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[3830] RTTY Roundup ZF1A(W9KKN) SO RTTY HP

To: 3830@contesting.com, bill@w9kkn.net
Subject: [3830] RTTY Roundup ZF1A(W9KKN) SO RTTY HP
From: webform@b4h.net
Reply-to: bill@w9kkn.net
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2022 07:08:35 +0000
List-post: <mailto:3830@contesting.com>
                    ARRL RTTY Roundup - 2022

Call: ZF1A
Operator(s): W9KKN
Station: ZF1A

Class: SO RTTY HP
QTH: Cayman Islands
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Remote Operation

Summary:
 Band  RTTY Qs  Dig Qs
-----------------------
   80:    200      0
   40:    725      0
   20:   1009      0
   15:    847      0
   10:     79      0
-----------------------
Total:   2860      0  State/Prov = 59  Countries = 61  Total Score = 343,200

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

First of all, thanks as always to Andrew/ZF1EJ for letting me use the station
remotely again -- We are hoping sooner than later we'll be able to make an
eyeball QSO again! Also, as always, thanks to the support of my friends,
particularly those involved with the maintenance and funding for the ZF1A
station -- we're getting to the point in the solar cycle where the rewards of
our work are starting to show up.

When I first tried RTTY RU from ZF in early 2020 (January), things didn't quite
go as planned. For one thing, my radios didn't work as they were supposed to,
but for another thing, I wasn't prepared. I didn't know the station, I didn't
know the openings, I didn't know the contest as well as I thought I did. The
last few years I've grown a bit in contesting -- I've changed my attitudes about
several little things in terms of pre-contest prep, strategy, and such. With a
couple of CQWW RTTY (and a CQ WPX) under my belt, I felt like the next attempt
would be different. In 2021, as much as I wanted it, I didn't get the chance to
retry my RTTY RU effort from ZF. Even though the remote was well-established and
I was able to take advantage of it earlier in 2020 for WW RTTY, due to some
local responsibilities, I ended up doing the contest in 2021 from Northern
California. So 2022 was my chance to make it right. I studied the logs that were
available (let's face it, most of them were P49X logs.) I watched the openings
for a few days and figured out when stuff was supposed to happen, and this time,
I showed up determined and ready to leave a mark.

The station has a few bruises from years of us not being there, namely, not all
of the rotors turn as well as they used to (some of them not at all) but that's
alright, we've got things set the way we like them. In terms of the remote GHE
control and the remote-rig network quality, we've made steady improvements as
time has gone on -- everything that was expected to work worked flawlessly. 

Further, hoping for not another repeat from CQWW, I told myself that I WOULD NOT
UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE look at the scoreboard before the contest was over. I was
certainly tempted a few times, but I made it. I also really really wanted to
peek at my own spots on the RBN or some other things to see how propagation was
working, but I had to keep that all closed on this computer -- choosing to
operate in the unassisted category. A few of my friends did let a bit of the
secret out -- The operation was going as smoothly as it felt like it was going,
which is a good feeling. 

The propagation was interesting -- None of the bands were particularly amazing,
of course I got the most mileage out of 15/20/40, but 20 felt a bit weak, in
particular to EU, which the totals reflect. I dare not touch 10m on Saturday,
but on Sunday, starting around 15z, I tried CQing every 15 minutes or so (for 5
minutes at a time.) Eventually, around 16z, I started getting some bites --
pretty much all of them were in W1/W2 (and the occasional W3), but all of them
were extremely loud. I didn't hear anyone else on 10m and when that supply dried
up, that was it. I tried a few more times throughout the afternoon and found
that this spotlight opening kept traveling west, leaving behind the stations
east of it. It wasn't enough rate to justify keeping a radio there unless I had
a 3rd radio, which I didn't -- just two remote radios.

Without a remote pan adapter, I mostly ran with 2BSIQ (hence the inflated QSO
total at the expense of multipliers.) I can definitely tune stations by ear, but
I found that it takes a much longer time than just waiting for a caller and that
a panadapter is really an important tool unassisted when doing search and pounce
on the other radio. There were also definitely times where I didn't get an
answer for a long time because I had probably hit the saturation of the band and
worked everyone that was going to call me -- during such times I ended up just
going to one of the marginal bands (40 or 10 while 15 and 20 were the primary
bands) for a sudden burst of activity.

