[SCCC] CQ160 CW K0XP Single Op HP

[Steve Harrison]

                     CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW - 2023

Call: K0XP
Operator(s): K0XP
Station: K0XP

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): <15

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 302  State/Prov = 52  Countries = 15  Total Score = 53,533

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Comments:

I had forgotten how much fun the CQWW160CW contest is. I had technical issues
with both my trailer as well as the radio and computer setup, so was not able to
get on until Saturday night. Imagine my surprise when several Europeans popped
up later during their gray line at 0430, and I was even able to work them with
my make-shift, low inverted L, from the SoCal desert! Worked 48 states: never
heard ND or SD, nor DC. My battery State Of Charge dropped to less than 40% with
four hours left before Sunday's sunrise, so I stopped CQing so I would have
enough battery power left by sunrise to chase whatever DX showed up then.
Unfortunately, other than totally-deaf BI4SSB and BY4SZ, none did. But the Plan
C Orion Antler Ranch is finally on the air and contesting!

Several additions just for the SCCC:
I had technical issues with both my trailer and getting N1MM+ to work on my laptop
that can't (yet) connect to the internet from the ranch, and couldn't get on until
after 5 pm Saturday night (more about this at the bottom).

I never heard BI4SSB answer any W/K's, nor the several KH6s who also called, just
several of the JAs and there were plenty of them also calling that he never
answered (I could hear a small pileup of them calling). BY4SZ did, however, at
least work W6YI but I'm not sure whether he worked any other W/Ks or VEs, possibly
also N7KU. Last year, in the ARRL 160 test in December '21 from AZ, I worked
BI4SSB easily (first call); but I was still setting up the ranch this year for the
ARRL 160 so didn't participate. His noise level must have gone up dramatically
since then as I'm certain I'm just a peanut whistle to the DX.

I bought this 10 acre desert-land spread, located some 11 miles east of the old
W6ANN/W6BA spread (which is still there, complete with at least 5 towers, owned by
his granddaughter now), last March. It has a dilapidated doublewide manufactured
home in the center of the property that I'm hoping to fix up and move into before
I become too old and my kids have to tear me away from here and toss me in a nursing
home to live out my last days 8-/  Meanwhile, I have a 26 ft. trailer to live in;
and for AC power, have built up my own solar system complete with batteries (the
closest power pole is a quarter mile away). My solar power system is still under
construction but to date, I have four 250W panels up, charging six 105 A-Hr LiFEPhO4
batteries through a pair of Victron 100/50 Smart controllers, and a 2700W "pure
sinewave" Magnum inverter. The inverter is greedy for battery power, so I don't run
it too often; but it does great on RFI. To date, the only RFI I've identified seems
to be generated by my two Victron solar controllers; and for the most part, this
noise has been an apparent clock oscillator on some subharmonic of 3.5 MHz. There
is also an intermittent sweeping signal that runs across the bottom of 28 MHz but
only lasts a few seconds before it dies out. When the sun goes down and the panels
stop generating power, the Victrons seem to go into a sleep mode and the only RFI I
can find is a very weak wideband noise right on 7 MHz, not even strong enough to
cover weak Europeans.

Otherwise, you just have to be out here to fully appreciate the almost total lack
of man-made noise; I could hear schtuff during the contest that other sixes were
requesting many repeats for. 40m DXing is a dream; you can hear Europeans working
one another, just like we W/Ks do here. VU2GSM comes through on 7004 just about
every day, always Q5 until the grayline goes away with his sunrise. The other day,
I ran across A75GC on 7003, also obviously on his grayline; and not believing my
ears at first, didn't even call him at first. Then a feather coulda knocked me
over when he responded... while I was only running 100 watts, yet...

Solar panels generate DC; and so they DO NOT cause RFI by theirselves. However,
their controllers do. There are several types of controllers in use today: Pulse
Width Modulated, and MPPT. The PWM controllers are really nasty with RFI; you
don't want to use those at a ham station. The only MPPTs I've had experience with
are the Victron 100/50 models that I'm presently using; and that experience is
talked about above. Otherwise, such a battery-backed system also has an inverter
running from your batteries in systems like mine, and that inverter can
be noisier than all getout, especially the quasi-sinewave types that generate
shortened rectangular waves at a 60 Hz rate to simulate a sine wave; you don't want
to use on of those near a ham station, particularly under load when they open up and
cover the entire HF spectrum. The inverter I'm using now generates "pure sine waves"
and incorporates an iron transformer; at a rated continuous output power of 2700
watts, this thing weighs 80 pounds!! Unfortunatly, it's an older model, first
marketed in 2005, as the Magnum RS3000, and I don't know whether the later models
that replaced it, such as the XC-series, are as RFI-quiet.

So the bottom line is pay attention to the devices that actually compute and/or
switch: they are going to be the big RFI generators, NOT the pure DC generators
such as solar panels.

Finally: part of my "technical issue" Saturday night was realizing that unless I wanted
to type into N1MM+  my hand-written log after the contest, I would not be able to
submit a log to CQ AT ALL, since the rules now completely prohibit any but computer-
generated Cabrillo logs. Since the last time I've contested (December, 2021), my old
logging laptop has lost its cooling fan, so I can't use it for logging. My replacement
laptop had not had N1MM+ installed and configured yet. Since I don't yet have internet
out on the Plan C ranch, I had downloaded and installed N1MM+ during a grocery-shopping
trip into 29 Palms last week but had not filled out any of the configuration files, nor
set the laptop up to work with my keyer and radio. As I listened to everybody having so
much fun in the contest Saturday afternoon, I finally said "forget that.... let's just
get it configured and running, using the manual keyer but at least logging/duping on
the laptop,". So that's what I did. My point here is that now, CQ has prohibited people
from submitting paper logs at all, which is a HUGE turnoff for those who are unable, for
one reason or another, to use a logging program or computer while contesting (unless
you want to type your handwritten log later... NOT!!). This discourages those people, and
also casual operators who might want to submit a log but don't use a contest logging
program, from entering the contest at all. I understand the sentiment behind the
requirement for Cabrillo logs, but feel that it may be causing some casual operators
not to enter the contest at all. Often, those "casual operators" might be in out-
of-the way locations such as North Dakota, South Dakota, Yukon, Prince Edward, etc..
I vote a hearty "NO" on this requirement; there can't be all that many paper logs any
longer, can there??