[3830] CQWW CW WC1M SOAB HP
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Tue Nov 27 03:31:50 EST 2007
CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 43
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 74 15 46
80: 303 21 82
40: 473 29 97
20: 1284 27 109
15: 143 19 64
10: 1 1 1
------------------------------
Total: 2278 112 399 Total Score = 3,259,158
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Antennas:
160M - trapped vee @ 90’, trapped vee @65'
80M - delta loop @75', trapped vee @ 90’, trapped vee @65’
40M - 40-2CD @110', 4-square
20M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34’ on TICs, C3E @50', 4-el @72'
15M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34’ on TICs, C3E @50', 5-el @50'
10M - 4/4/4 SteppIRs @96'/64'/34’ on TICs, C3E @50'
Tower#1: Cushcraft 40-2CD, 4-el SteppIRs, trapped vee
770-MDP: Force-12 EF-420
AB-577 #1: Force-12 EF-515
AB-577 #2: Force-12 C3E
Delta loop and trapped vee hung from trees
580' beverage aimed 20-degrees
Equipment:
Orion + Alpha 87A, FT-1000D + Acom 2000A, Writelog, W5XD+ keyer/switcher,
homebrew Windows antenna switching/tuning software, Hamation Relay Drivers,
TopTen and KK1L SO2R switches, Green Heron and Hy-Gain rotor controllers,
microHam Stack Switch and StackMax.
Congrats to K5ZD for another mind-boggling win and to K1DG for making Randy
work for it. And my hat is off to anyone who spent more than a few hours in the
chair this weekend -- conditions were tough to say the least. Welcome to the
bottom of the sunspot cycle.
I usually take a week or so to do my writeup, but thought I'd better post this
while I'm still in the top ten on 3830. A few more score postings and I'll
probably drop down to the teens again! That's disappointing, considering how
much work I put into antenna and station improvements over the past couple of
years, but I don't think this was the contest to judge how effective the
changes will be in the long run. In fact, I saw pleasing indications that the
improvements will ultimately improve my scores and make the operating
experience more fun. But this weekend I ran into triple trouble: not enough
SOAB operating time over the past two years, challenging propagation
conditions, and a new antenna system to learn. And frankly, my game really
sucked at times.
I was glad to see K1ZZ's reminder of K1AR's advice about regular operating
activity being one of the secrets to success in contesting. I missed doing my
usual single-op in WW CW last year because my antennas were down pending
construction of the new tower. I operated at KC1XX, which was a lot of fun, but
that didn't provide needed practice for SOAB. I operated ARRL DX CW, CQ WPX CW
and IARU CW, but missed the QSO parties, Sprints and SS CW.
I tend to oscillate between intense periods of station building and intense
periods of operating, and the past two years have been mostly the former. I
just completed my first "real" tower and stack (thanks to W1ECT for his help.)
I also redid the automatic antenna switching system, which had become too
complex for a pure hardware solution: two separate SO2R banks and a stack of
three SteppIRs that can be divided between the two radios and have to be tuned
to the rig frequencies. The solution involved a couple of Hamation Relay
Drivers, custom PCBs with buffer relays, and homebrew Windows software written
in Visual C# (a steep learning curve for me, considering I hadn't done any
serious professional programming in 15 years, before object-oriented languages
became the norm.) I'm afraid to count the hours I spent constructing the tower,
antennas, rotors, cables, switching system and software. There are some photos
on my website at www.wc1m.com, but I have a lot more to document and post.
Maybe I'll get to that this winter (after plowing through my backlog of
thousands of unanswered QSL requests!)
Oh yeah, and then there was the big lightning hit in August, less than a month
after completing the tower. It took out two dozen pieces of equipment, plus a
feedline and stack switch on the tower. Thank goodness for insurance. It took
two months of hard work and running around to recover from that event, and the
schedule was so disrupted that I finished the new switching system only about a
week before the contest.
I'm glad to report that all the work was worth it. The stack performed
beautifully on 20m, producing the best and most sustained runs I've had since
10m at the last sunspot peak. I ran off over 700 Qs in less than five hours on
Sunday, with 154, 141, 159, 117 and 138 respectively. The proof of the pudding
is that I almost never had to struggle to copy weak stations. That has been
regular fare with the single-yagi antennas I've used from home for the past 10
years. I can't count the contests where I had to spend considerable time
digging *really* weak stations out of the mud, often resorting to near-ESP.
It's always been easier when I've run on big stacked yagis at KC1XX, K1RX and
KT1V. Sure, there are times when you have to strain to hear weak signals on a
big stack, but on the whole it happens a lot less often. That's the experience
I had this weekend with my new 3-stack on 20m. What N6BV says is true: just a
couple of dB gain will let you work another layer of stations. I can't wait to
try it on 15 and 10 when those bands start opening big a few years from now.
On the other hand, I have a long way to go to learn how to use the cool new
station I built. I knew this would be a factor going into the contest, and
expected it would take at least a couple of years to figure out how to juggle 7
yagis that can be stacked, rotated and assigned to either radio in any
combination. While the monobanders and C3E were useful at times, I ended up
using them less than expected. I think they'll be more useful when conditions
improve, but this weekend I found it difficult to crack pileups with the single
low yagis and had to resort to the stack pretty often. I'm glad I put all three
SteppIRs on TIC rings -- nothing like bringing a big gun around to smash your
way through a pileup. I don't think I had to call more than twice using the
stack any time during the weekend, and having to call more than once was rare.
But it takes time to rotate the stack, so I'm hoping the low yagis will be more
useful for S&P when conditions improve. Anyway, there are a lot of combinations
to try, and many situations to which they can be applied. I'm just getting
started.
