ARRL RTTY Roundup
Call: K6KM
Operator(s): N6DE
Station: K6KM
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 22
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
80: 241
40: 454
20: 422
15: 255
10: 8
------------
Total: 1380 State/Prov = 55 Countries = 54 Total Score = 150,420
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
This was a memorable RTTY Roundup, for multiple reasons. I had aspirations for
a competitive effort, but that changed when the first prototypes of my group's
two boards arrived on Friday, the day before the RTTY Roundup. They were
supposed to arrive the week after the RTTY Roundup. We've been working on this
highly visible project for a year. The Senior VP of our business unit even came
down to the lab to check on the bring-up status on Friday. Since I designed one
of the boards, there is no way I could even consider leaving town on Friday, and
may not even be able to participate in the RTTY Roundup at all.
This is what turned out to be the sequence of events:
1. Work until midnight on Friday.
2. Wake up early on Saturday morning and go back to work.
3. Stay at work until 1:15pm.
4. Drive 200 miles to the K6KM superstation.
5. Start the contest at 00:57Z, missing the first 7 hours.
6. Break for an hour for a TERRIFIC dinner, starting at 02:17Z.
7. Get back in the chair at 03:18Z, operate through the night with no sleep, and
continue until the end of the contest.
8. Take a great nap for a few hours after the contest, and then eat another well
prepared dinner.
9. Drive 3.5 hours back to the Bay Area.
10. Wake up early on Monday and hit the project hard again, and stay at work
until 11pm.
In the week leading up to the contest, I couldn't spend any time on contest
strategy, a band plan, an idea of the propagation conditions, the NCCC
practices, or a review of last year's log. I went into the contest cold.
Luckily Bill and I worked on setting up the station for RTTY the previous
weekend.
The end result is that I am extremely happy that I could make the trip and
operate because this contest was a blast! Some may wonder why I stayed up at
night instead of going to sleep. 30-40 QSOs per hour was better than 0 QSOs per
hour for the NCCC club total, and after all, I was invited to operate at this
terrific SO2R superstation. Why would I give up on my station host and the
NCCC? Since I got a chance to sit in the chair, I wanted to give it a KB
effort!
This was my first S/O effort in the RTTY Roundup, and my first attempt at SO2R
on RTTY. In previous years I teamed with K6ENT for a M/S from W6YX and K6IDX.
It's interesting to note the differences between M/S and SO2R in the RTTY
Roundup. SO2R offers an incredible advantage over M/S and SO1R in terms of the
number of potential QSOs. The dreaded 6 band change per hour rule for a M/S
really limits the number of contacts possible. However, there is one advantage
to a M/S: finding multipliers. You can have one person running, one person
searching another band for mults, and also monitor the packet spotting network.
The S/O needs to work harder for mults, developing a good strategy, and
increasing the chances for more mults by understanding what is happening on the
bands at all times.
I've now dabbled in SO2R for a grand total of one contest for each mode: CW,
SSB, and RTTY. SO2R is the easiest on RTTY. Yet, it still takes skill and
practice, and I have a long way to go with both of these categories. Apologies
to those of you who were on the receiving end of my SO2R growing pains.
Dual-CQing on RTTY is nuts, but really fun when you can pull it off!
I couldn't believe the amount of stateside activity in this contest. There was
an endless supply of US/VE stations. As for the Europeans, our 20m opening from
Northern California wasn't as strong as last year. However, it was definitely
strong enough to yield a lot more EU QSOs than it did. What band was Europe on
between 1530Z and 18Z? It felt like the bulk of them were not on 20m at that
time. Still, I guess 24 EU mults from W6 isn't too bad.
I was surprised to make 5 QSOs with ZS, all of whom were loud. Finding the JW
and the VQ9 was cool.
Thanks to everyone for the QSOs! Special thanks to my hosts Bill and Ginny for
their kind hospitality.
73...
-Dean - N6DE
80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
AS 3 70 48 8 0 129 9.3
OC 1 9 9 4 0 23 1.7
NA 237 356 306 230 8 1137 82.4
SA 0 7 10 11 0 28 2.0
AF 0 5 1 2 0 8 0.6
EU 0 7 48 0 0 55 4.0
Hour 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm OffTime
D1-0000Z --+-- --+-- 6/4 1/1 --+-- 7/5 7/5
D1-0100Z - 53/29 48/6 1/0 - 102/35 109/40
D1-0200Z - 17/3 3/1 - - 20/4 129/44 43
D1-0300Z 6/0 54/8 - - - 60/8 189/52 18
D1-0400Z 24/1 37/1 - - - 61/2 250/54
D1-0500Z 49/4 19/1 - - - 68/5 318/59
D1-0600Z 42/1 20/1 - - - 62/2 380/61
D1-0700Z 32/2 10/2 - - - 42/4 422/65
D1-0800Z 19/1 24/2 --+-- --+-- --+-- 43/3 465/68
D1-0900Z 6/0 28/2 - - - 34/2 499/70
D1-1000Z 9/1 22/2 - - - 31/3 530/73
D1-1100Z 15/1 20/4 - - - 35/5 565/78
D1-1200Z 23/0 27/1 - - - 50/1 615/79
D1-1300Z 15/0 33/2 - - - 48/2 663/81
D1-1400Z 1/0 43/2 - - - 44/2 707/83
D1-1500Z - 23/1 40/9 - - 63/10 770/93
D1-1600Z --+-- --+-- 66/7 6/0 --+-- 72/7 842/100
D1-1700Z - - 30/2 21/1 - 51/3 893/103
D1-1800Z - - 54/1 57/1 - 111/2 1004/105
D1-1900Z - - 29/0 70/0 8/0 107/0 1111/105
D1-2000Z - - 24/1 46/0 - 70/1 1181/106
D1-2100Z - - 33/1 27/1 - 60/2 1241/108
D1-2200Z - - 36/0 22/0 - 58/0 1299/108
D1-2300Z - 24/0 53/1 4/0 - 81/1 1380/109
Total: 241/11 454/61 422/33 255/4 8/0
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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