[3830] CQWW SSB NK7U M/2 HP
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Thu Nov 3 21:45:48 EST 2005
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: NK7U
Operator(s): NK7U, K7ZO, KL9A, W7ZRC, K7MK, KC7RSO, KL2A, AC7GL
Station: NK7U
Class: M/2 HP
QTH: Oregon
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 82 9 17
80: 368 27 60
40: 398 31 88
20: 1469 35 137
15: 804 33 92
10: 19 6 12
------------------------------
Total: 3140 141 406 Total Score = 4,048,347
Club:
Comments:
Now that the posting pileup has died down a bit I will throw in the NK7U story.
For the 12th year in a row NK7U fielded a multi-op team for CQWW SSB. This year
again a M/2, which has become our class of choice since it was instituted in
2002. We have found this to be an ideal class for us at is matches the number of
operators we can usually assemble. Though the NK7U station very much would
support a M/M operation we can never really round up enough operators for such
an endeavor. (One memorable example on a NK7U M/M was in 1999 CQ WPX SSB contest
the story of which can be found on www.nk7u.com.)
Before getting into the story let me offer a couple of broad observations:
* First, conditions and our score were way better than what we expected with the
flux where it was at and fact there were no spots on the sun when the contest
started. Our score actually exceeded our 2003 score when the flux was at 120. I
have seen this observation in a couple other postings but in my mind it has been
underplayed. Things could have been much worse.
* Second, despite all the posts and grousing about 40M bandplans and the demise
of contesting due to packet, etc. the NK7U team had a heck of a lot of fun last
weekend. It was a time to get together with friends, talk ham radio, and spend
some time on the air contesting. We are as competitive about it as the next
gang, maybe even more so, but we also make sure we have fun. That is what it is
all about. We thank everyone we worked for the QSO’s and we hope we made your
weekend a bit more fun as a result.
With that said our operators this year were:
* NK7U – station owner, tower and antenna master, and late night operator
extraordinaire. In the couple of weeks before the contest Joe did an amazing
amount of antenna reconfiguration work which really paid off in our score. He is
getting a good feel for the unique challenges of his QTH and is really getting
things dialed in.
* KL9A – our ringer and run master. We have to share Chris with K3LR where he is
heading for CQWW CW to be the main 40M op. Luckily Chris lives within driving
distance of NK7U so we can usually talk him into making it for the SSB
contests.
* KC7RSO – a relative newcomer to contesting, Aaron has rapidly developed from
an S&P Mult operator 2 years ago into a full-blown rate junkie this year. I knew
he had come of age this year when I found him calling CQ on 80M split trying to
work EU – which is not the easiest thing to do from the west coast. KL9A is the
one who has corrupted KC7RSO and brought him into the world of contesting. How
many of you out there can count the number of hams you have brought into
contesting?
* W7ZRC – one of our all around operators who can do anything on and off the
radio. In between operating shifts Rod built three 15M 4:1 coax baluns for some
6 element 15M beams Joe is going to put up and will become our EU stack
* K7MK – Jim is an all around operator who made if for the first half of the
contest before having to head home to complete Halloween decorations on his
house. (For you National Lampoon Christmas Vacation movie fans – think Clark W.
Griswold does Halloween.)
* KL2A – one of our “competitive spirit” leaders Jon fights for mults, makes
sure we pass stations and mults around, and generally is the “we can do it”
voice.
* AC7GL – made it for the first time in several years. Rod is a mult op who
tunes the bands looking for those rare unworked mults. His efforts paid off in
catching the brief 10M opening we had on Sunday afternoon.
* K7ZO – this story’s author. Scott is a general purpose operator who also is
the contest organizer and manager, setting operator schedules, assembling meals,
and making sure the Writelog network stays up and running in the contest and
webmaster of www.nk7u.com .
Now getting into the contest itself. First a general “what happened” followed by
some good Soapbox.
In the hours leading up the contest the bands seemed to be in pretty good shape.
