[RSM] CQWW RTTY Re-cap

[ed_richardson at shaw.ca]

First, if you didn't get on for this contest, you missed some real exciting
propagation. Clearly we are on the way up in the solar cycle and that is
some good news.

 

I casually put in 34 hours in this one, Things got real slow after European
sunrise, about 1AM Saturday and Sunday mornings so I took 5-6 hours off. The
European sunrise is often a great chance to work those European mults on 80
and 40m. 

 

It was great to work David and Harm, VE4DL and VA4HZ. For the MB mults.
Also managed to snag Shelly K0MKL on 40m. Sorry Jack, I did not hear your
QRP signal.

 

My propagation notes may come in handy for the CQWW-SSB event at the end of
October.

 

80m is 80m. My least favorite band but this year there was some decent
east-west propagation. No SA, Asia, or even Oceania was heard. Did work a
couple station in each of zone 14,15 and the usual north African zone 33.
There seemed to be very little aurora effect and the absence of lightning
QRN was evident.  NA signals were solid.

 

40m was a band of surprises.  European stations in zones 14 and 15 could be
worked both evenings starting about 3 hours before local sunset up to about
1 AM or European sunrise. This was unusual as often these stations are only
workable just around greyline. It was a real joy to be running stations and
to be getting calls from Europe mixed in with the north Americans.  Like
80m, this was mostly East-West with not many SA stations heard. Did work the
usual VK,ZL, KH6 zones after their local sunsets.  I did manage a few JA and
DS stations after our sunrise with good signals.  VE5MX reported this was
perhaps the best conditions on 40m he has ever seen. I wont go that far but
they were good.  The most enjoyable was being called by several stations in
zone 20 and 21 like 4Z, TA, YO, A71. Almost fell out of the chair on those.

 

20m was in pretty good shape from sunrise to sunset. Good openings to Europe
that lasted most of the day. Signals kind of diminished in strength by about
9:30 AM local time but then I realized that is normal when the MUF goes
higher. Sure enough everyone had moved to 15m.  The band pretty much
collapsed around sunset.  The usual Oceania stations that can be worked
after sunset were there, but difficult.  The JA opening late afternoon was
there but not at lot of participation I think.  The magical mid day opening
to JA occurred again with 3 stations worked shortly before noon local. These
JA stations were incredibly loud, 20-30/9  and no traces of the usual
flutter. No auroral distortion. There was no midnight opening that we
sometimes get during years around solar cycler maximums. Also, like 40/80,
there did not seem to be a lot of South America.  Having two radios with one
on 20 and the other alternating between 40 and 15 would have been ideal.

 

15m was finally showing some life.  With no sporadic e to help out the
propagation, this was strictly F2 bounces.  During the lower years of the
solar cycle, we start to see skewed openings to Europe on 10 and 15m.  Here
the signals arrive around 135 degrees azimuth, 90 degrees from the great
circle path at 45 degrees.  This year, there were simultaneous openings both
direct and skewed and both paths were very workable.  Worked many zone 20
and 21 stations along with the usual zone 14/15 group. Again like the other
bands, there weren't as many SA as normally we find. Not sure if it was
totally propagation, or just participation.

 

10m wasn't in play here.  Saw the spots, checked the band, nadda.

 

Managed to better my previous best score in this contest from 2015, even
without 10m contributing mults..

 

Band     QSOs     Pts          ZN          Cty  States 

   3.5     129          255         7             10    41 

      7     418         903        22            54   50 

    14     803         1972      25           76    49 

    21     219         614        22           66    19 

 Total    1569      3744      76           206  159

Score: 1,651,104

 

So don't neglect RTTY,  there are plenty of contests for this mode and it is
fun!  I hope that David and Harm will agree and they will be back for more. 

 

Special congrats to Todd VE5MX for a monstrous effort!  

 

Ed  VE4VT

 

 

 

Ed Richardson