[RTTY] W1ZT 2002 Volta RTTY SOABHP

[George Johnson]

Short version:  Results better than last year... but still a struggle.
The format and rules are excellent...  and more participation would make
it even better.

Comments:  Band conditions were very poor at the start and I started
thinking about "other things to do" early in the contest time period.
But signals did improve on 15m and the P5 activity gave way to contest
activity from Europe shortly after the start.  For the USA, this is a DX
contest and requires constant access to other continents.  Unfortunately
at this time of year, 10 meters just doesn't support it.  This year was
no exception.  However, DJ3IW and UA1AKC seemed to poke through the
ether on 10m for some reason.  They were working other stations I just
could not hear... but they could hear "us".  As K4GMH noted, ZX2B,
ZS6RVG and the other southern hemisphere stations were working both
North America and Europe at the same time.

80m is the other "special" mult band and was noisy again.  My thanks to
those who graciously agreed to try 80m for the extra multiplier and
potential "bonus".

Somehow I managed to get ahead of last years' QSO total by a small
margin so I decided to stay in the chair and keep going.  I had asked
Bob, ZL2AMI about 40m and was planning on looking for him at his sunset
vs my sunrise which we did last year.  He appeared shortly after 0500z
and I found him in the midst of CW operators.  We finally connected.  I
noticed he went up "high" to 7080 Hz afterward and had a tremendous
signal around 0530z... but apparently no one else was listening.  Thanks
again Bob for always being active and accessible to all of us.

Other Highlights:
SV2ASP/A suddenly appeared and called a long CQ.  I needed him for a new
one and had missed out on the chances earlier this month.  He came back
on one call and we chatted briefly ... no contest credit but a big
highlight for my RTTY DXCC.  It's great to find the rare ones before
they are spotted...  :-))

A second computer with DX Telnet running really improved my sense of
what was happening on the bands.  Phil's, GU0SUP, comments on "auroral"
signals made me smile and adjust the buffers for more repeats.  I had no
aversion asking for and receiving requests for long callsign or serial
number repeats.  The Ritty filter was set to "polar" for most of the
contest.  The second computer had WriteLog running as a log backup and
networked to the main computer.  This is proving to be a nice
configuration although I did not get a second RTTY decoder running on
that machine in time for this contest.

Lowlights:  Bands were dead at times but there was not much activity
either.  The USA participation is fairly low.  The sponsors have done an
outstanding job on the points table, operating time period, available
"district multipliers", etc.  Maybe we are all saturated with contests
by May but this format is a good one.  Millions of POINTS keep rolling
in with every contact !!!

Finally, thanks to the SSB and RTTY club of COMO and the ARI for their
sponsorship and support.  This contest is a wonderful event to recognize
the contributions of Allessandro Volta.
And thanks to all of the RTTY contest enthusiasts who stay with the
marginal conditions to keep testing the propagation for those constantly
changing band openings.  The challenge becomes more difficult each year
as the sunspots decline.


2002
-+- ALLESSANDRO VOLTA RTTY DX Contest -+-
Sponsored by SSB and RTTY club of COMO and A.R.I.

CALL: W1ZT
Country: USA W1

Class:  A1 Single OP., All Bands

            QSOs Points DX: Call Areas
80m:           11   288     6     4
40m:           58  1002   25   11
20m:         173  3183   44   16
15m:         126  2469    34    8
10m:             9   374     8     0
Total:         377  7316   117     39

Bonus multipliers: 7
Total multipliers: 163
Score:   449,575,516


Station Description: Icom 756PRO + PA 400W

Antenna(s): 80M Inverted Vee
            40M Rotary Dipole Force 12 C4
            20/15/10M 2 element Yagi Force 12 C4

George Johnson, W1ZT
30 Washington St
Beverly, MA  01915
USA


Bonus Multipliers
DX Countries worked on at least 4 bands
DL I LU LZ SP UA UR

80m Summary
Countries
DL I LZ PA SP UR
Call Areas
K3 K5 K6 K9

40m Summary
Countries
CT DL EA ER GW HA I LU LZ OH OK ON S5 SM SP SV UA UA2 UN UR XE YO YU ZC4
ZP
Call Areas
K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K9 K0 VE2 VE6 VE9 ZL2

20m Summary
Countries
4X 5B 9A CX DL EA EI EU F G GM GU GW HA HB I IS KL KP4 LU LY LZ OD OE OK
OM ON PA S5 SM SP SV T9 TA TF UA UA9 UN UR YL YO YU ZC4 ZS
Call Areas
JA1 K2 K4 K5 K6 K7 K8 K9 K0 VE3 VE6 VE7 VK4 VK6 ZL2 ZL4

15m Summary
Countries
5B 9A DL EA EI ER EU F G GU GW HA HB I LU LZ OD OH OK OM PA S5 SM SP SV
T9 UA UR VU YL YO YU ZC4 ZS
Call Areas
K2 K4 K5 K6 K7 K8 K9 K0

10m Summary
Countries
CX DL KP4 LU PY UA YV ZS
Call Areas