15M opened to JA for us right at their sunrise, which does not happen all the
time, even in high flux years. We had good runs going but the band died out as
the contest approached and it actually took us until Saturday afternoon to add
out first JA into the log on 15M. The first night was its usual tough solid self
but we added a healthy number of QSO’s into the log on 40 and 80M. Saturday’s
opening into Europe was as expected – fairly solid on 20M and nothing runnable
on 15M. We only had 15 15M QSO’s into EU on Saturday. Three of them during the
predictable late afternoon opening into Scandinavia. KL9A was manning the 15M
station at the time. I made a comment to him at one point: “About time for
OH6NIO to call in” and then went outside to help W7ZRC build the baluns. I
walked back in 15 minutes later and Chris said “You won’t believe who called in
right after you left”. When you can predict individual QSO’s you know you are
starting to become a real contester. The 15M opening to JA & Asia was much
better Saturday afternoon with 179 such QSO’s going into the log during our
opening from 21:30 Saturday to 00:45 Sunday. During this time we also had a good
rate into JA & Asia on 20M, which is a sign of being at the bottom part of the
solar cycle. This opening was from around 20:00 Saturday to 1:30 Sunday and we
172 QSO’s into the log. The Saturday night adventures on 40 and 80M were a real
grind compared to Friday night. The openings just didn’t feel as good at Friday
night and we have worked most of the strong stations anyway. Sunday AM presented
us with a great 20M opening into Europe as discussed below as well as a halfway
opening on 15M. On 15M we were able add to our mult totals and had a good enough
opening to run into Spain which is the southernmost path for us to Europe. We
had 60 EA’s in the log on 15M versus 4 DL, 8 F, and 9 I’s. As the band closed
down the opening shifted into the G and EI areas and we were pleased to work a
number of stations. Once the 15 and 20M openings closed down to EU it was time
for those brutal Sunday afternoon hours waiting for the bands to open to JA. At
this time it seems like the pileups on the Caribbean and South America stations
are at their worst. Luckily 15M did open to JA/Asia for us again on Sunday
around 21:15 and W7ZRC added 70 some QSO’s to log by the end of the contest.
Overall our final score of a bit over 4M was quite a surprise compared to
pre-contest predictions. When we looked at past years with flux near 70 we had
expected a score around 2M or so. We attribute our better result to Joe really
tuning his antennas to his QTH, increasing operator skill and competitive
spirit, and the seeming fact propagation was much better than the flux numbers
would lead you to believe.
Now for some fun observations and comments. I have worked in some comments from
Chris, KL9A that he provided me with his reflections on the weekend.
* Each year as a M/2 we have compared our score with the top US M/2 score to see
how we are doing. And, this year we are proud to see we continue to gain on the
competition.
Top Post NK7U NK7U as % of top post
2002 N3RS/12.9M 3.0M 23%
2003 K4JA/13.0M 3.6M 28%
2004 K3LR/20.3M 6.2M 30%
2005 N3RS/11.3M 4.0M 35%
As I have said in the past “We are gaining, slowly”. We have gained 12% in the
past three years for an average of 4% per year. At this rate we might win this
thing in another 16-17 years. :) Seriously though we do think we should be able
to get to 50% of the top score by the top of the next solar cycle.
* We set an all time NK7U QSO record on 20M this year at 1,469 blowing away last
year’s previous record on 1,155, though mults were down 13 from last year. Both
higher QSO and lower mults are reflective of the reduced propagation from last
year. Openings on 10 and 15 were much less forcing everyone to spend more time
on 20M leading to QSO counts. But, even then the 20M openings were not as good
leading to reduced mult counts.
Joe spent a good deal of time in the past month working on the 20M setup at
NK7U. He realigned this 5/5/5/5 EU stack to point it more northerly -- around 25
degrees azimuth vs. the 50 it had been at before. This seemed to really peak its
performance into EU and some A/B tests the weekend before the test showed it to
be 5db or so better than his single 5 element at 135 feet -- which is what he
expected. Joe also took his two monster 6 element 20’s off the TIC rings on the
80M tower and moved them out to the JA towers where he fixed them on JA. To this
he also added a 4 element 20M fixed on the Caribbean and put them all on one
WX0B box. So he how has a 6/6 fixed on JA combined with and 4 element to the
Caribbean. The 4 element gives us a quick way to work mults in the Caribbean and
South America area or is used to beam back across the US while we are running JA
to keep people off our frequency. As measured by our QSO totals we did very well
on 20M this year. A few substories were:
-- Our Japan 20M QSO totals skyrocketed certainly driven by
light propagation on 15 and 10M. We worked 59 JA’s on 20M
in 2004 and 266 this year.
