13 1550/491 7
D2-1700Z - - - - - 0/0 1550/491 60
D2-1800Z - - 9/1 50/7 9/1 68/9 1618/500 13
D2-1900Z - - 6/0 42/7 24/3 72/10 1690/510
D2-2000Z - - - 3/0 - 3/0 1693/510 57
D2-2100Z - 4/0 6/0 15/5 22/2 47/7 1740/517 4
D2-2200Z - 13/0 21/1 13/3 6/1 53/5 1793/522
D2-2300Z - - 37/6 57/13 1/1 95/20 1888/542
Total: 18/4 262/147 344/56 713/168 551/167
Gross QSO's=1911 Dupes=0 Net QSO's=1911
Unique callsigns worked = 1273
The best 60 minute rate was 124/hour from 1813 to 1912
The best 30 minute rate was 142/hour from 1814 to 1843
The best 10 minute rate was 162/hour from 1826 to 1835
The best 1 minute rates were:
4 QSO's/minute 21 times.
3 QSO's/minute 106 times.
2 QSO's/minute 414 times.
1 QSO's/minute 681 times.
There were 804 bandchanges and 488 probable 2nd radio QSO's.
Rest periods:
0000z-0113z, 0414-1039z,1556-1757z,0319-1040z,
1350-1456,1654-1812
Continental Band Breakdown
80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
EU 7 139 101 274 300 821 43.5
NA 11 120 208 347 226 912 48.3
SA 0 1 9 17 7 34 1.8
AS 0 2 15 66 10 93 4.9
OC 0 0 4 6 3 13 0.7
AF 0 0 7 3 4 14 0.7
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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