As for propagation, I guess we're really at the bottom of the sunspot cycle. I
often complain about 15 and 10 being lousy this far north when conditions are
disturbed, and this weekend was no exception. NY3A in Albany put it well when
he said it wasn't a good time for simple wire antennas on the low bands. I
couldn't get a run going to save my life on Friday night, and ended up S&Ping
almost the entire time. I could hear plenty of Europeans, and could work them
all S&P, but there was no rate to be had. I focused on accumulating as many
mults as I could, and probably should have spent more time just working every
station I heard during each pass. I had something like 300 Qs after eight
hours, which really knocked the stuffing out of me. I figured the top ten was
out of reach.
With so much S&P you would think my mult performance would have been better
than usual, but I wound up with a disappointing mult total. The big question
for me is, did I make stupid operating mistakes or were the mults just not
workable from here with the antennas I have? I have a feeling it's a
combination of factors, including slow S&P technique, a lot more to learn about
propagation patterns and where to look for certain stations, no gain/directive
antennas on the low bands, terrain that's not ideal, and a northern location
that requires much more antenna firepower to compensate at this point in the
sunspot cycle. Oh yeah, and my game really sucked at times.
While 20 was great, 15 was terrible. It opened somewhat to Europe on Saturday
morning, and I made the difficult decision to give up 175/hr on 20 to run 15 at
60/hr. At the time I was worried that this was a bad decision, but many times in
the past I've stuck with the rate on 20, only to miss many Qs and mults by not
going to 15 when it was open. I'm glad I did, because 15 didn't open enough to
run on Sunday morning (odd that other stations reported a better opening on
Sunday than Saturday -- that certainly wasn't the case here.) Also, I made up
for the lost Qs on 20 with the big run on Sunday. As for the stack, there
wasn't enough magic in it for me to run 100/hr on 15 on Saturday, but I should
point out that when I listened on my old 15m monobander at 50', I could have
sworn the band wasn't open at all. That might explain why I missed so many
openings on 15 in the past! Still, I'm not real happy with how 15 turned out.
As for 10, it was an unmitigated disaster. I really don't know what happened. I
thought I listened frequently enough, but never, ever heard any signals, except
for a tiny peep from KC1XX via ground wave. I worked that one for a double mult
(thanks, guys.) K1IB lives nearby, and he worked 20 mults on 10 with a modest
antenna. The band must have opened at some point and I missed it. This has
happened in several contests, and I don't get it -- am I really failing to
check the band often enough, is my location some sort of black hole on 10, or
are the SteppIRs not functioning correctly on 10? I'll have to investigate
during the ARRL 10m contest. Most likely, I'm not checking 10 often enough.
I felt like I pushed the second radio very hard this contest, but still only
made about half the Qs on it that I should have. Some contests the second radio
really flows, but when conditions are rough it's much harder to do well with it.
I'm still working on that.
My preparation for the contest was good, though I could have done with more
sleep during the month. I nailed the food this time, eating modestly, selecting
foods that didn't make the sleep deprivation worse, took almost no prep time,
and could be eaten in the chair while operating. Breakfast consisted of hard
boiled eggs and fruit yogurt, lunch was tuna mixed with no-fat cottage cheese,
grape tomatoes and olives, and dinner was chicken and leek soup (made ahead of
time with a grocery store rotisserie chicken -- really tasty!) and fruit
yogurt. No bread, no carb snacks, no sugar. I snacked sparingly on nuts and
drank plenty of water. I drank one cup of caffeinated tea before each morning
run, and had one cup of decaf tea at some point. After many years of trying
different things, I'm ready to stick with this regimen.
I went through the first 31 hours with no sleep at all, except for a quick 20
minute snooze in the chair when I thought I was going to lose it around 0700z
Sunday. I slept for a little over two hours between 0830z and 1045z on Sunday
and, and spent 15 minutes taking a shower after I woke up. The sleep and shower
were critical to doing well for that big five hour stretch on 20. In retrospect,
I wish I'd slept before the runs on Saturday morning, but I felt working Pacific
and Asian mults on the low bands was more important. Might have to rethink that
strategy. At my age, 54, I need a little sleep to perform my best during the
runs (though I always feel awful for a few minutes when I wake up from those
short naps.) All in all, I felt better during this contest than I have for a
while, which I partly chalk up to good prep, good eating regimen, and being
excited about trying the new antennas and station configuration.
I did a better job staying in the chair this year. It helped to keep track of
breaks by jotting down notes each time I left the chair. Drinking so much water
caused more bathroom breaks, but most of them were 2-3 minutes or less. I
probably took about seven quick breaks each day, but the accumulated off time
wasn't more than half an hour at most. That's a lot better than I've done in
the past. In previous contests once I got out of the chair, I tended to find
ways to delay going back, running up significant off time in the bargain. This
year I consciously tried to make the breaks as few and as short as possible,
and I think that really helped.
All in all, not bad for a maiden voyage of the new station, but I had hopes of
doing better. I'm optimistic that more operating time with the new setup will
be the best medicine, and hope to do better next year. Aside from maybe
considering some sort of gain/directional antenna for 80m, I'm done with major
building projects for a while and plan to concentrate on operating as much as
possible.
Thanks to everyone for the Qs and mults. And let me join the chorus of
complaints about stations that don't sign frequently. Maybe we need to organize
a boycott (who wants to be first to not work that rare mult? :-) Better yet,
let's change the rules to DQ anyone who doesn't sign at least every five QSOs.
And while we're at it, let's make it legal to self-spot. That way, with
everyone doing it, there will be fewer busted calls, we'll all have big runs
and no one can gain an advantage by cheating. Hey, maybe the clusters will get
so clogged with self-spots that everyone will finally stop using packet and
discover how satisfying it is to find your own mults.
CU in ARRL DX CW and next year.
73, Dick WC1M
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