CQ WPX RTTY Contest - 2023
Call: N1RM
Operator(s): N1RM
Station: N1RM
Class: SOAB HP
Class Overlay: Classic
QTH: VA
Operating Time (hrs): 24:00
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
80: 51
40: 550
20: 364
15: 151
10: 224
------------
Total: 1340 Prefixes = 572 Total Score = 2,451,592
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
This was an "almost all-in" effort. I decided to ease into the
"Contest Animal" role by doing the Classic Overlay, which limited my
time to 24 hours. I took one 2 hour break and one 1 hour break, finishing at
0300Z. I managed to stay awake the whole time (at least as far as I can
remember!).
Tim's advice to jump on 40 or 80 early and often really paid off. I finally
discovered that my station is loud enough to hold a frequency on 40M and I just
kept running. That got me off to a great start. Since I was unassisted, I didn't
have the cool band "temperature" indicators in N1MM, so I had to
periodically check for openings. At around 0430Z my rate had dropped on 40M. I
checked and saw that 20 and higher was very weak, so I went to 80M. I got a few
quick Qs there, but then it turned out to be slower than 40M, so I went back
after about a half hour. I spent most of the night on 40M with occasional forays
to 80M. Around sunrise, I checked 20M and it was really heating up, so I worked
up the band S&P and stopped when I found enough room to run. After a couple
of hours I went up to 15M and did the same. After an hour I went up to 10M for
an hour and a half and then ping-ponged between 10 and 15 for a while, returning
to 20M around 1900Z. I dug in there and ran for almost 4 hours with decent
rates. After dark I went back to 40M and spent most of the rest of the time
there.
After 24 hours of operating, I had made 1026 QSOs running and 314 S&P.
I was very happy with my choices, though the bands were so great, it would have
been hard to make a mistake!
One concern I have is that I may have higher than average mistakes in the log. I
finally realized that it's much harder to coordinate fills in RTTY, especially
while running - sometimes folks move on before the final acknowledgement. I hope
they have an error report because I'm really curious.
This was a confidence builder. I still have lots to do to keep up with the big
boys, but I may get there some day.
Thanks for the Qs.
Rick
N1RM
K4, A2000A, DB18E, OCF Dipole.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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