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[3830] RTTY WPX P49X(W0YK) SOAB HP

To: 3830@contesting.com, w0yk@msn.com
Subject: [3830] RTTY WPX P49X(W0YK) SOAB HP
From: webform@b4h.net
Reply-to: w0yk@msn.com
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 12:09:16 -0800 (PST)
List-post: <3830@contesting.com">mailto:3830@contesting.com>
                    CQ WW RTTY WPX Contest

Call: P49X
Operator(s): W0YK
Station: P49Y/P40L

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Aruba
Operating Time (hrs): 30
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs   Pts
------------------
   80:  493   2940
   40: 1078   6446
   20: 1074   3205
   15:  606   1799
   10:    0      0
------------------
Total: 3251  14390  Prefixes = 808  Total Score = 11,627,120

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

This result is a surpise.  Friday night conditions were terrible here and
throughout the weekend the bands were be up and down.  The worst was Sunday
mid-day when I put in my last four hours and 15m disappeared completely for a
while and never recovered fully.  Even 20m almost crashed.  It seemed that I
had to ask for repeats in every QSO.

I just dug in as hard as I could and amazingly ended my first 9-1/2 hours at my
first break with exactly the same QSOs and points as the past two years!  Still,
I was rather discouraged about the prospects for the rest of the weekend.  I
barely kept pace with a couple of Stateside stations on serial numbers Friday
night and early Saturday, but at least Aruba wasn't as deprived as the 2008 WPX
CW where signals were either weak or non-existent.

Saturday was the best day for conditions here.  The low bands were their usual
pleasure Saturday night, a huge contrast to Friday.  Signals were clear and
crisp and the QRM seemed much less.  I don't know about Sunday in total, but
the four hours I operated were extremeley marginal.  I was counting on 140/hour
rates and fought to stay above 80/hour.  When 15m disappeared in the middle of
my run, the only signal I heard on the band was P40R and even Roger was weak,
just 8 miles away.  Slowly one or two European signals started popping in again
and I got some more of it before my 30 hours ran out.  I even checked 40m and
almost QSY'd there at 16Z!

The point total ended up a bit above my all-time high in 2007 but the real
boost came from nearly 100 more mults.  I was stunned at the 808 prefix total. 
It will be interesting to see how others did on prefixes.  Maybe there were just
more available this year.  Never did use Packet because I was averaging a mult
every four QSOs and it just didn't pay to leave the run frequencies to chase
mults.  Not to mention the fact that I never got the RFI out of the DSL modem
on 40 and 80, so the Internet connection was QRM'd and destroyed by my
operating.

I modified my off-time strategy from prior years and stopped operating only
when the Q rate dropped below 65-70/hour on 80/40m and 140/hour on 20/15m. 
This meant that my prior 2-hour break late Saturday afternoon disappeared.  It
also resulted in me refraining from getting started Saturday morning until 15Z
when 20m and 15m should be solidly open.  Although harder on the body, I think
the operating time was better optimized.  I'm sure glad I didn't leave more
than four hours for Sunday this weekend!

I tried a non-intuitive change in my TU message this year by lengthening it and
always send the other station's call sign.  My thought was to lessen confusion
on the frequency and based on this weekend's conditions, I'm really glad I did
that.  At 60 WPM, it doesn't add much time and I could get rid of the 'DE' that
I usually use to help listeners sort out who was doing what on frequency.

Other than Windows going beserk a half-dozen times, the entire station worked
flawlessly: equipment, computers, software, modems, network, accessories,
transmitting antennas, Beverages, primary power, light bulbs, etc.  There was
zero interstation RFI and the Beverages really helped divide up the pileups
geographically on the low bands.  Once in a while, Window throws a fit by
flashing all the open windows on and off and zooming the cursor randomly around
the screen without help from the trackball.  One just has to back away from the
keyboard and trackball and "let it pass".  Whenever I've tried to intervene,
really bad consequences occur.  The last time it happened was just after K5ZD
sent his exchange on 15m Sunday and in my panic I reached for "the key" like I
would on CW before I realized this mode doesn't have such a computer
override/safeguard.

