[3830] CQ/RJ WW RTTY WB6BWZ SOAB QRP

[wb6bwz at arrl.net]

                    CQ/RJ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: WB6BWZ
Operator(s): WB6BWZ
Station: WB6BWZ

Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 26

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Pts  State/Prov  DX  Zones
----------------------------------------
   80:   28   30       19      3     3
   40:   45   53       30      4     5
   20:   59   98       29     18    13
   15:   57  124       18     28    14
   10:   61  156        7     30    14
----------------------------------------
Total:  250  461      103     83    49  Total Score = 108,335

Club: South East Contest Club

Comments:

My ham activity for the weekend was to participate in the Alabama, Louisiana and
Texas QSO Parties. (I live in Georgia but my home QTH is still in Alabama.)

The QSO parties were scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. There would be no
conflict for me to participate in the CQ/RJ WW RTTY Contest "part-time" (Friday
evening, Saturday and Sunday mornings EDT during the QSO party off-times).

That appeared to be reasonable plan, i.e., to operate RTTY part-time, because of
my QRP and very modest station status -- great for PSK31 but not RTTY (I was
made to believe).

I used RTTY before but mainly for traffic handling (MARS, CD/ARES/RACES and
ragchewing). This was my first RTTY contest, first time I have been on RTTY
since 1987 when I moved to Alabama from California, and very first time using
RTTY with the WriteLog-Sound Card computer system. (Many thanks to AA5AU and
K9JY for sharing WriteLog assistance on their websites.)

I expected the bands to be blanketed with wall-to-wall RTTY stations that would
bury my QRP sigs. But that was not the case. The pace was leisurely and actually
enjoyable. And my QRP sigs were getting through -- amazing! Bottom line: No QSO
parties for me this past weekend. I just had to come back for more RTTY. <g>

Band conditions were really great. At times I thought the rig on 10 meters was
operating in squelched mode. Quite unusual for my QTH.

I could not believe I was having RTTY DX contacts with Alaska, Japan, Hawaii and
European countries, especially Russia, with my wire antenna and QRP sigs. The
QSO's were much, much easier on RTTY than on CW/SSB. I am now curious to see if
PSK31 will have similar results.

Thanks to all the participants who had the patience and skill to copy my QRP
sigs. Also thanks to the organizers and sponsors who made this event possible.

Equipment: Yaesu FT-817 QRP transceiver, 5 watts, to OCF 28-ga insulated wire
stealth antenna up 40 feet in trees next to interstate in downtown Atlanta
industrial area. Dell Latitude CPx 650 MHz Pentium III laptop, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB
HD, WinME, WriteLog 10.35F, Tigertronics SignaLink SL-1 interface.


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