IARU HF World Championship
Call: N5OT
Operator(s): WM5R
Station: N5OT
Class: SO SSB HP
QTH: OK
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Mults
---------------------------
160: 0 9 4
80: 0 53 11
40: 0 135 32
20: 0 846 65
15: 0 103 25
10: 0 31 8
---------------------------
Total: 0 1177 145 Total Score = 502,425
Club:
Comments:
Due to my travel schedule, I was unable to operate the contest from
central Texas, so I looked around for a station in the Oklahoma,
Missouri, or Arkansas area from which to operate on my way home.
Mark N5OT was very generous in offering me the use of his station in
Osage county, Oklahoma, even though he himself was not going to be
around that weekend.
http://home.swbell.net/swca/radio/index.html
Mark's station is on a ridge line in the grassland hills southwest
of Bartlesville, about 35 kilometers south of the border with Kansas.
It seems to have a really excellent horizon, with good clearance over
the nearby terrain. Mark has four towers, although most of the antennas
are on just two of the towers. Each of the two 140' towers had a 40 meter
monobander, a 20 meter monobander, a 15 meter monobander, and two (phased)
10 meter monobanders. The antennas on one tower all face northeast,
the antennas on the other tower all face northwest. The week before the
contest, Mark put up a tribander (10-15-20) pointed south, and there was a
single wire antenna each for 80 meters and 160 meters. All of the antennas
were in fixed position - there were no rotors involved.
The station building is a 30' x 50' metal barn that Mark has been finishing
out inside. The interior rooms have been framed, most of the drywall
and sheet rock looks to be in place (taped and spackled, but not yet
painted,) and the electric wiring, outlets, and switches are all done
(albeit without covers, yet.) There was a small room with a working
toilet (minus a door,) but no working sinks or shower (yet.) The station
did have a bed for me to use the night before the contest, a working air
conditioner, a microwave, and a small refrigerator.
The radio was an Icom IC-746PRO connected to an ETO Alpha 86 amplifier.
A WX0B SixPak switched between the six bands of antennas. Each band
had a heavy-duty antenna tuner on it between the amplifier and the
antennas. Mark has a second Icom IC-746PRO he plans to use for SO2R CW
contesting (along with the WX0B SixPak,) but only connected one radio
for the IARU contest, as neither of us had the appropriate audio switching
equipment for phone SO2R. The second radio sat on another desk and was
never plugged in. The only antenna switching was a simple A/B switch that
let me choose between the tribander pointed south and all the other
antennas (the northeast and northwest monobanders are always fed in phase
so as to "spray" the RF in both directions.) There were no receive-only
antennas for the low bands.
Mark doesn't own a DVK, so I brought along my W9XT Contest Card and an
Icom cable for it that my wife soldered up for me. I installed the DVK
in an empty ISA slot in the logging machine, and it worked, but I
discovered that it did have just a little tiny bit of hum on the audio.
A couple of stations I worked Friday night said it sounded good enough
and they could only notice the hum if they really listened for it, but
I did notice it and noticed that it was much more obvious at high power.
I've had this problem before in another station, and finally solved it
by using audio isolation transformers and grounding all the radio gear
together. It's not RFI - I think it has something to do with the computer
and radio grounds being at different potentials, and/or the computer
ground having some AC ripple on it. It wasn't a problem I was going to
solve Friday night, so I decided that if it wasn't too terrible, I'd just
try to ignore it and see how it went. I wasn't completely squared away
with the station setup until past 0430 UTC, less than eight hours before
the contest start. I wish I had gotten more sleep, but such is the peril
of guest operating at a far-away station and traveling all day just to get
there.
I got off to a very bad start. Right away, I noticed a problem with the
DVK that I had not noticed the night before - a problem for which I had not
even thought to check. I could record a new voice message just fine, and
play it back once just fine, but to repeat the message, I had to hit ESC
some random number of times between each DVK CQ. Sometimes two ESCs would
do it. sometimes it would take three, sometimes four. It was incredibly
frustrating. I restarted TR and that didn't fix it. I rebooted the
computer and that didn't fix it. I noticed that the version number (6.71b)
was several versions out of date, so I thought I would install the latest
version (brought with me on a floppy) in case this was some quirky bug
unique to 6.71b. Unfortunately, the only unzipping software on the machine
was WinZIP, and I could not get past it's stupid splash screen without a
mouse (I don't think Mark has one at the station.) In the process of all
this, and getting run off my frequency by a station in Colorado who could
not hear me, I kept working stations, and logged at least a dozen QSOs on
paper. I finally got a bad audio report, though, and decided (reluctantly)
that the voice keyer had to go, so I unplugged it around 1230 UTC and used
my voice for the rest of the contest. I'm sure that I probably didn't CQ as
often or as consistently without the keyer as I would have with it, and
it did make eating a real hassle later on.
