ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: WC1M
Operator(s):
Station:
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 44
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
----------------------
160: 45 39
80: 269 58
40: 684 74
20: 864 84
15: 746 80
10: 965 83
----------------------
Total: 3573 418 = 4,480,542
Club: YCCC
Comments:
Equipment:
FT-1000D / Alpha 87A
FT-1000MP / ACOM 2000A
Writelog by W5XD
Antennas:
160M: E-W Trapped inverted vee @ 55'
80M: NE/SW Delta loop at 75' / E-W Trapped inverted vee @55'
40M: Full-size 4-square with 60 ground radials per element
20M: TH-7 @70' (U.S. Tower MA-770MDP tubular) / C3E @ 50' (AB-577/GRC mast)
15M: TH-7 @70' (U.S. Tower MA-770MDP tubular) / C3E @ 50' (AB-577/GRC mast)
10M: TH-7 @70' (U.S. Tower MA-770MDP tubular) / C3E @ 50' (AB-577/GRC mast)
580' NE beverage for 160M/80M/40M
This could be my first top ten finish from home, and only my second ever (the
other was 2000 WPX CW from K1RX -- I think.) A few more scores are due in
(including K2QM's) so I'm probably on the bubble. We'll see. My big secret for
success is that several top contesters did not compete in the single-op
category this year, leaving room for me! Otherwise, it would be the second ten
for sure. Still, this is the highest number of QSOs I've done in any contest
(about 700 more than last year), my best ARRL DX mult performance (about 90
more than last year), my best score in ARRL DX (1.7M higher than last year),
and by far my most respectable Q's vs mults performance ever -- I really worked
hard to get more mults and this season's enhancements to my low band antennas
really paid off.
It was a fine contest. Conditions were not quite as spectacular as CQWW CW, but
they were consistently excellent on all bands throughout the weekend. The lower
flux numbers were more than offset by the quiet geomagnetic field. The low
bands were very good, with 160M open both nights. The lower participation in
this contest versus CQWW reduces the top hourly rates that can be achieved from
my modest antennas, but near-record QSO totals were possible for the big guns.
It's fun to have the world looking to work the U.S., and the power exchange is
interesting. I'm always stunned when a 1W station in Eastern Europe is S9+10dB
here on 10M!
PREPARATION
A couple of months before the contest I acquired an FT-1000D, and did all the
mods (NB, APF, tuning, etc.). It would be the primary run radio, with the
1000MP used mostly for S&P. I was convinced that the notorious MP AGC problem
(even with the INRAD mod) was hurting my copy when working big pileups. Sure
enough, I was able to observe this phenomenon several times in the contest -- I
would be running on the MP and when the pileup copy got bad I switched over to
the 1000D. Copy improved enormously. Otherwise, the MP is a terrific receiver
(except for AGC pumping on QSK, which I rarely use in contests.) It's a huge
step up from my old FT-990 and encouraged me to work the second radio much
more. As for the 1000D, I love it -- great receiver and great ergonomics. The
500Hz filters could be sharper (the MP has a 400Hz INRAD in the 3rd IF), but I
don't know if it's worth getting a pair of 400Hz INRAD filters (the 1000D
already has a 250Hz INRAD in the 3rd IF.) Has anybody done that with a 1000D?
A less major upgrade was to add a second monitor on my computer. I had upgraded
to a flat screen to save my eyes (I probably sit in front of the computer 10
hours a day), and had a spare monitor. All I had to do was add an inexpensive
second video card. I already use a notebook networked into the main computer to
provide dynamic backup for the log, as well as the ability to generate reports
and check mults without messing up the main screen during a run. The second
monitor on the main computer allowed me to display a greyline program, a
propagation prediction program, a mult window for a second region, and the
AlphaRemote control software for the 87A. It was a nice addition to the setup.
