[3830] TBDC K1LT Single Op HP

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                    Stew Perry Topband Challenge

Call: K1LT
Operator(s): K1LT
Station: K1LT

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Ohio EM89ps
Operating Time (hrs): 14
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 785  Total Score = 3,587

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

Since I had lots of time off work prior to the 2018 Stew Perry Topband
Distance Challenge, I decided to try shifting to "up all night" mode
to see how that works.  Over the week before the test I shifted my
routine about 8 hours west.  The day before the test I drove to
Michigan to attend a friend's party.  That required staying awake all
night and a couple of hours into Saturday morning.  I was able to
sleep about 5 hours before going to retrieve my child from her mom's
house.  Since I was going to be awake all night, I also tried starting
later in order to fit most of the nighttime hours into the 14 hour
period.

It was very hard to resist all of the activity in the hour before
sunset.  I broke down at 2153 and started CQing.  I ran for about 90
minutes and stopped to allow 31 minutes to elapse.  Meanwhile, the new
K3S was strangely blinking the display backlight along with my keying,
which I have never seen before on any of the other K3 radios.  At one
point the radio shut off as if power had failed.  Much grumbling!  I
reduced power a little even though I was already running only about
800 watts from the Alpha, which requires about 20 watts of drive.
Reducing power seemed to diminish the blinking for a while.

After the first 31 minute off time, I resumed running.  The blinking
got worse and the radio shut off several more times!  Much louder
grumbling!  New radio is supposed to be perfect!  I haven't even
started making payments yet!  So after about an hour I decided to swap
the new K3S into the second radio position and put the original K3
back in the first radio spot.  This process was complicated because
the new radio needs USB while the old radio wants RS232 serial
control.  It took about 30 minutes to re-cable the primary radio
position and reconfigure the software.  To test my hacks I pounced a
few times and then resumed contesting.  The result was an unplanned
off time that is only 29 minutes long.  Thus I am "unclaiming" 3 QSOs
to convert the 29 minutes of downtime into a proper off time.
Theoretically, no one loses any QSOs except I lose 5 points.

Eventually I took a little more time off to put the new radio in the
secondary position figuring it could receive despite the blinking.
Indeed it could receive and in fact there was no blinking and no
random shutdown.  I took no more 31 minute off periods.

For me conditions seemed fairly good.  The Europeans were generally
loud and there was no static or man made noise.  West coast stations
were also fairly loud.  At 0800Z i was still getting called by western
Eu stations.  Then I heard "IX" and "DL3".  It took a few
more tries
to put those together to make ZL3IX and point the receiving antennas
in the correct direction.  He had a reasonable signal.  I don't work
ZL much on 160 these days, so the contact was a treat but I don't have
a reference for "loud" ZL.  Since ZL is 28 points from here, I had
less pressure to work JA since those are only 22 points.

Normally I sleep through the 09 and 10Z hours but not this time.  I
got just less than 20 QSOs for each of those hours, and maybe nodded
off a couple times.  Especially jarring was the loud "QRL?" that woke
me enough to poke CQ button.

CQing all night means I don't have to squeeze into the 15 kHz JA
window because I am already there, although the window was not
particularly crowded this time.  No JAs answered my CQs but I heard
NO3M work JA3YBK with much repeating.  I considered joining the pile
but I expected I would lose my run frequency in that process.  Also
YBK was peaking about an hour earlier than usual so maybe I would get
a call later if I stayed the CQing course.  So I did not call YBK and
did not get called by any JAs or VKs, leaving ZL3IX as my best DX for
the night.  I rarely work JA in the winter SP TBDC.

Since I didn't take any more off time, I had to stop just past sunrise
while there were quite a few streaks still filling the waterfall.
Seems like trading 13Z for either 09Z or 10Z might be an even swap.
Not having to fight the grogginess after a nap is a bonus.

I was hoping to get to 800 QSOs which would be a new high point for
me.  Last year was disaster because the feedline to the transmit
antenna failed in an inaccessible location so this year's prime time
radio swap was quite wrenching.  Nevertheless, I can bring back the
propagation and participation "trends" table:

        raw     raw    points  cooked  cooked  points  cooked-raw
year   QSOs    score  per QSO   QSOs   score  per QSO     ratio

2005    491     2033    4.14    483     2439    5.05      1.22
2006    604     2224    3.68    didn't submit log in time
2007    691     3712    5.37    669     4293    6.42      1.19
2008    633     3328    5.26    617     3895    6.31      1.20
2009    761     4006    5.26    737     4871    6.61      1.26
2010    642     2477    3.86    623     2931    4.70      1.22
2011    656     2501    3.81    642     3169    4.94      1.27
2012    679     3214    4.73    667     3986    5.97      1.24
2013    723     3559    4.92    710     4525    6.37      1.30
2014    667     1937    2.90    655     2474    3.77      1.28
2015    620     1934    3.12    614     2440    3.97      1.27
2016    759     3381    4.45    742     4204    5.66      1.27
2017    antenna feedline disaster - quit with only 101 QSOs
2018    785     3587    4.57

Since I made a record number of QSOs, I would have to judge that
participation was "good".  On the other hand, the average points per
QSO is middling, so propagation was apparently not spectacular.
Alternately, DX participation was not good.  Actually, I worked a lot
of UAs at their sunrise, but relatively few DLs and OKs.  Someone else
said the K-index jumped during the middle of the Eu sunrise sweep, so
maybe conditions changed substantially during the contest.  But we are
trending better.

DX worked: 9A (3), DL (13), EA (2), EI (3), F (10), G (16), GM (3),
GW, HA (2), HB9, HK, I (6), KH6 (4), KL7, KP4, KV4 (3), LA, LY (3),
LZ, OH, OK (6), OM (3), ON (3), PA (2), PJ2, S5 (4), SM (4), SP, SV,
UA (6), Ur (5), XE (2), YL, YO (3), and ZL for a total of 35 entities
and 121 QSOs.  More northern Europe and less central and southern
Europe.

Equipment: Elecraft K3S, P3, K3, P3, half power Alpha 8410, homebrew
SO2R stuff, too many computers, 65-foot "tee" vertical over 70
125-foot radials, 2x4 broadside end-fire array of short verticals and
SDR receivers for beam steering to the east, 2x3 broadside end-fire
array of short verticals and SDR receivers for beam steering to the
west, and 800 foot Beverage for EL96.  2 element end-fire array for
spotting.

The "new and improved" phased array SDR receiver is almost ready.  I
just need to finish the software, put all of the dangly parts in a
box, and either build another set of short verticals or figure out how
to integrate 2 different receiving array implementations.  Maybe I'll
have something usable for CQ 160.

My nearest ham neighbor, KI8R, lives about 2 miles away.  Mike
apparently has an amplifier now.  His signal now maxes out the ADCs in
my SDR array which causes what sounds like a key-click that covers the
entire band.  However, this occurs only sometimes on his initial
key-down and even more rarely on subsequent letters.  So now I have an
incentive to get the new receiver on-line, since it has much more
dynamic range than my existing SDR receivers.

I again used the 2 element end-fire array that is aligned with my
transmit antenna in order to null my transmitted signal to locate new
stations.  Since I have a P3 on the spotting radio now, I can look at
my own signal while transmitting.  My signal looks pretty much like
Mike's except that his is taller by 6 db or so.  I can receive within
about 3 kHz of either signal without hearing any trace.  Both signals
sport weird looking sidebands about 40 db below the peak.  The
sidebands are weird because they constantly change shape.  I'll have
to capture some images and post them somewhere.


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