Another first for me was how much better the DXP38 decoded compared to MMTTY
much of the time.  I've never experienced such a difference between the two. 
Granted I didn't take time to play around with different MMTTY profiles with
variouse decoding algorithms in these odd atomospheric conditions.  The call
signs and serial numbers were garbled so often in MMTTY that I took to using
the DXP38 decoding windows as my main focus.  Coincidently, for the first time
I used some high performace sound card units (EMU-0202) to drive MMTTY.  I
thought they worked great, but in the past I've just used the internal sound
cards in my 10-year old laptops with no problems.  I'm thinking it wasn't worth
the trouble to drag these extras boxes down here.  Maybe it was just conditions
and maybe it would have been worse without the external units.  I really don't
think sound card performance matters so much in RTTY, but for some of the other
data modes like PSK, perhaps there is an advantage.

So, as always big thanks to the endless supply of RTTY contesters, especially
the casual folks who get on and create an endless supply of QSOs for us
mutants.  As well, huge appreciation to John, W6LD/P40L, and Andy, AE6Y/P49Y,
for sharing their wonderful contest station with me.  Each of them, BTW, got on
with their K3s in CW-RTTY mode and worked me.  This is a cute feature but a bit
awkward for high rate contesting.  I worked six stations on the other radio
while waiting for them to send 30 wpm CW translated to 60 wpm "Farnsworth"
RTTY.  Actually, Andy tried twice unsuccessfully sending only the MARK
frequency.  We need to enroll that boy in RTTY Contesting 101, hi!  And
finally, I couldn't have done this contest without the loan of an Alpha 86 from
P40YL and P40V who have moved back to the island part time now.  In fact, its
time to pop the cork on some wine and get ready for a post-contest dinner
somewhere with them tonight.

For the analytics among us, data is below.

Ed - P49X (W0YK)



           80M    40M    20M    15M    10M   Total      %

    NA     292    576    656    500      0    2024    62.3
    EU     186    439    355     83      0    1063    32.7
    AF       4      5      2      3      0      14     0.4
    SA       7     10     15     18      0      50     1.5
    AS       4     43     45      0      0      92     2.8
    OC       0      5      1      2      0       8     0.2


QSO/Pref by hour and band

 Hour      80M     40M     20M     15M     10M    Total     Cumm    OffTime

D1-0000Z  17/12   70/63   --+--   --+--   --+--   87/75     87/75  
D1-0100Z  37/18   86/54     -       -       -    123/72    210/147 
D1-0200Z  25/10   84/40     -       -       -    109/50    319/197 
D1-0300Z  36/20   75/40     -       -       -    111/60    430/257 
D1-0400Z  62/25   83/42     -       -       -    145/67    575/324 
D1-0500Z  51/17   73/23     -       -       -    124/40    699/364 
D1-0600Z  42/12   56/21     -       -       -     98/33    797/397 
D1-0700Z  47/13   44/11     -       -       -     91/24    888/421 
D1-0800Z  18/2    47/15   --+--   --+--   --+--   65/17    953/438 
D1-0900Z   5/1    22/9      -       -       -     27/10    980/448    30
D1-1000Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     980/448    60
D1-1100Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     980/448    60
D1-1200Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     980/448    60
D1-1300Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     980/448    60
D1-1400Z    -       -     88/16   67/14     -    155/30   1135/478 
D1-1500Z    -       -     75/13   87/3      -    162/16   1297/494 
D1-1600Z  --+--   --+--   85/22   72/10   --+--  157/32   1454/526 
D1-1700Z    -       -     74/18   65/4      -    139/22   1593/548 
D1-1800Z    -       -     83/22   58/10     -    141/32   1734/580 
D1-1900Z    -       -     74/15   73/9      -    147/24   1881/604 
D1-2000Z    -       -     72/15   62/5      -    134/20   2015/624 
D1-2100Z    -     34/9    73/9    12/2      -    119/20   2134/644 
D1-2200Z    -     52/14   71/10     -       -    123/24   2257/668 
D1-2300Z    -     53/11   61/13     -       -    114/24   2371/692 
D2-0000Z  --+--   38/13   53/7    --+--   --+--   91/20   2462/712 
D2-0100Z  19/4    31/6    10/0      -       -     60/10   2522/722 
D2-0200Z  22/2    52/5      -       -       -     74/7    2596/729 
D2-0300Z  24/0    62/6      -       -       -     86/6    2682/735 
D2-0400Z  36/2    55/9      -       -       -     91/11   2773/746 
D2-0500Z  26/2    41/6      -       -       -     67/8    2840/754 
D2-0600Z  26/0    20/2      -       -       -     46/2    2886/756    15
D2-0700Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2886/756    60
D2-0800Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--    0/0    2886/756    60
D2-0900Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2886/756    60
D2-1000Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2886/756    60
D2-1100Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2886/756    60
D2-1200Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2886/756    60
D2-1300Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2886/756    60
D2-1400Z    -       -      1/0    10/2      -     11/2    2897/758    52
D2-1500Z    -       -     65/10   19/2      -     84/12   2981/770 
D2-1600Z  --+--   --+--   68/12   11/2    --+--   79/14   3060/784 
D2-1700Z    -       -     74/8    40/6      -    114/14   3174/798 
D2-1800Z    -       -     47/7    30/3      -     77/10   3251/808 