The other big station upgrade was an ACOM 2000A to replace the LK-550ZC on the
second radio. I know this is an unbelievable luxury (luckily, the 87A and ACOM
2000A will hold high resale value), but I can tell you that not having to ever
tune an amp definitely improves speed and efficiency in SO2R. I knew that I was
avoiding changing bands on the S&P radio because of the LK-550 (even with its
vernier tuning) and never ran on that amp because of its very loud high-temp
fan speed. With the much superior second radio and amp, this contest was a real
eye-opener on what a great advantage it is to be able to instantly QSY or swap
which radio is running and which radio is S&Ping. K5ZD pointed out the latter
advantage in his terrific notes for CQWW CW.
I struggled for a long time deciding between a second 87A and the 2000A. I've
always loved my 87A and have become quite familiar with its inner workings. I
really like the folks at Alpha/Power and want to keep supporting their fine
work. Each amp has advantages and disadvantages. The 87A has PIN diode T/R
switching and AlphaMax autotuning on the fly (nice when you have more than one
antenna per band with somewhat different tuning requirements.) The downside is
the amp can't handle more than 2:1 SWR and trips when you get anywhere near
that. The 2000A can easily handle up to 3:1 at full power, but uses a vacuum
relay with a finite lifetime (especially when used for heavy contesting in QSK
mode.) The 2000A has autotune for initial installation, but not on the fly.
However, it only takes about one second to reach over and select the stored
tuning parameters for a different antenna. The 2000A has a terrific remote
control head, so the amp can be located up to 10 feet away (mine's on the floor
and I can hardly hear it.) The 87A can be almost fully controlled from Windows
while I run Writelog. The 87A is more expensive, and shipping costs are higher.
The Eimac 3CX800 tubes in the 87A are *very* expensive compared to the quite
reasonable Svetlana 4CX800 tubes in the 2000A (but then again, will Russian
tubes be reliable and available in the future?) The recent upheaval at
Alpha/Power certainly influenced my thinking, but was not the deciding factor.
In fact, I nearly scored a 1991-vintage 87A, but backed out when I found out it
needed an expensive board change to support AlphaMax. In the end, availability
was the issue -- I waited too long to get on the list for the "last" 87A run
and wouldn't be able to get one until long after the contest.
I contacted Jim, KI1R, about 2000A availability and although I was very close
to the borderline, he arranged for a guarantee that my amp would be delivered
before the contest or I could use their demo (please don't ask Jim to do this
for you -- it was a special favor and I was able to drive to Sudbury, MA to
pick up the demo.) Could Jim's kindness and service be influenced by the fact
that we both belong to YCCC? I sure hope so -- Kick Butt! It turned out that my
amp wouldn't make it until the Thursday after the contest, so on the day before
the contest I drove 2.5 hours down to Krassy's house in Sudbury to pick up his
amp -- ACOM 2000A serial #1! Krassy was terrific and spent lots of time
discussing the amp's design and operation with me. I want to thank both Jim and
Krassy for their generous offer and fantastic service. The 2000A is a dream to
use, incredibly well-designed and well-built. ACOM service is without equal
and I'm delighted that I decided to buy this amp.
The 5 hour round trip added some stress and back pain, but I can't complain.
Due to a postponed Board meeting in Seattle, I had plenty of time to prepare
and sleep during the two weeks before the contest. The original schedule would
have had me in Seattle for the week before the contest, flying cross-country
and arriving home on Thursday night (good thing I'm in charge of the Board
meeting schedule ;-) Except for installing and tuning the 2000A, I didn't do
any major station mods in the week before the contest, except for a
non-critical fix to one of my Nye RF Power Monitors. The SWR meter was dead --
turned out to be a cold solder joint on a capacitor (it was really fun and
relaxing to track that one down -- unlike the usual last-minute panic repairs.)
I managed to start a nap at 2PM on Friday and got at least 2-3 good hours
before the contest (I planned to sleep until 6PM, but woke up early -- gotta
get up a little earlier on Friday morning to get the max napping before the
contest.) The extra sleep was crucial for an attempt at the full 48 hours.
