[3830] CQWW SSB K9YC SOAB(A) HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: K9YC
Operator(s): K9YC
Station: K9YC

Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 29.5
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:    2     2        2
   80:   55     8        8
   40:   81    24       49
   20:  182    29       76
   15:  310    29       81
   10:  483    30       87
------------------------------
Total: 1113   122      303  Total Score = 1,317,500

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

Following the spirit of this year's contest season, I decided to "have 
fun"  by NOT putting in all-nighters to work JAs on 80 and 40. I was QRT 
Friday night by 11pm, and on Saturday night by about 10 pm. Both mornings, 
I let myself wake up in time to hit the shack soon after 6am. Saturday 
morning I hit 80m before going to 20M after dawn, Sunday I hit 40M for 
about an hour and found two Qs on 160 to give me two countries (K and KH6) 
and two zones (3 and 31).

The statistics above tell much of the tale.  While I was set up for 
SO2R, I didn't do much of it until Sunday afternoon. No matter how good 
conditions are, and how much work I do to improve the antenna farm, I 
still cannot run an opening to EU on any band. That pretty much limits 
SO2R to times when the bands are open to SA, Asia, or Oceania.

The good news is that the cleanliness of the K3s driving Titan amps give 
me the ability to have two radios ON THE SAME BAND at maximum legal 
power (only one transmitted signal at a time). I was able to do this on 
10, 15, and 20M. At one point, for example, I was running on 28,609 kHz 
and had the other radio in S&P mode on a different antenna listening to 
S3 signals only 17 kHz away. There was SOME phase noise, but it wasn't 
QRMing the desired signal (in this case, the ES51Z operation). Preamp 
was on, attenuator was off. Run antenna was the Steppir, the S%P antenna 
was a 4-el Yagi about 175 ft away. The S&P antennas for 15M and 20M are 
on a short tower about 125 ft (not measured, terrain is pretty rough) 
from the SteppIR.  At another point, I had the Run rig on 28,620 and the 
S&P rig on 28,551 kHz (70 kHz away) and heard no phase noise at all, and 
this situation was pretty typical. I observed similar results on 15M and 
20M.

This experience with good rigs and good amps, and with careful tuning of 
the amps, drives home the point I have been making about the poor 
sportsmanship of those hams who can afford to do it right but choose not 
to do so. When I lived in Chicago, there was one ham who was broad as a 
barn door and others who were not. Ever since I moved here I've experienced 
very broad phase noise sidebands from one well known local ham, while most
other who are much closer and running legal power were nice and clean (and
louder). That ham is now using K3s, and while he's still broad, it isn't as bad
(even while I was here he was more than twice as broad). Another top contester,
a serious EE who lives 3 miles north and experiences the same issues, suspects
problems with his power amp or its tuning. Another neighbor has recently joined
in the the dirty signal department. One of them typically chews up 20 kHz of
whatever band they're working, even on CW. Two of them running CW on the same
band can easily wipe out 40kHz. This was a real problem for that top contester
during CQP (I was 200 miles away in Tehama Co), and it almost certainly cost
him one place in the standings. 

My experience with my K3s and 30 year old Titans during CQWW SSB proves 
that there is no excuse for this sloppy behavior on the part of these 
two selfish hams. It's like running down the basketball floor with your 
elbows flying, but the guys you're hitting are on your own team!  Many 
of us are engineers by training, and SHOULD be able to assist those who need
help in cleaning up their act, but they must WANT to do it. It's long past time
to stop excusing this bad behavior by saying that "we're too close" -- if I can
run legal power into antennas on the same band, same mode, less than 200 ft
apart, there's no excuse for a guy 10-15 miles away wiping out 20 kHz
transmitting CW or RTTY.

73, Jim Brown K9YC


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