Total:   493/1401078/3991074/197 606/72    0/0  



Pts by hour and band.

             80M     40M     20M     15M     10M    Total   Cumm    OffTime

D1-0000Z     102     420    ---+-   ---+-   ---+-     522    522
D1-0100Z     216     514       -       -       -      730   1252
D1-0200Z     146     502       -       -       -      648   1900
D1-0300Z     216     450       -       -       -      666   2566
D1-0400Z     372     496       -       -       -      868   3434
D1-0500Z     306     436       -       -       -      742   4176
D1-0600Z     252     332       -       -       -      584   4760
D1-0700Z     282     264       -       -       -      546   5306
D1-0800Z     108     282    ---+-   ---+-   ---+-     390   5696
D1-0900Z      30     132       -       -       -      162   5858     30
D1-1000Z       -       -       -       -       -        0   5858     60
D1-1100Z       -       -       -       -       -        0   5858     60
D1-1200Z       -       -       -       -       -        0   5858     60
D1-1300Z       -       -       -       -       -        0   5858     60
D1-1400Z       -       -     263     201       -      464   6322
D1-1500Z       -       -     225     260       -      485   6807
D1-1600Z    ---+-   ---+-    255     215    ---+-     470   7277
D1-1700Z       -       -     222     193       -      415   7692
D1-1800Z       -       -     249     174       -      423   8115
D1-1900Z       -       -     222     218       -      440   8555
D1-2000Z       -       -     216     182       -      398   8953
D1-2100Z       -     204     219      36       -      459   9412
D1-2200Z       -     310     212       -       -      522   9934
D1-2300Z       -     314     176       -       -      490  10424
D2-0000Z    ---+-    228     156    ---+-   ---+-     384  10808
D2-0100Z     110     186      30       -       -      326  11134
D2-0200Z     130     312       -       -       -      442  11576
D2-0300Z     144     370       -       -       -      514  12090
D2-0400Z     216     330       -       -       -      546  12636
D2-0500Z     154     244       -       -       -      398  13034
D2-0600Z     156     120       -       -       -      276  13310     15
D2-0700Z       -       -       -       -       -        0  13310     60
D2-0800Z    ---+-   ---+-   ---+-   ---+-   ---+-       0  13310     60
D2-0900Z       -       -       -       -       -        0  13310     60
D2-1000Z       -       -       -       -       -        0  13310     60
D2-1100Z       -       -       -       -       -        0  13310     60
D2-1200Z       -       -       -       -       -        0  13310     60
D2-1300Z       -       -       -       -       -        0  13310     60
D2-1400Z       -       -       3      30       -       33  13343     52
D2-1500Z       -       -     193      56       -      249  13592
D2-1600Z    ---+-   ---+-    203      28    ---+-     231  13823
D2-1700Z       -       -     221     118       -      339  14162
D2-1800Z       -       -     140      88       -      228  14390

Total:      2940    6446    3205    1799       0


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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