Anyway, much congratulations to all of the big scores, I'm not going to join the
chorus of people exclaiming that FT8/FT4 has ruined RTTY roundup RTTY-only
activity just yet. It seems like there are more and more FT* only contests out
there, but it seemed like there were plenty of people around to work; I just
don't have the basis of comparison to previous years at this QTH to tell you. I
did note a few people that were clearly new at this (and one can only speculate
that maybe they came over from the other modes) --- as always, there are those
that send the exchange first to the running station (which I now have a special
set of macros to deal with), but there were a few particularly trying moments --
such as people trying to call people I'm working on my frequency, or immediately
starting to CQ on my frequency after we had just had a QSO (this isn't the
sprint after all =P) -- It's OK, they'll figure it out, but I'll still
vigorously defend my frequency. Sometimes all it takes is a storm of repeats on
the other radio to lose a frequency -- which is always a tricky part of this
game.

Anyway, crossing our fingers for a strong showing from the ZF1A team in ARRL DX
coming up in a little over a month (and maybe a few other small operations
before that.)

73 and thanks for the Qs everyone! 

Bill -- W9KKN/ZF2WF@ZF1A

And now, for some cabstats:

Cabrillo Statistics           (Version 10g)           by K5KA & N6TV
http://bit.ly/cabstat

CALLSIGN: ZF1A
CONTEST: ARRL-RTTY
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OP
CATEGORY-TRANSMITTER: ONE
OPERATORS: W9KKN

-------------- Q S O   R a t e   S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour     160     80     40     20     15     10    Rate Total    Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1800       0      0      0     95     97      0    192    192    6.7
1900       0      0      0     83    101      0    184    376   13.1
2000       0      0      0    105     93      0    198    574   20.1
2100       0      0      0     88     78      0    166    740   25.9
2200       0      0     67     82      0      0    149    889   31.1
2300       0      0     67     57      0      0    124   1013   35.4
0000       0      4     80     46      0      0    130   1143   40.0
0100       0     17     89     22      0      0    128   1271   44.4
0200       0     45     55      0      0      0    100   1371   47.9
0300       0     26     65      0      0      0     91   1462   51.1
0400       0     30     55      0      0      0     85   1547   54.1
0500       0     48     66      0      0      0    114   1661   58.1
0600       0     28     48      0      0      0     76   1737   60.7
0700       0      2      8      0      0      0     10   1747   61.1
0800       0      0      0      0      0      0      0   1747   61.1
0900       0      0      0      0      0      0      0   1747   61.1
1000       0      0      0      0      0      0      0   1747   61.1
1100       0      0      0      0      0      0      0   1747   61.1
1200       0      0      0     10     11      0     21   1768   61.8
1300       0      0      0     62     56      0    118   1886   65.9
1400       0      0      0     53     80      0    133   2019   70.6
1500       0      0      0     35     70      4    109   2128   74.4
1600       0      0      0      0     79     38    117   2245   78.5
1700       0      0      0     38     65     10    113   2358   82.4
1800       0      0      0     15     48     27     90   2448   85.6
1900       0      0      0     54     58      0    112   2560   89.5
2000       0      0      2     24     12      0     38   2598   90.8
2100       0      0     37     51      0      0     88   2686   93.9
2200       0      0     40     50      0      0     90   2776   97.0
2300       0      0     46     38      0      0     84   2860  100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total      0    200    725   1009    848     79   2861

Gross QSOs=2905        Dupes=44        Net QSOs=2861

Unique callsigns worked = 1621

The best 60 minute rate was 206/hour from 2016 to 2115
The best 30 minute rate was 216/hour from 1818 to 1847
The best 10 minute rate was 234/hour from 1817 to 1826

The best 1 minute rates were:
 6 QSOs/minute    4 times.
 5 QSOs/minute   29 times.
 4 QSOs/minute  140 times.
 3 QSOs/minute  284 times.
 2 QSOs/minute  451 times.
 1 QSOs/minute  377 times.

