ARRL January VHF Contest - 2021
Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: EN42vr
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 168 87
2: 103 49
222: 14 12
432: 38 22
903: 1 1
1.2: 5 4
2.3: 1 1
3.4: 2 2
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 332 178 Total Score = 75,294
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
Tropo conditions weren’t just bad, they were absolutely horrible! Probably
the worst I’ve ever seen, even for January! There was some activity on 144
SSB at the start but it soon reverted to FT8 pretty much to stay for the rest of
the test. I made it a point to CQ on 144200 every hour or so and garnered maybe
a dozen QSOs that way all contest and even fewer QSYs to 432 and/or 222. Not
only is it impractical and difficult to initiate band runs on FT8 but every
contest lately there seems to be fewer folks to work on the microwaves and many
of my cell calls went unanswered or unreturned. Others were “sitting this one
out”. While the “norm” in the past was to find someone on 2M and run the
bands, I had to call most of them on the telephone or initiate on PJ or ON4KST.
In fact the only microwave band run that started on 2M SSB was with Zach W9SZ
who doesn’t do FT8 yet. With the few stations I could actually find to run
bands, 222 was down and failure above 432 was the usual result.
W9SZ QRP portable in EN50 is normally quite good on the microwaves but he was
right at the noise on most bands this time and one of only two successful 6 band
runs (Zach didn’t have 6M or 902). Rovers were almost non-existent, and the
one and only rover with microwaves that I worked I couldn’t take up past 222
due to the lousy conditions - normally we can work them all from the location he
was at! One “new rover” that posted on W0UC’s Midwest Activity
Spreadsheet (there were only 3) listed 10 bands and was within range so I tried
the given cell. My brain was apparently addled by all the FT8 droning so I
didn’t realize the phone number he posted was (XXX) 555-1212 – @#$%
INFORMATON! Nice trick buttmunch! Turns out the callsign was bogus too! Hook,
line and sinker! There’s a troll under every bridge it seems and sadly some of
them are hams.
While 1296 counts were low, 2304 and 3456 were barely there. I only found 3
stations with 902/3 and failed with two of them, one because of my only
equipment failure – an intermittent keying line from a bad transverter RCA
connector that has been working flawlessly for as long as I’ve been on 902/3!
KU8Y was the only 902 and our 6 band run was way down from normally flat
January conditions.
There was some Es, mostly on Saturday, but only on FT8 and it was mostly short
bubbles that would last for a few minutes then fade away again. Never saw much
SSB activity on 6M at all though I did find a few. It was frustrating to call
FT8 stations on the east coast only to watch them gobbled up by other east coast
stations until they faded. It all makes no difference anyway to the "call
1st" checkbox ops who let the program choose who they will answer. It just
calls whoever prints 1st on the screen and there doesn't seem to be a lot of
rhyme or reason to that (used to be whoever was on the lowest DF but now the new
double decoder pass seems to decode differently). One saving grace was that the
MSK-144 activity Saturday night and Sunday morning was outstanding. The rox
were really good which is not at all typical of January! That’s one fun
digital mode and making real time skeds on PJ is really helpful.
I was trying to get a good idea of what was digital v/s what was “legacy”
mode QSOs but it seems that N1MM isn’t much help with that. In order to log
WSJT QSOs directly from WSJT, N1MM links via UDP to the Contest Logging function
in WSJT-X. It’s apparently the WSJT log function that passes the QSO end info
to the N1MM log to auto log but other aspects seem to link directly to WSJT-X.
Then when you also bring up the WSJT Decode list in N1MM it interacts and
provides an easy way to see if a station is a mult, a new call or a dupe. This
takes a bit of fiddling to get going and it has some really nasty interaction
quirks that show up. One is that it forces FT8 (or some other digital) mode
into both your N1MM entry windows so if do manage to hear someone on SSB (or CW)
and don’t manually change that it will log them as FT8. It’s not difficult
to edit the QSO after the fact either, but it’s just one more thing to
remember to do, and I don’t always.
