[3830] CQ WW RTTY AE0EE SOAB LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: AE0EE
Operator(s): AE0EE
Station: AE0EE

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: MN
Operating Time (hrs): 27

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  State/Prov  DX  Zones
-----------------------------------
   80:                           
   40:   74      28      19    10
   20:   89      27      32    14
   15:   87       5      44    19
   10:    1       0       1     1
-----------------------------------
Total:  251      60      96    44  Total Score = 110,600

Club: Minnesota Wireless Assn

Comments:

45 W, dipoles up 25'.  It would have been very beneficial to have an antenna up
for 80 m.  The 10 m antenna was wishful thinking.

Looking over my score from last year, the score is up without additional bands
(indeed, functionally minus 10 m), QSOs are up by about 10%, and op time is
down 10%.  DX worked was also up this year (leading the score to be up),
increasing to 52 from 33.  Some improvement came from the addition of an
antenna tuner to my shack, which meant the transmitter output power came up to
45 W for all bands (was 25 W last year except 45 W on 15 m).  

This was my first RTTY contest using MMTTY with N1MM+.  MMTTY/N1MM+ was a great
improvement in efficiency from my previous situation using Fldigi as a
standalone.

I heard a bunch of new entities out there (about 10-12), and worked at least
two of those.  Most of the ones I didn't work were under a huge pileup and had
fairly weak signals.  Several were calling CQ in my face (like most stations I
heard on 10 m), though usually with a fairly weak signal.  One thing I
established this weekend is that my HF station has pretty good ears compared to
its power.  There were a lot of stations I could hear which couldn't hear me,
and some relatively rare DX without much/any pileup (that couldn't hear me).

Propagation to Europe seemed pretty good, especially on 15 m, and I had a
couple of long openings (albeit weak) to the Middle East.  Oddly, I didn't seem
to have much of an opening to Japan, Asia, or Oceania. 

My trusty Yaesu FT-857d's selectivity again left something to be desired, as I
found I had a tough time getting decodes when there was a strong signal nearby.
 The 500 Hz Collins filter helped a lot, but the issue still remained.  I think
I'd be faster to tune signals in if there were some way to make the scope in
MMTTY show the intensity axis differently (log-linear?) to make the location of
the peaks more apparent.  

The whole contest was, in effect, operated search-and-pounce, and the rates
were pretty bad throughout.  The first two hours yielded 2 and 3 QSOs,
respectively.  Rates picked up around 2100z Saturday, and maxed out at a
"blistering" 16 Q/hr.  That's faster than JT65, but not by much.  I
understand why so many RTTY contest ops are all about SO2R (or more).

For next time, I want to get an antenna up for 80 m---there were needed
QSOs/mults down there.  At some point, an amplifier would be good to get my
signal up to the full 100 W category limit, rather than having to dial it back
to avoid overheating from a high duty cycle.


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