I considered food much more carefully this time. I decided to go the
high-protein route and started to cut down the carbs a couple of days before
the contest. I think I need to start that a day or two earlier. I bought a
bunch of high-protein snacks and food, and setup a cooler in the shack so I
wouldn't have to run to the 'fridge. I found an article on foods considered to
be "stimulating" by the Air Force -- avocados, yogurt, ginger ale, aged meats,
aged cheeses, etc. and loaded up on those. I planned not to use caffeine during
the first day of the contest, laying in some Diet Dr. Pepper for second-day
doldrums (in honor of K5ZD.) Turns out this strategy was my biggest mistake in
this contest. Even with all the sleep beforehand, I felt absolutely *terrible*
during the first 24 hours -- headachy and sleepy. I started to feel a lot
better just as the second day was starting (partly due to being happy about
having 2200 QSOs in the bag.) On Sunday morning, just before sunrise, I brewed
and downed a cup of Starbucks Sumatra to prepare for the big runs ahead. That
cup of coffee was a near-religious experience! I felt fantastic for the rest of
the contest. I had exactly the same bad-first-day/good-second-day in CQWW, when
I handled caffeine the same way. I'm pretty sure that I was experiencing
caffeine withdrawal on the first day and that's what caused the lousy feeling
and headaches. Next time, I'll either cut the caffeine 3-5 days before the
contests, or use my usual amount on the first day.
I had plenty of time to map out my band plan for this contest. I downloaded as
many score summaries and breakdown sheets for top stations as I could find, and
KQ2M was kind enough to send me his breakdown sheet for last year (a humbling
document, to say the least!) I included my own data from last year in the
analysis as well. I came up with a preliminary plan, then compared that with my
rate sheet and K5ZD's from CQWW CW. There are a few differences in the
propagation pattern between ARRL DX and CQWW, but not as many as I would have
thought. I suspect there are some differences in marginal and LP openings, but
I'd have to analyze the raw logs to determine that. In the end, I had a plan
for moving the run station from band to band and for checking various bands and
directions on the S&P radio. The plan included options that would depend on the
specific propagation conditions. In all, there were few surprises during the
contest, except some strong JAs calling me during what should have been
primarily European openings.
THE CONTEST
I was again disappointed with my 40M performance. I just don't get the big
first hour the top ops get, and my overall total was somewhat low. 40M was
incredibly crowded in this contest, and I had more trouble than usual finding
and holding a frequency. Discussions with KQ2M after the contest have convinced
me that the 4-square is no match for a high 2-el beam or better. It's not a
terrible alternative, and certainly superior to most other 40M options, but
when the chips are down it just can't compete. I'm going to have to give some
serious consideration to fixing this problem. The XYL isn't ready for a 100'+
tower here (that's why the setup is as wimpy as it is -- the tubular tower and
military mast are hidden behind trees.) I have a plan about purchasing a
hilltop across the river in VT and building a dream station (ala W4AN), but
that's a lot of money and a lot of work that I'm not ready for yet, and I
really love the convenience of operating from home. The good news is this:
after the contest I told the XYL that I probably could not win a major contest
without putting up big towers, and described my VT dream station. Her reply was
"If it means you'll take down those ugly antennas here, then I'm all for it."
Hmmmm...
As disappointing as 40M was, I was very pleased with 160M and 80M. Last year I
had nothing on 160M and just a very low E-W vee on 80M. This year I put up an
80M delta loop, converted the vee to a trapped 160M/80M vee, and installed a
580' NE beverage. I did that because my pal, colleague and contest rival Ted,
KR1G, was consistently beating me with low band mults. The results this time
were fantastic -- I had an incredible run of 19 mults in a row on 160M during
the 5z hour on Saturday morning. In all, I worked 39 mults on 160M, about 14
more than I had expected. I exceeded my target on 80M by one, with 58. The
beverage was fabulous, and even helped me late Sunday afternoon when 40M was
very noisy as it was opening. In the end, I nosed out Ted in this contest by 15
mults (he had about 60 more QSOs.) 12 of the mults came on 160M and 3 mults
came on 80M. No doubt, Ted will be gunning for me on the low bands next time!