There were 1685 bandchanges and 1098 (38.4%) probable 2nd radio QSOs.

----------------- C o n t i n e n t   S u m m a r y -----------------
                 160     80     40     20     15     10  Total    Pct
---------------------------------------------------------------------
North America      0    186    557    896    697     75   2411   84.3
South America      0      1      4      5      7      3     20    0.7
Europe             0     12    153     77    140      0    382   13.4
Asia               0      0      4     26      0      0     30    1.0
Africa             0      0      2      2      1      0      5    0.2
Oceania            0      1      5      3      3      1     13    0.5
--------------------------------------------------------------
Total              0    200    725   1009    848     79   2861

Number of letters in callsigns
Letters  # worked
-----------------
   3        11
   4      1219
   5      1020
   6       606
   7         1
   8         3
   9         1

------------------ C o u n t r y   S u m m a r y ------------------
Country        160     80     40     20     15     10  Total    Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------------
4X               0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
5B               0      0      0      1      0      0      1    0.0
9A               0      1      4      1      3      0      9    0.3
CM               0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
CT               0      0      0      0      2      0      2    0.1
CX               0      0      0      0      1      0      1    0.0
DL               0      1     22     12     14      0     49    1.7
E7               0      0      3      0      1      0      4    0.1
EA               0      2      9      0      4      0     15    0.5
EA6              0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
EA8              0      0      2      2      1      0      5    0.2
EI               0      0      1      0      1      0      2    0.1
ER               0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
EU               0      1      3      2      1      0      7    0.2
F                0      2      6      5      8      0     21    0.7
G                0      0     10      3     14      0     27    0.9
GI               0      0      0      0      1      0      1    0.0
GM               0      0      0      2      3      0      5    0.2
GU               0      0      0      1      0      0      1    0.0
GW               0      0      2      2      1      0      5    0.2
HA               0      0      3      1      2      0      6    0.2
HB               0      0      0      0      1      0      1    0.0
HC               0      0      0      1      1      0      2    0.1
HI               0      0      2      2      0      0      4    0.1
HK               0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
I                0      0     20      8     28      0     56    2.0
JA               0      0      3     23      0      0     26    0.9
K                0    178    519    830    644     72   2243   78.4
KG4              0      1      4      4      2      0     11    0.4
KH2              0      1      1      1      1      1      5    0.2
KH6              0      0      1      1      1      0      3    0.1
KL               0      0      0      3      1      0      4    0.1
KP2              0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
KP4              0      0      1      1      1      0      3    0.1
LA               0      0      3      2      1      0      6    0.2
LU               0      0      0      0      1      0      1    0.0
LX               0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
LZ               0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
OE               0      1      1      2      3      0      7    0.2
OH               0      0      1      4      2      0      7    0.2
OK               0      0      8      2      4      0     14    0.5
OM               0      0      0      2      0      0      2    0.1
ON               0      0      1      1      2      0      4    0.1
OZ               0      0      0      1      2      0      3    0.1
PA               0      2      6      8     14      0     30    1.0
PY               0      0      1      3      4      3     11    0.4
S5               0      1      6      0      1      0      8    0.3
SP               0      1      6      2      8      0     17    0.6
SV               0      0      5      4      3      0     12    0.4
SV5              0      0      0      0      1      0      1    0.0
TI               0      2      1      2      0      0      5    0.2
TK               0      0      0      0      1      0      1    0.0
UA               0      0      5      4      0      0      9    0.3
UA9              0      0      0      2      0      0      2    0.1
UR               0      0     10      5      5      0     20    0.7
VE               0      5     28     52     48      3    136    4.8
VK               0      0      1      1      0      0      2    0.1
XE               0      0      0      2      1      0      3    0.1
YB               0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
YL               0      0      1      0      1      0      2    0.1
YO               0      0     10      2      5      0     17    0.6
YU               0      0      2      1      3      0      6    0.2
YV               0      1      2      1      0      0      4    0.1
Z3               0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
ZL               0      0      1      0      1      0      2    0.1
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Total            0    200    725   1009    848     79   2861

