[RTTY] How was your WPX RTTY?

Mon Feb 15 11:10:57 PST 2010

Hello All,

The increased activity along with improved propagation made for a fun
Contest.   A relative large number of new (at least to me) RTTY contesters
was logged based on the WL SCP.  Welcome and hope you had fun - join us for
the next one.

Finding 15 in relatively good shape was a surprise except it disrupted my
Contest plan.  My pre-Contest thinking was 15 would close up, if even
opened, around 1600z yet still be too early for 40 to be active from
Virginia to Europe (second radio).  The pre-Contest plan was to take a
couple of hours nap and return to the shack for an extended time on 40/80.
However, the 15 m propagation from Virginia to Europe lasted longer than
planned.  Only able to take a short nap.  Other part of the pre Contest plan
was to take some time off Sunday afternoon (LT) to watch the NASCAR Daytona
500 Race.  Usually the Race last approx. 3 hours plus, except for this year
when it took over 6 hours.  End up watching the end of the Race on the TV in
the shack while trying to run SO2R.

Never did get to fix before WPX RTTY Contest the West Beverage found to not
be working during the XE RTTY Contest the previous weekend.  A lot of snow
was received in this area the weekend of the XE Contest and in the week
leading up to WPX Contest (new winter snow fall record).  By the WPX
weekend, the day - night temp. swing had caused some of the snow to turn
into ice.  The snow/ice combo. was my excuse for not getting out to try and
fix the Beverage.  However, got fed up not having the Beverage Fri. night
and during my Sat. break braved the elements to fix it.  Problem was the
wire going to the matching xfmr box from the ant. had broke (looked like it
had been chewed - possibly by a squirrel?).  Twisted the ends together and
solved that problem.  (By the way, never was able to see the matching xfmr
box as it was buried too deep under the snow/ice.  Tried to free it from the
snow/ice but was afraid of damaging it trying to breaking through the ice.)

The Contest seemed to start slow, similar to what Ed, P49X, experienced and
reported in his post Contest write-up.  Fortunately, after the first hour
the pace picked up and was able to almost make an average of 100 QSOs per
hour for the full thirty hours.  Thought this objective might be realized
until the last several hours.  Then the rate dipped far enough below the 100
per hour to miss the average of 100 QSOs per hour for the Contest period.
This was not a goal at the start of the Contest, but seemed possible for me
once the above 100 QSOs per hour rate was realized for a number of hours.
Maybe next year.

My goal for the 2010 WPX RTTY Contest was to increase my score making it
harder for Ty, K3MM, to win the SOAB HP NA category.  Ty had been beating me
by approx. 1 million points the last couple of years.  This year my raw
score was over 2.5 m more than last year's.  Not sure how Ty did this year.
Will I again be disappointed?:>(  Just kidding as it is always fun to
compete against the best.

The "old" radios, IC746s (modified), and all the homemade equipment seems
worked well.  Kind of fun getting the max. out of the "old" radios.  The use
of the front end attenuator makes it possible to still use the "old" radios
even when experiencing a near-by encroaching loud station.  Maybe will
replace the "old" radios for next year's Contest as the bands are getting
more crowded making filter bleed through become more evident on the MMTTY
spectrum display.

A big station change this year was getting the PTT to not drop at
inopportune times.  Don, AA5AU, gave me the info., several weeks ago, on
what was wrong with my original set-up.  Once his fix was incorporated, no
more random PTT drop outs running a macro.  A big relief to know when a
macro key is pushed, it will be transmitted to completion.  Thanks, again,
Don.

Hope you all had as much fun this weekend as I did.  See you in the next
one.

On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 12:29 AM, Don Hill AA5AU <aa5au at bellsouth.net>wrote:

> I hope all of you had as much fun as I did.  After years of low sun
> activity, wasn't it nice to have better high band condx again?
> I took my second tower down a few weeks ago in anticipation of having a
> patio cover installed (the tower was mounted on the patio),
> so I basically have lost my ability to do SO2R on the high bands until the
> tower is relocated.  So I decided to do a 20M single band
> effort.  With the flux rising to the upper 90's, I thought about going
> single band 15M, but just thought 20 would be more fun.
>
> I got off to a slow start since the contest begins at sunset and just
> couldn't get much going.  I took a look at 15 about an hour
> into the contest just for the heck of it and saw a load of JA stations
> (well after my sunset).  I wondered if I made the wrong
> decision to go 20 instead of 15.  At 0300Z signals disappeared on 20 so I
> went to bed.  I awoke at 2 AM (0800Z) and decided to check
> 20M.  To my delight, there were strong EU signals all across the band.  I
> don't know how many years have passed since I've seen this
> opening.  It used to be my "secret" weapon.  This opening helped propel me
> to both my CQWW RTTY Low and High Power Single Op wins.
> When condx are right, I can work EU all night long (after their sunrise).
>  The problem, as I encountered a bit this year, is that EU
> is not beaming NA just after their sunrise.  So even though stations like
> 4O3A were booming in, they couldn't hear me right away.
> Only the western EU stations, like EA could hear me even though I was
> running 600 watts to a tribander at 55 feet.  After about an
> hour, I could work any EU station I could hear.  I was in bliss!  Just
> before my sunrise around 1130Z, the EU signals nearly
> disappeared.  I knew this to be normal, so I took an hour nap to come back
> and find the band chocked full of signals again.  The
> rest is history.  Saturday during the day, I had great runs of several
> hours into EU late into the afternoon (well after dark on
> their end) and of course, NA.  I was disappointed in the lack of JA signals
> at sunset, but I had to quit early or I would run out of
> time on Sunday.  I did wake up briefly at 4 AM Sunday to look at the band
> spectrum on PRO III to see NO signals at all.  So getting
> that all-night opening to EU the first night was very lucky.
>
> Sunday was not nearly as good as Saturday as the flux dropped at bit and
> the K rose to 2.  But it was still decent.  I love being
> able to use the Packetcluster in this contest.  I had set a goal of 1000
> Q's and 500 mults, but early Sunday I realized I had a
> chance to break the USA 20M single band record so I started pushing hard.
>  I was on a mission and every new multiplier spotted
> became a "Search and Destroy" mission.  It got to be a LOT of fun.  There
> are only three multipliers I could not get - A61BK, ZC4LI
> (pileups too big or just couldn't hear me) and WW2R (in TX, couldn't hear
> me).  At 1933Z, I broke the USA record but pressed harder
> knowing the score will get dinged a bit after log checking.  My 3830 post
> is at:
>
> http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/3830/2010-February/191934.html
>
> It amazes me that after more than 26 years of RTTY contesting, I still get
> as much enjoyment out of it as I do.  Man, I just love it
> when the band are open!!!  There's nothing in the world like it.
>
> So how was YOUR WPX RTTY?
>
> 73, Don AA5AU
> http://www.aa5au.com
> http://www.rttycontesting.com
>
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-- 
  73,
  Mike, K4GMH