-- Our Saturday morning EU run began around 14:15 when the band
first started to open to EU. KL2A did some power S&P’ing and
added 33 QSO’s to the log before it became runnable for us
at 14:58 when he settled in around 14340. We stayed on that
frequency for 3 1/2 hours and KL2A and KL9A added 280 or so
EU stations to the log during that time. The band closed for us
around 19:20 for a total opening of 5 hours or so.
-- The band was even better for us on Sunday morning, opening
earlier and with stronger signals than Saturday. Around 1300
the band opened up to the usual Zone 15 spots. KC7RSO and
K7ZO did some S&Ping to add new stations and mults to the log.
By sunrise around 14:30 the opening had strengthened and moved
east into Zone 16. The signals really built and soon the band
was packed with an S9 or greater signal every kc from top to
bottom. This was probably the strongest opening that K7ZO had
experienced. We knew it was runable with Joe’s 5/5/5/5 and
5/5 to chose from but the challenge was to find a run frequency.
We managed a couple of mini runs on various frequencies until
K7ZO settled in at 14232 at 15:45. He got things going and
he turned the run over to KL9A when his shift ended on the hour.
During the 16:00 hour KL9A added 133 EU’s to the log, one of
our best ever European rates on any band in any contest. We
managed to hold onto 14232 for about three hours. 20M finally
closed to EU around 20:20 for a total opening of 7 hours.
During that time we added 398 European QSO’s into the log.
* We also more or less matched our best ever 160M totals. We were one QSO behind
our all time record but set a country record at 17. This could have been much
better if we had managed to make some EU QSO’s like K7RL met. (See related story
later from KL9A.)
* However, part of the reason behind our high QSO count is that the number of
Zero point stateside QSO’s in our log is also way up from last year for some
reason. At NK7U we work and log everyone. After all we are probably a Zone 3
mult for some % of the stateside stations. (And having missed Zone 3 on 40M one
year out of forgetfulness, we now double check to make sure we have the
stateside mults ourselves.) Our stateside Q’s were as follows.
160 80 40 20 15 10
2005 30 111 20 152 198 1 512
2004 9 31 3 146 146 19 354
In the case of 20M the differences were not that great whereas on 160 and 80M
there were.
* Thus, while also easily setting an all time NK7U QSO record on 80M this year
at 368, beating our 1999 total of 237, this total is heavily influenced by our
stateside QSO totals. In 1999 we had a total of 64 zero QSO’s and in 2005 we had
118. In part this increase is due to aggressive CQing this year into VE to raise
our two point QSO total. Inevitably this will attract more stateside stations as
well. But, it was also successful in generating more points. In 1999 we had 54
two point QSO’s and in 2005 125. Our three point QSO totals were relatively
close -- 121 in 1999 and 137 this year.
* KL9A’s comments on 160M -- New beverage plays well. Will be even better to
have one to EU. (Joe’s current one is about 60 degrees vs. 30 for one directed
at EU, de K7ZO) Heard OZ1DD both nights, and UU7J the 2nd night. OZ1DD was easy
copy, and UU7J was an honest s9. They were the only EU I heard, and couldn't
even raise them to ask who was calling. Doh. Can't believe K7RL worked like 5
EUz! EA8ZS and EA9LZ were super loud, not sure if we ever worked them or not, I
know I didn't. (Nope -- we didn’t, de K7ZO)
* KL9A’s comments on 80M -- Working EU was fantastic. Lots of alligators of
course, mostly due to QRM I'm sure. Would be nice to have a EU beverage there
too, so we can RX down below 3750 effectively. JA seemed ok to me.. didn't we
work more this year than last? Joe slammed them on day 1 with the best of them.
Who can argue with that zone total?? AWESOME!
