ARRL RTTY Roundup
Call: N9TF
Operator(s): N9TF
Station: N9TF
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: IL
Operating Time (hrs): 15.2
Summary:
Band RTTY Qs Dig Qs
-----------------------
80: 204
40: 163
20: 186
15: 20
10:
-----------------------
Total: 573 0 State/Prov = 51 Countries = 28 Total Score = 45,267
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
Boy, I sure do miss those sunspots! I was hoping to best my best score from 2016
of 60,255. That year saw 103 mults in my log with mults counted up into 10m, and
a final Q count after 11 deductions of 594. I set my goal for 700, knowing I
would have to make up mults with Qs. Unfortunately, I had some afternoon errands
to run both days of the weekend, so I was hoping to drive up my Q and mult
counts on 40 and 80 to compensate for expected lower to no counts on 10 and 15.
I had a very productive Saturday night on 80m working 75% of those Qs and all 10
mults. Had a lot of fun with a couple of successful 80 meter runs in between
S&Ping.
I was hoping for way more DX mults on 20 Sunday, along with easier DX contacts.
20 was way more of a challenge and difficult than I expected it would be. From
my vantage point point of a low 2 element tribander, there were quite a few loud
big gun DX stations, which were relatively easy to work, and then there were the
rest, like me! The "good" EU DX window was also very short, at lest
from my vantage point. I moved off of 40 and 80 about 13:30UTC over to 20m, and
started slugging it out. Between 14:30 and 15:30 the best conditions seemed to
peak and then things shifted west pretty quick after that. I decoded way more DX
than heard me me call. And east coasters, and even some west coasters had the
upper hand over my signal. Although, I did get pretty good on a few occasions of
throwing in my call once at the tail end of the masses calling. Only worked
though if my signal was heard in the RXer at the other end!
In hind sight, Maybe I should have just put the Bears game on as background
noise in the shack, and kept on contesting. I may have been much happier :)
Always lots of fun to play in this contest. I also noticed the same thing
another member noticed about new activity. Lots of new calls this time around,
as well as seemingly increased RTTY contest activity.
For grins I went back and looked up the results of my first ever RTTY RU I
played in, in 2006. I operated with N9UM and N9MTT as a Multi Op, but not in the
traditional multi-op manner. Our Multi-op consisted of N9UM and N9MTT each at
their QTH,and I at mine. The three of us, passing DX cluster (VHF RF Packet)
information over a 2 meter simplex frequency, back and forth to each other, or
spotting DX that was not on the cluster to each other! The beginnings of the
CHAT room!! The kicker to this story is, we won the Central Division Low Power
Multioperator Plaque, sponsored by West Mountain Radio! That was with only 141
Qs 59 mults and a score of 8,319. I'd say the RTTY population has certainly
multiplied since then.
Thanks for all the Qs. Looking forward to the upcoming NAQP match this year. As
far as I can see into the future, I should be good for all 6 competitions.
GO SMC!!
73 Gene, N9TF
Rig: K3S 100 watts MMTTY/N1MM+
Antennas: 10-20 2 element trbander at 37', 40-80, 100' short loaded dipole at
35' apex sloping, broadside NE/SW.
Side note about FT8
No FT8 was used here. I do use it extensively for DXing, band filling, and
certificate chasing. (and Plain goofing around) It has a great place in the hams
arsenal of modes to get the contact made...great technology, lets have more!
But, operating RTTY, as it is, still requires human interface and decision
making. Once you eliminate the human element of the decisions of the information
for the contact, all you have is contesting robots. Nothing wrong with that at
all, just not inter-twined with another mode of human intervention. Maybe a
separate set of contests geared at digital automation type modes that fall into
the WSJT realm, (or whatever comes next!) computer to computer, auto logging and
real time log upload. Yes, let the robot contesting begin :) My $0.02 worth on
the subject.
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