[UK-CONTEST] CQ WPX RTTY- GW7X

[Clive Whelan]

Readers will no doubt recall the recent foray by Contest Cambria in the 
ARRL RTTY Roundup event, hosted at the station of GW4BLE and operated by 
Steve, who reported here at the time

Building on this, the group is pleased to report the results of a 
similar effort in CQ WPX RTTY this weekend. In similar vein, the effort 
was quite low key, although intensive at the point of operation, and on 
this occasion was hosted at the more modest station of GW3NJW. On this 
basis, no sleep was lost and a  couple of Rugby matches were viewed, 
including the very narrow victory by England over Italy, and the 
thrashing of Scotland by Wales ;-) .

The detail was as follows

Band           QSOs       Pts           Px

7Mhz          32             136           14

14Mhz         487            1114       261

21Mhz         184            425         106

Total             703           1675        381


Score  638,175 points


Considering the K index was 4, with the flux lingering at 72,  
conditions on 21Mhz were pretty reasonable, with fair openings to the 
Caribbean, South America and the Southern states of the USA. Countries 
now a rarity, on CW at least, were worked, including HK, HP, TI, YN. as 
well as XE, YV5, LU etc. Sadly nothing was heard from Africa ( apart 
from EA8), and from memory Asia was limited to UA9 and perhaps UN.

14Mhz was much as I would have expected on CW, in such sunspot minimum 
conditions, but with 3W, & E21 from the far  East and a solitary VK4 
from Oceania . Nothing was heard from JA ( do they "do" RTTY in JA?). 
Rather strangely little was heard from the West, except from all US call 
areas (and some VEs,) including genuine 6s and 7s judging from the 
flutter, which of course made RTTY much harder to copy than other modes 
would have been. Again nothing was heard from Africa( again save EA8).

7Mhz was used only for about 45 minutes, as may be seen from the stats., 
with the only real DX being from the USA and UA0, although the very last 
QSO with the 5C5 at about 20z on Sunday, was a welcome African.

Equipment used:

ICOM 756PROIII
ACOM 1000
Force 12 C3SS at 30ft a.g.l.
Butternut/W1CF array ( 7Mhz only)

N1MM logger( with MMTTY)


Hopefully one or other group member will also host the BARTG event next 
month. CW and SSB events however will not be neglected, since we 
possess, corporately, a modicum of expertise in these modes, which is 
decidedly not so for RTTY.



73



Clive
GW3NJW