[3830] 222Up K1TEO Single Op HP

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ARRL 222 MHz and Up Distance Contest

Call: K1TEO
Operator(s): K1TEO
Station: K1TEO

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 11

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  222:   57
  432:   73
  903:   29
  1.2:   32
  2.3:   16
  3.4:   12
  5.7:    5
  10G:    5
  24G:     
------------
Total:  229  Total Score = 148,103

Club: North East Weak Signal Group

Team: Really Weak Signal Group

Comments:

My intention was to do a full time effort, but Murphy intervened Sunday morning
with a broken rotor largely shutting me down. In the end mine was a largely
Saturday effort with about 85% of my QSO's then. Condx were poor on Saturday
and seemed better (closer to normal) during my limited Sunday operations.

I am glad this contest continues as I enjoy the lower key operating vs a
regular VHF contest and the chance to spend more time trying to work difficult
microwave QSO's. Activity was not as good as I would like and condx below
normal (the beacons were way down on all bands) but it was still great to get
on and operate 222 and up!

Tnx to the rovers for making things fun. I worked VE3CRU, KF2MR, KJ1K, WA2AAU,
W2RMA, WB2SIH, NN3Q and N2XRE that I can remember. Good job guys! What was also
nice is that most of these guys had microwave bands, which is different than the
full fledged VHF contests where more and more rovers do not. 

A few observations:

-My score is likely not accurate. I was using the N1MM logging program for the
first time. As often happens, I log a station on the wrong band and go back to
change it. I did this a  number of times and manually made the correction and
thought I did it right. Unfortunately - though I set up the eligible bands as
only 222 and up - these QSO's ended up being on 80 and 160 meters! Hopefully I
changed it correctly in the Cabrillo file but it's likely the distance scoring
was not accurate. I did not go back to recalculate all of my QSO's to see what
multiples it used for these QSO's figuring the ARRL will score it anyway. 

- After a couple of years now of the use of chat pages, texts etc, I can say
that this was the first contest where it seemed a large percentage of the QSO's
were arranged vs found randomly on the air. I did work a fair number of my QSO's
on CQ's or S&Ping but many stations I easily worked were never heard on the
air randomly. I have really enjoyed the excitement over the years of calling CQ
and hearing a rare station come back etc. This isn't a knock on the new rules or
approach to successfully operating a VHF/UHF contest currently, but it is a
major change from former operating methods. 

- Distance scoring was interesting. In the past if I worked a local they
counted as a QSO point just like any other contact and helped the scoring even
if not a new grid. In this contest locals are heavily devalued as they added
little to the score. On the other hand working a 3.4 QSO over a significant
distance has a very large impact. I think it will be interesting to see how
this would eventually impact rover plans. If I am a rover I would now be less
interested in roving in high activity areas and rare grids than in the past.
Now a possible strategy is  to find the furthest good location where you can
work back to the higher activity areas. 

-I congratulate and appreciate all the work that went into rethinking and
implementing the new rules. I believe we all had a chance to provide input and
I don't think I took the time to do so. Thinking about it and experiencing it
now I think the band factors might be a bit off. Admittedly my observations are
biased to what happens here in the Northeast but I would think something like:

222 - 1.5
432 - 1
903 -4
1.2 - 3
2.3 - 6
3.4 - 8
5.7 - 10
10 g - 9

might make more sense from what I observe about activity levels and difficulty
to make a contact. 22 for example is the easiest of the included bands but has
less activity than 432. But I consistently make about +/- 70 - 75% (even a
little more this time)as many contacts on 222 as 432. And it is a lot harder to
work a 1.2G QSO than a 222 QSO so having them equal makes less sense to me. And
finally I find it easier to make a 5G QSO than a 10G QSO though there is more
activity on 10G than 5G. Just my 2 cents and not criticism (especially since I
didn't take the opportunity to provide input ahead of time). 

Tnx for the Q's and for the work done to keep this contest going. Now to take
my arrays apart and go fix that pesky rotor.

73, 
Jeff K1TEO


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