The high bands were generally fine, although the totals were noticeably lower
than CQWW. For some reason, 15M lagged the other bands for me this time. I made
up for it with a solid performance on 10M, but I'm puzzled. 15M is often the
best band here. Saturday morning was a bit strange. The high bands opened a tad
earlier than usual, and my rate started dropping on 10M well before it usually
does. That forced me to an early QSY to 15M, which also slowed down earlier
than expected, sending me to 20M. This ended up costing me a lot of Qs on 15M.
The pattern didn't repeat on Sunday morning. I may not have S&Pd enough on 15M
both days, which further hurt totals for that band.
The EU sunrise opening on 20M appeared in the wee hours Saturday morning, but
not Sunday morning. It was not real spectacular here on Saturday, only
providing a couple of hours of running. But KQ2M ran it big for more than four
hours, which tells me that height and/or location are playing a big part in
limiting this crucial opening for me. Lack of antenna height is killing me --
both at the margins of band openings and at the peak of the openings when I
have lower sustained rates than the big guns.
I didn't sleep at all for the first 24 hours, which I think is the best plan
for a 48 hour contest. In fact, I went until nearly 0800 on Sunday without
sleeping -- 32 hours. As in CQWW, I didn't feel that I *had* to sleep then, but
was concerned that if I didn't I wouldn't be efficient during the big Sunday
morning runs. The rate plummeted by the end of the 7z hour Sunday, so I decided
to sleep for 90 minutes. Unlike CQWW, I didn't oversleep. I checked the bands
at about 0930z and they were still very slow. I decided to sleep for 45 more
minutes, then take a shower and brew that cup of Starbucks. In all, I took off
nearly three hours: from 0753z to 1048z. When I got back into the chair 20M was
rocking, so I probably missed at least 20-30 minutes of good running. In
retrospect, I should have slept for no more than an hour, and maybe shouldn't
have taken that shower (it did wake me up, though.) Using WT4I's Cabrillo Log
Checker, I discovered that my unplanned break times -- going to the bathroom,
reloading food & water, fixing problems, etc. added up to another hour of off
time. That's better than in previous contests, but I have to work on cutting
that down to 30 minutes or less.
The only equipment problem was with the DCU-1 digital rotor control for the
MA-770MPD rotating tower. Sometime on Saturday night it spontaneously lost its
calibration and the CPU's brain was scrambled enough that it wouldn't go
through the calibration process. This had happened a few weeks ago after a
series of rapid power failures, and I knew that if I unplugged it for a few
hours it would return to normal (I'm pretty sure it's designed so that the
power supply caps keep the settings if the unit is briefly unplugged, so they
have to discharge to reset the CPU.) Luckily, the fault occurred after the high
bands had closed and I discovered it right away (the display indicated that the
beam was pointing to South America when I knew I had last set it to Japan.) The
question was whether unplugging it for about six hours would be enough. Luckily
it was, and I was able to recalibrate just before sunrise. Had the beam gotten
stuck on Europe it wouldn't have been so bad, because most of the time one beam
is always on Europe while the other one rotates to South and NW. Still, late in
the contest I tend to point one of them South and the other NW, and "stack"
(parallel) them for search-and-pounce operation on 10M-20M. Had the beam stayed
stuck on South America, it would be been a bummer. I guess I'll have to figure
out how to safely short the power supply caps or get a spare Hy-Gain manual
controller (anybody got one they want to sell cheap?) I have both my rotors
controlled with preset boxes (homebrew for the Alliance HD-73), and it really
helps when things are flying not to have to hold down the buttons.
