[3830] W3LPL MM CQWW RTTY Contest Score

[Tyler Stewart]

(sorry for the poor formatting)

CQ WW RTTY Contest

Call used: W3LPL
Location:  MD
Entry Class: Multi Op, Multi Xmit
Band    QSOs   Pts   QTH    DX  Zones
80       310   469    48    33    15
40       475   888    47    59    23
20       740  1573    51    88    31
15       838  2102    41    82    30
10       494  1173    38    67    23
--------------------------------------
Total   2857  6205   225   329   122
--------------------------------------
Claimed Score: 4,194,580  (New World MM Record)

Operators:      Band    Captain     Assist
                        80      NO2T            N3OC
                        40      NE3H            N3UN
                        20      K3MM            ND3F
                        15      N8YYS           W2GG
                        10      K4GMH           N3KTV

Software: RTTY by WF1B  v4.2, RITTY 2.34, CT 9.27

Hardware: (7) FT1000MP x (5) 3-1000 Monoband amplifiers
          (12) @!(#*& computers!
          + the normal W3LPL antenna arsenal

Power Output: 1500

Club Participation: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:       Overall conditions were rather bad at the start due to
        the flare,but the low bands were still fairly good.  As the weekend
        progressed, things generally swung to favor the high bands and
        10 meters finally came alive for real on Sunday with some decent
        EU rates.  20 meters actually shut down during the day Sunday for
        several hours here.  The increased MUF which translated to much
        larger numbers on 10 meters turned out to be just enough to
        compensate for the high K and resultant lower numbers of Q's on
        the lower bands, especially 20 meters.  This allowed us to just
 barely sneak by our World Record MM score from last year of 3.95M!

                I spent 3 or 4 evenings setting up computers at W3LPL's
        QTH the week before the contest.  This meant installing sound cards,
        updating software, building interface cables for AFSK and PTT for
        many computers and radios.  Unfortunately, after 3 evenings I had
        to abort plans to run all WF1B computers networked.  When I tried to
        add the 3rd computer to the link, the computers seemed to be in
        conflict and jammed networking caused the normal program operations
        to come to a screeching halt. I had worked with Ray the past week
        getting some new hot keys for certain functions used by Multi's
        added as well as a frequency passing function, but he had left for
        P40RY by the time the networking problem was discovered so it was
        all for naught.  I then went back to what we had done in the past
 and used a CT-based network of computers to keep track of all
 networked information, spots, frequencies, etc.  Thankfully, Frank,
 W3LPL, volunteered to set up the CT computers and network. This
        meant double-logging of all QSO's, but it worked flawlessly.  We had
        created a special country file to fake out CT so it would at least
        understand the state multipliers.  I actually had some spare time
        before the contest, so I set up a second station on 20 and later a
        second station on 40 so any spare operator could tune around the
        band during RX times (all the beverages were still down for the
        summer).  This meant 7 computers running WF1B/RITTY and 5 running
        CT!

                Other than the networking problem, WF1B and RITTY ran great
        all weekend.  Some of our operators had never used RITTY and it's
        Autotune feature and were even skeptical of it's use.  However, I
        think everyone was sold on it by the end of the contest.  It really
        works well as long as it's used properly, with judicious use of
        the Alt-F key to freeze settings during QSO's.  I'm amazed at the
        number of negative comments I get from various guys all over the
        country about the use of Autotune in RITTY and I'm convinced that
        it's all a case of improper use and/or possibly improper settings
        in RITTY. It's always worked great for me and I wont use anything
        else for my RTTY contest work.  I've been trying to get the software
 vendors to make the functions work more automatically to avoid
 operating errors and a lot of unnecessary keystrokes. So far, NA by
 K8CC is the only one to make some headway on this endeavor.

  This year we had a lot of the operators from last year, but
 W3EKT was unable to participate due to his son getting married in
 FL.  In his place, I managed to recruit PVRC member W2GG, Bob, and
 N8YYS, Roy.  Both of these guys did a great job, learning a lot of
 new hardware and concepts, as did the rest of the crew.  Every
 year the teamwork gets a little better.  I also assigned "band
 captains" this time in an attempt to help insure good coverage of
 all the bands. I think this worked out fairly well. I didnt require
 any of the operators to purely work one band.  Rather, they were
 free to work any band that was available, with the "band captains"
 maintaining responsibility for coverage of their band.

  Most importantly, everyone had a good time and enjoyed
 operating the contest from Frank's primo MM station, which worked
 100% all weekend.

  As promised, I'll be doing a 100% bureau QSLing to all DX
 stations sometime in December.  Anyone wishing a quick reply and all
 US stations may QSL direct to me or W3LPL with an SASE.

  Thanks to everyone that worked us, especially those that
 QSY'ed for extra bands!

 73 es CU in the next one, Ty K3MM




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