That is IF you can type in their call and grid at all! If you still have a call
and grid in the WSJT-X DX Call/DX Grid boxes it keeps forcing that call and
grid into the N1MM entry window as you try and type in another call yourself.
The only work around without shutting down WSJT completely or killing your
ability to see mults etc. by shutting down the WSJT Decode list, is to wipe the
call out of the WSJT-X DX Call/DX Grid boxes. Fortunately you can automate
this in WSJT-X by going to settings and under Reporting/Logging checking the
Clear DX call and grid after logging. Like the kids say, it’s complicated!
I’m going headlong kicking and screaming into our brave new digital ham radio
world but it sure is painful! The WSJT-X to N1MM interface seems an uneasy
alliance at best. Sometimes you got a WSJT-X logging error that you can’t
clear .. often with guys who are not running CM for some dumb reason or another
like running JTDX which HAS no Contest Mode (and refuses to accommodate for
mixed contest/non-contest QSOs like WSJT-X will - damn stubborn Russkies!) It
also seems to happen with Rovers when for some reason their grid does not
populate ... even when they use CM. No clue why.
Anyway ... this Invalid QSO bit will happen if for WHATEVER reason the grid is
not auto filled in in the WSJT-X DXgrid box since it will not then transfer to
the WSJT Contest LOG which then talks to N1MM to log the Q. Manually filling it
in the WSJT Contest LOG box or DX Grid box after the error message pops up
doesn't seem to work and the only thing you can do to make it go away is to
cancel it! However before you do that you can manually log the QSO in N1MM by
manually filling in the Grid in WSJTX (it will immediately show up in N1MM) then
hitting ENTER in N1MM before you cancel. When you cancel the error box goes
away and wipes the data from writing to the WSJT log ... but N1MM is the only
log that really counts anyway. Another time wasting quirk … sigh
It’s frustrating to work you loud "local" guys on one band of FT8
when we can run 3 or 4 bands in the same time frame on SSB! It’s not my
favorite to work a guy 50 miles away and S9 with FT8 that's for sure but often
I'm left no choice if I want a contest Q (after all, I do like to win). I'm
really dismayed that folks will slavishly stay on FT8 even when the prop
supports CW/Phone. It gets REALLY silly when 6M sigs are 20 and 30 over and
they still CQ like mad but can't decode much due to QRM and receiver blocking!
You can just imagine the IMD (Inter Modulation Distortion) with 10 or 20, 30
over signals packed into 2.5 KHz (FT8 can have 50 non-overlapping signals in a
nominal 2.5 KHz BW). Doh! Some also don't realize the single hop Es prop
signals are less attenuated by the ionosphere and MUCH stronger than the F2
stuff they are used to on HF so running lower power may not help either. The
laws of Physics do still apply!
Anyway here’s what I THINK the breakdown was:
Band Mode QSOs Pts Grd Pt/Q
50 CW 1 1 0 1.0
50 FT8 126 126 56 1.0
50 MSK1 26 26 25 1.0
50 USB 15 15 6 1.0
144 FT8 59 59 30 1.0
144 MSK1 7 7 6 1.0
144 USB 37 37 13 1.0
222 CW 1 2 1 2.0
222 FM 1 2 1 2.0
222 FT8 1 2 1 2.0
222 JT65 1 2 1 2.0
222 USB 10 20 8 2.0
420 CW 2 4 2 2.0
420 FT8 12 24 8 2.0
420 JT65 1 2 1 2.0
420 USB 23 46 11 2.0
902 CW 1 4 1 4.0
1296 CW 3 12 2 4.0
1296 USB 2 8 2 4.0
2304 CW 1 8 1 8.0
3456 CW 1 8 1 8.0
3456 USB 1 8 1 8.0
Total Both 332 423 178 1.3
Score: 75,294
1 Mult = 1.9 Q's
73 de Bob2 K2DRH
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