It took me a while to get back into a good rhythm, and I finished with
only 50 QSOs in the first hour. The QSO totals for the next four hours
were all in the 80s, which wasn't as good as I was hoping for, but a whole
lot better than a 50. I made my first 15 meter QSO at 1456 UTC, and my
first 10 meter QSO at 1544 UTC. My last 10 meter QSO was at 1645 UTC.
I had a pretty bad 1600 UTC hour, with only 64 QSOs, as I was trying to
eke out 10 meter and 15 meter multipliers. I ended up on 20 meters for
all of the 1700 UTC hour, as I found my best rate of the contest there
(the TR rate meter peaked at 194,) and the only clock hour where I would
work over 100 QSOs. In retrospect, I probably should have been on 15
meters during at least part of this time. The rest of the afternoon
was pretty slow with hours of 50, 51, 44, 40, 55, and 54 QSOs. Things
had begun to slow down a lot on 20 meters by 0100 UTC, and after I worked a
really difficult ZK1/s QSO on 20 meters (I had no antennas that could point
that way) I decided to go to 40 meters even though it was still very
much daylight outside.
Something wasn't right with the 40 meter antenna system when I first tried
to transmit there. I was seeing around 150 watts reflected power for
250 watts output. I checked all the connections, even went out to the
towers to see if anything was loose, etc. None of the tuner adjustments
seemed to make the least bit of difference. Eventually, something I did
(I have no idea what it was) fixed the problem, and I was able to tune up
OK. In all, I lost 29 minutes of operating time. By then, it was
starting to get dark outside, and I quickly started logging European HQ
stations. I tried running split on 40 meters to Europe several times during
the night, but never had a single European caller. I didn't even hear
one try to call me.
All night long, I found that 20 meters was far more productive and fun than
the lower bands. I'm really quite a novice at low band operating, though,
so I mostly just tried to make sure I would visit each band a little every
hour so as not to miss anyone too obvious. I wish I could have done so
without leaving 20 meters. There were many hours when I couldn't find anyone
new to work on 160 meters or even 80 meters. I was able to get JA stations
to answer my 40 meter split CQs, though, which is always satisfying. I
never heard Japan or Europe on 80 meters, though. The only DX stations I
worked (or heard) on 80 meters were in North America and worked simplex.
On 160 meters, I worked no DX stations at all (unless you count Ontario,)
and I never heard a zone 6 station or NU1AW.
We had excellent weather during the weekend, and there was never even a
threat of a storm that might have necessitated a station shutdown.
This was the first time I've ever used an Icom radio in an HF contest.
There were some things about it that I really liked - the automatic notch
filter, for example, was truly excellent. I tended to leave it on all
the time, as I couldn't hear any difference in the audio when there were
no jammers on my frequency, and it worked really, really well when there
were. You could hear it kick in right when you released PTT, and after
those first few microseconds, the carrier would be truly gone. It didn't
work quite as well against two jamming carriers, but it still did a really
good job. It was an amazingly cool feature for high power phone contesting -
I've never done a high power phone contest effort where I wasn't jammed by
carriers. The noise reduction feature also worked pretty well when I tried
it - and it was very noisy that weekend. I also found the tuning speed of
the main tuning knob to be perfect for phone contesting - a little detail
that you never think about until you use a radio (like the Ten-Tec Orion
or the Elecraft K2) that gets it wrong.
One serious flaw with the IC-746PRO, though, is the placement of the
XFC button (equivalent to Kenwood's TF-SET button) on the front panel.
Trying to use it to work split on 40 meters, there was no way to push it
without having that hand either interfere with my sight line to the display
or with my other hand on the tuning knob. I'm sure that CW DXers who
never operate with a split greater than 2 kHz can develop the coordination
to use the XFC button one-handed, but when you're trying to rapidly
tune to some QRX frequency arbitrarily chosen from a 150 kHz range, or
looking for a new listening frequency for your own CQing, it's an ergonomic
nightmare. It would probably be ten times worse if you were left-handed.
I didn't do any A/B receiver comparisons with another rig, of course,
but the receiver sounded generally OK to me. I played with the variable
filter bandwidths, the passband tuning, and even the transmit bandwidth
settings. I'm not sure I thought the continuously adjustable bandwidth
setting was any better than a few discrete filter bandwidths, and changing
it took way too many button presses and knob turns in a sequence that was
complicated enough to screw up once in a while when I was trying to do
other things at the same time (like concentrate on a caller's signal.)
So, mostly I gave up on adjusting the filter and just switched between
the 2.4 kHz and 2.1 kHz filters. Having the display show me the bandwidth
shape relative to the center frequency as I adjusted the PBT was pretty cool.
