CQ WW Score Summary Sheet
CallSign Used : K4TD
Operator(s) : K4TD
Band : ALL
Power : HIGH
Mode : CW
Club/Team : South East Contest Club
Operating Time: 25.65 Hours
Band QSOs Pts Cty ZN
3.5 49 137 45 13
7 347 874 118 35
14 394 1090 125 38
21 222 632 102 25
28 23 62 23 13
Total 1035 2795 413 124
Score : 1,500,915
I didn't get to devote as much time to this effort as I would have liked.
My son got last minute leave from the Army and managed to get home in time
for Thanksgiving. He had to leave going back early on Saturday morning so I
didn't really get cranked up until around 1100 CST.
I don't normally say too much in these emails, but I feel like I need to
make one comment. I was appalled at the operating habits of some of the
contesters that I listened to in the pileups. In most of the pileups I
noticed that the operators would repeatedly send their calls over and over
sometimes even while the DX station was transmitting. That makes it
especially difficult to complete the exchange with a weak DX station. On
numerous occasions, I was the station selected by the DX station from the
pileup. The DX would send his response, but I wouldn't know it since I
couldn't hear him for the 599+20dB guys repeatedly sending their calls over
the top of his transmission. This resulted in the DX having to retransmit
when the QRM finally died down, which really slowed the whole process. It
reminded me of a study I did in designing a server for a communications
intercept system many years ago using queuing theory. The throughput of the
queue is clearly hampered when the server doesn't operate with maximum
efficiency, which was the case in these pileups. I'm surprised that these
operators haven't been able to figure this out yet. When I quit contesting
in the late 1970s the important thing was to develop a good sense of timing
as to when to send your call in a major pileup. Also, it was considered
poor operating practice to send your call more than two times in a big
pileup. It seems that the strategy has changed from good timing to simply
trying to wear the DX station down by repeatedly sending ones own call until
the DX responds.
On a completely different note, I spent some time listening to 40 meter
pileups being run by NQ4I (and K4XS). At times they were working EU
stations that I couldn't even hear on my 4 element yagi at 140 feet. My
compliments to Rick on his station and to the guys operating it. I was
beginning to get the feeling that north Alabama might be an RF hole, and now
I think it might be true. Guess I'm going to have to put up another yagi
and see if a stack on 40 helps me hear any better.
73,
Rick
K4TD
|