[3830] RTTY Roundup W6YX M/S LP
n6de@arrl.net
n6de@arrl.net
Thu, 9 Jan 2003 15:15:32 -0800
ARRL RTTY Roundup
Call: W6YX
Operator(s): K6ENT, N6DE
Station: W6YX
Class: M/S LP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
80: 109
40: 91
20: 292
15: 314
10: 318
------------
Total: 1124 State/Prov = 60 Countries = 42 Total Score = 114,648
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
Equipment:
Networked Writelog v10.37
CQ Station:
Yaesu FT1000MP MkV
Hal DXP38
MMTTY v1.62
S&P Station:
Yaesu FT1000MP
Hal P38
MMTTY v1.62
Antennas:
10m: Hygain 105CA at 31', Telrex 6-el at 75'
15m: Hygain 155CA at 25', Telrex 6-el at 75'
20m: Hygain 205CA at 36', KLM 6-el at 65'
Tribander: Force12 C31XR at 60'
40m: M2 ~2.5-el at 65', Inv-V at 45'
80m: Inv-V at 55'
Soapbox:
We are extremely pleased with our results! This was our
best ever RTTY Roundup. We had nearly 300 more QSOs
this year compared to last year, and missed the all time
M/S LP record (2001, N5ZM) by about 2,000 points -
the equivalent of just two more mults!
With the fierce storms that passed through Northern California
over the last two months, we were just happy to be able to
participate! Some of you may have heard on the news
about the pounding that Northern CA has taken this winter.
We have had numerous storms with wind gusts over 70mph.
There was a reading taken nearby the W6YX station that
clocked a wind gust at 120mph (193 km/h). It was inevitable that we
would suffer some antenna damage from these high winds.
Unfortunately, our 4-el 40m and 5-el 20m beams lost a few elements.
We were able to repair our 20m beam, but had to stick with
whatever was left of our 40m beam. We were able to load the
antenna through a tuner for the contest, although we put up
a 40m Inv-V just to have a reliable antenna on that band.
We have had a few antenna work parties this winter, mainly to
put up our C31XR, and to fix whatever damage the wind storms
did to our antennas. Usually this involved correcting the
direction of the antennas that rotated in the wind, and fixing
coax problems due to that unexpected rotation. Thanks to
W6LD and N7MH who joined us in work parties to resolve these
problems and repair the 20m beam before the RTTY Roundup!
We feel very fortunate that we didn't suffer any other
major antenna or tower damage which some of our friends
in Northern CA and Reno, NV unfortunately experienced.
Activity in this contest was amazing! We started with
94 QSOs in the first hour. In addition to North American
activity, I thought Japanese activity was much higher
than normal. We had double the number of Japanese
QSOs than in our previous RTTY Roundup efforts.
20m seemed to close to stateside unusually early
this year... around 0215Z. Everything was long
beyond that point (LU, JA). Last year we were working
stateside on 20m past 04Z! So, this year, as a result,
we went to 40m much earlier than expected. For whatever
reason, we could never get much going on 40m. Maybe part
of that was due to our 40m antenna problems. It just seemed
like many people east of us moved to 80m by the time that
40m got good for us out west, leaving 40m a virtual wasteland
for us for most of the evening.
80m was certainly the surprise of the contest. What
terrific conditions and low noise throughout the entire evening!
Last year, we had 33 QSOs on 80m. This year, we more
than tripled that total!
We stopped for the evening nearly 200 QSOs better than
last year, looking forward to continuing that momentum the
following morning, hoping for a good European opening.
It simply did not happen. Conditions from Northern CA
to Europe were very disappointing. The opening lasted
for slightly over two hours. Europe was very light on 10m,
so 15m was our primary band for European mults.
Our European QSOs were almost all made by S&P.
Western Europe (DL, F, EA, G) was the loudest, with
Eastern Europe being difficult to work. We were grateful
to the European stations, and especially the new mults,
who returned our CQs on 15m. Thanks to 9A7P who
said in their summary that we were loud on 15m. Too
bad we didn't work each other! There were a few
mults we heard that did not hear us. For the most part,
we were satisfied with our grand total of 36 European QSOs
and 18 mults, considering the tough European conditions
we had. We are blown away by the DX mult totals and
number of European QSOs made by KI1G and W1ZT!
Attached below is our continent QSO distribution.
We never ran out of activity on Sunday. There always
seemed to be plenty of new stations to work. Thanks to the
ten stations that had 5-band QSO sweeps with us (W6OAT, W5KFT,
VP5NN, AA5AU, K4GMH, N9CK, KI6DY, KA4RRU, KN6OZ, and
W1ZT).
Other QSO highlights include:
-Finding VR2BG and YB0JIV on 15m for new mults.
-VE8AE returning our CQ on 15m. The exchange
went something like, "599 Northwest Territories - is that
a good one?" Kent's response was, "Yes yes yes!!!!"
-Finding N7ON CQing on 3620 for the NV mult. We later
worked KD5MSS on 80m.
-Finding AJ3M for the DC mult, VO2NS for Labrador,
and getting every Canadian mult except Yukon and Nunavut.
We also missed Delaware.
-OR3T hearing us on 40m with one call, and ZL2AMI returning
our CQ with a big signal on 80m.
Thanks for all the QSOs and see you in WPX RTTY.
73...
-Dean - N6DE
80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total %
NA 108 90 265 241 262 966 85.9
SA 0 0 11 7 5 23 2.0
OC 1 0 0 4 6 11 1.0
AS 0 0 12 33 41 86 7.7
EU 0 1 4 29 2 36 3.2
AF 0 0 0 0 2 2 0.2
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