Oh yeah, there was one other problem: five minutes before the contest started,
I transmitted on the 87A and it went completely dead. Not a "soft fault" when
it keeps running, nor a "hard fault" when it shuts down but can be turned on
again. The power switch was dead. I realized it had to be a blown fuse in the
amp (the ACOM was running on the same circuit), and sure enough one of them was
blown. That should never happen -- anything that could cause a blown fuse is
supposed to generate a fault first. Anyway, I replaced the fuse and the amp
worked flawlessly all weekend. I'll have to make some inquiries on that one...
OK, here's the usual crabbing about operating practice. Some of you will be
angry with me for this, but I'm going to make the following remarks anyway --
I'd rather not assume that everyone knows what everyone else is thinking. The
following requests are made with the utmost respect -- if you don't want to
operate this way, then it's your business. I'm just thinking that there are
some stations out there who are not aware of how certain practices slow down
their rate (which slows down my rate):
1. When you call me in a pileup, just send your call once each time that I call
CQ, QRZ or TU. Sending your call multiple times often slows me down because you
are QRMing me or the station I'm trying to work. That slows things down for
you, too. Timing and pitch are more important for getting my attention than
calling over and over.
2. When I come back to you with the correct call, don't resend your call and
don't send the exchange more than once -- unless I ask for a fill with "?",
"CALL?", "NR?", etc.
3. Don't send my call! Don't send it when calling and don't send it as part of
the exchange. About the only time it's reasonable to send my call is when
there's another station trying to run on my frequency (in which case your
sending my call will help get rid of the intruder!)
4. If I do ask for a fill, just send the requested information once. Over 90%
of the time that's enough. If I don't get it, I'll ask again.
5. If I get your call wrong, just send it once -- I'll acknowledge by sending
the corrected call, prefix or suffix. If I still have it wrong, please call me
again -- we'll both be penalized if I log more than two letters incorrectly.
6. This one may offend some of you: after you send the exchange, please just
send one thing to turn it over: "TU", "BK", "AR", "K", "GL" or something like
that. It's pleasant to hear something like "TU 73 GL OM CUL", but it slows
things down for everyone and its definitely not appropriate if I'm running a
pileup with 20 stations waiting to work me.
7. Some people seem to prefer heavy weighting or can't send manually with
proper weighting. I can tell you that this makes it much more difficult for me
and many others to copy you. In some cases I was completely baffled about what
a station was sending, and several times was amazed at what it turned our to be
(e.g., "9A1" turned out to be "OK2".) I had to ask for many repeats due to
excessive weighting. Please consider lighter weighting or practice your manual
sending to reduce the swing.
8. Please check your transmitter with an outboard reciever or ask a friend to
listen on his/her radio. Some of you have impure signals -- rasp, hum, drift,
clicks, etc. Such signals are very hard to copy or produce QRM.
9. Finally, when you are doing that check, refresh your memory on how to zero
beat your CW signal. I can't tell you how many dozens of stations called me to
no avail because they were outside the passband of my 500Hz filters (not to
mention the 250Hz filters on 40M.) You have to be pretty far off to be outside
my 500Hz filters -- the skirts aren't that steep. Every now and then I'd hear
my call being sent raspy and way down in the mud, only to use the ROT and find
a reasonably strong and pure signal 700Hz-1000Hz away.
OK, my flame suit is on -- now everyone can blast me for my poor operating
practices (like fumbling with my paddles at 40WPM, unintentionally QRMing
someone, etc.) Don't bother telling me that there is something wrong with my
radio because my CQ's kept cutting off in the middle. That's a byproduct of
following the single-signal rule in SO2R -- Writelog and NA automatically cut
off the CQ when I drop my call in on the second radio. I try to minimize the
partial CQs, but can't always do it.
I hope this summary is helpful to other contesters. I find that other ops are
very generous with thoughts on how to improve scores and want to follow that
fine example. It's one of the things I really like about the contest community.
Thanks again to Jim and Krassy of ACOM, to KQ2M for last year's breakdown sheet
and a great debrief after this contest, and to K5ZD for the breakdown sheet and
debrief after CQWW CW.
73, Dick WC1M
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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