* Speaking of our 80M zone totals this is what the numbers look like -- only
KC1XX was able to exceed our zone score and only K3LR could match it. 27 zones
also beat our previous high of 25 that we hit in 1992 and 2000. This sure made
Joe feel good about all the hours he has put into his 3 element beam over the
years.
Zone Cty Total
NK7U 27 60 87 M/2
W4RM 20 72 97 M/2
KB1H 22 80 102 M/M
VE7SV 25 45 70 M/2
N3RS 25 91 116 M/2
VE3EJ 26 93 119 M/2
KC1XX 28 102 130 M/M
K1TTT 21 82 103 M/M
K1RX 24 85 109 M/M
W3PP 21 76 97 M/M
K0TV 19 71 90 M/2
NQ4I 26 91 117 M/M
K3LR 27 97 124 M/M
* KL9A’s comments on 40M -- Not so good to EU. In fact, down right horrible at
their normal sunrise/post sunrise peak. Seemed better the 2nd night, but still
WAY down from normal. JA's in early, and loud. Seemed like a good number of
them on Friday night too.
* Regarding JA’s on 40 and 80M as Chris mentions we did work about 5% more JA’s
on both 40 and 80M this year than last.
* One interesting 40M story to show what a fun band it can be came on Sunday
morning for us. As KL9A mentions 40M stays open well past sunrise. More than
most people think. At 1000 UTC K7ZO was Cqing on 40M hoping to work some JA’s
and not having much success. From time to time I would switch to NK7U’s EU 4/4
stack in a hope of attracting some VE’s. At this time I noticed we were spotted
on 40M and out of curiosity I opened the packet window to see by whom. The spot
was as follows:
LX1KC 7213.8 NK7U 59 , NOON HERE 1001 30 Oct 2005
That is amazing. I just wish he would have called me, or if he did if I would
have heard him. Or, for that matter if a bunch of Europeans would have called
me. But most people don’t check 40M at noon for DX.
* KL9A Comments on 15M -- Nice to see some EU in the log. New JA 5/5 x 5/5
kicks major butt. (Joe completed the 15M 2 high 2 wide echelon array for JA just
before the contest. Details on the nk7u web site. de K7ZO) I can hear the JA's
making their morning green tea in Tokyo before they even get to the rig! RW1ZW
qso is probably my favorite on 15m. I didn't spend much time on that band
though. Carib was PAINFUL to work. Not sure if it was condx, or a function of
the antennas? Never had a problem before. Usually a dominant force in typical
NK7U fashion. (A few more words on he RW1ZW QSO are worthwhile. K7ZO was tuning
20M around 20:40 on Sunday after the band was mostly closed to EU. He heard a
strong RW1ZW work a station so he moved up 5 kc and called CQ. RW1ZW called in a
couple minutes later. KL9A who was on 15M at the time had a feeling the band was
open to that part of the world in our usual afternoon opening to OH-land. So,
K7ZO convinced an unbelieving RW1ZW to QSY to 15M. Sure enough, after a bit of a
struggle, RW1ZW went into the log on 15M three minutes later. It is one thing to
pass stations when the band it open. It is another when you suspect the band is
open. N6MJ did this same thing last year passing stations from 15M to 10M from
the same part of the world for our only three EU 10M QSO’s.)
* NK7U ran a webcam again this year as we did in ARRL SSB in the spring. We also
added the innovation of posting our score for all to see as well. A niftly
little piece of software the KH6MGP made me aware of, SCWebcam, made it a piece
of cake to grab the score window off the WriteLog screen and post it to our
website. Based on the system logs we had about 250 visitors to our site over the
weekend. Probably 50 of those were ourselves checking our ourselves. Beyond that
I don’t get more detailed records of the visitors. If you were one of them let
me know what you thought.
The future is in realtime score posting. WA7BNM is creating some standard XML
file formats to help this happen. As the capability comes online, NK7U will be
there. I think it would be a good goal for all multi-op stations to be reporting
their scores in realtime by CQWW next year.
I could go on and on, but this is enough. Check out more good NK7U material on
our website, www.nk7u.com.
Scott/K7ZO
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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