------------ M u l t i p l i e r   S u m m a r y ------------
Mult     160     80     40     20     15     10  Total    Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------
-DX-       0     15    173    122    153      3    466   16.3
CA         0     19     60     95     56      4    234    8.2
NY         0     11     38     37     48      9    143    5.0
IL         0     10     28     46     46      3    133    4.6
PA         0      8     26     35     35      6    110    3.8
MD         0     13     25     37     31      2    108    3.8
VA         0      6     32     40     23      1    102    3.6
MN         0      5     17     32     27     10     91    3.2
OH         0      8     20     33     24      0     85    3.0
TX         0      5     23     22     26      1     77    2.7
NC         0      6     16     34     18      0     74    2.6
TN         0     10     18     34     11      0     73    2.6
NJ         0      6     16     23     20      4     69    2.4
ON         0      3     12     24     27      2     68    2.4
WA         0      2     10     26     28      2     68    2.4
FL         0      8     25     20      9      0     62    2.2
OR         0      5      9     23     15      2     54    1.9
CO         0      4      9     20     14      4     51    1.8
MA         0      4      5     18     18      5     50    1.7
MI         0      4     12     18     15      0     49    1.7
AZ         0      5      9     20     13      0     47    1.6
MO         0      0     10     21     15      0     46    1.6
WI         0      2     12     14     13      1     42    1.5
IN         0      7      7     10     13      1     38    1.3
CT         0      1      2     13     17      1     34    1.2
AL         0      1      7     16      4      0     28    1.0
KY         0      4      5     10      8      0     27    0.9
QC         0      1      7     10      8      1     27    0.9
SC         0      1      8     13      4      0     26    0.9
NV         0      1      9     11      4      1     26    0.9
GA         0      1      5     13      6      0     25    0.9
RI         0      3      1      7      8      3     22    0.8
NH         0      1      5      6      8      2     22    0.8
WV         0      1      7      8      5      0     21    0.7
AR         0      1      4      7      7      0     19    0.7
OK         0      1      5      7      6      0     19    0.7
ME         0      2      4      6      4      2     18    0.6
LA         0      2      4      8      4      0     18    0.6
NM         0      0      4      5      6      1     16    0.6
KS         0      0      0      8      7      0     15    0.5
BC         0      0      2      8      5      0     15    0.5
MT         0      2      4      8      1      0     15    0.5
NE         0      2      3      3      5      2     15    0.5
MS         0      3      3      4      4      0     14    0.5
ID         0      1      2      7      4      0     14    0.5
DE         0      1      6      2      3      0     12    0.4
IA         0      1      3      4      2      2     12    0.4
UT         0      1      2      3      3      1     10    0.3
AB         0      0      2      3      3      0      8    0.3
SD         0      0      0      2      3      2      7    0.2
DC         0      1      2      2      2      0      7    0.2
NS         0      1      1      2      2      0      6    0.2
VT         0      0      1      1      3      1      6    0.2
MB         0      0      2      2      1      0      5    0.2
SK         0      0      0      2      1      0      3    0.1
WY         0      0      0      2      1      0      3    0.1
PE         0      0      1      0      1      0      2    0.1
ND         0      0      1      1      0      0      2    0.1
LB         0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.0
NF         0      0      0      1      0      0      1    0.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total      0    200    725   1009    848     79   2861

U.S. Call Areas Worked
Area    QSOs     Pct
--------------------
   0     237     8.3
   1     168     5.9
   2     241     8.4
   3     261     9.1
   4     300    10.5
   5     169     5.9
   6     246     8.6
   7     210     7.3
   8     187     6.5
   9     224     7.8
--------------------
Total   2243    78.4

Multi-band QSOs
---------------
1 bands     824
2 bands     457
3 bands     247
4 bands      83
5 bands      10
6 bands       0

------- S i n g l e   B a n d   Q S O s ------
Band    160     80     40     20     15     10
----------------------------------------------
QSOs      0     22    183    354    255     10


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