I have no idea if changing the transmit bandwidth settings really did
anything good for me or not. Mostly, I kept it at the MID setting. There
were some more complicated transmit setting involving treble and bass and
whatnot that I was not about to mess with during a contest. I am also
sort of suspicious of the Icom microphone system, as it's really designed
for electret mic elements, instead of real mic elements, and I felt like
I really had to have the mic gain way up. I have no real evidence that
this was ever a problem, but it sure felt alien.
I heard two established, competitive stations in the contest asking others
to spot them on the packet cluster system. One was in the Ukraine, the
other in north Texas. In both cases, I noted frequency, time, and other
details to pass on to N1ND.
This was my first HF contest effort from outside of the state of Texas.
A few photos from the weekend:
http://www.wm5r.org/photos/2004_iaru_n5ot/
2004 IARU HF World Championship
Contest Dates : 10-Jul-04, 11-Jul-04
Callsign Used : N5OT
Station Used : N5OT
Operator : WM5R
Category : SOHP Phone Only
Country : United States
ARRL Section : Oklahoma (OK)
BAND Raw QSOs Valid QSOs Points Mults Zones
________________________________________________________
160SSB 9 9 13 1 3
80SSB 53 53 115 5 6
40SSB 139 135 385 14 18
20SSB 884 846 2618 31 34
15SSB 103 103 261 14 11
10SSB 31 31 73 2 6
________________________________________________________
Totals 1219 1177 3465 67 78
Claimed Score = 502,425 points.
----
Rate Sheet
HOUR 160SSB 80SSB 40SSB 20SSB 15SSB 10SSB TOTAL ACCUM
---- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ----- -----
12 0 0 0 50 0 0 50 50
13 0 0 0 85 0 0 85 135
14 0 0 0 77 7 0 84 219
15 0 0 0 0 67 22 89 308
16 0 0 0 47 8 9 64 372
17 0 0 0 114 0 0 114 486
18 0 0 0 37 13 0 50 536
19 0 0 0 45 6 0 51 587
20 0 0 0 44 0 0 44 631
21 0 0 0 38 2 0 40 671
22 0 0 0 55 0 0 55 726
23 0 0 0 54 0 0 54 780
0 0 0 0 25 0 0 25 805
1 0 0 13 1 0 0 14 819
2 0 0 12 51 0 0 63 882
3 1 4 6 39 0 0 50 932
4 1 13 14 18 0 0 46 978
5 3 6 26 14 0 0 49 1027
6 0 0 8 30 0 0 38 1065
7 0 2 19 8 0 0 29 1094
8 0 9 15 4 0 0 28 1122
9 3 11 9 0 0 0 23 1145
10 1 8 10 0 0 0 19 1164
11 0 0 3 9 0 0 12 1176
TOTAL 9 53 135 846 103 31 1176
----
Continent List
160 80 40 20 15 10 ALL
--- -- -- -- -- -- ---
USA calls = 8 46 88 594 68 26 830
VE calls = 1 4 7 62 9 4 87
N.A. calls = 0 1 7 20 4 0 32
S.A. calls = 0 2 7 15 3 1 28
Euro calls = 0 0 13 122 18 0 153
Afrc calls = 0 0 0 1 1 0 2
Asia calls = 0 0 1 6 0 0 7
JA calls = 0 0 6 14 0 0 20
Ocen calls = 0 0 6 12 0 0 18
Total calls = 9 53 135 846 103 31 1177
----
Multipliers Worked by Band
160 SSB
04 07 08 arrl
80 SSB
02 07 09 aarc iaru vrna
06 08 10 arrl rac
40 SSB
01 06 11 28 61 arrl jarl ref
02 07 12 37 62 darc ovsv rep
03 08 14 45 aarc hrs pzk scg
04 10 15 59 ari iaru rac srr
20 SSB
01 09 15 36 54 ac fmre ovsv rsgb vrna
02 10 16 37 55 arabh frr pzk scg zrs
03 11 18 39 58 arm hrs rac srr
04 11 27 44 59 arrl iaru rca uarl
06 12 28 45 61 bfra jarl rcv ure
07 13 29 50 62 crc lrmd ref uska
08 14 30 51 aarc darc mrasz rl veron
15 SSB
02 06 10 28 ari darc mrasz rac vrna
03 07 11 37 arrl hrs ovsv ref
04 08 14 aarc crc iaru pzk veron
10 SSB
02 04 06 07 08 15 arrl rac
----
Mutiplier Distribution
1. 08 408
2. 06 270
3. 07 143
4. 28 71
5. 04 38
6. 02 31
7. 27 19
8. 11 18
9. 45 18
10. 29 13
11. 01 10
12. 09 9
13. 61 9
14. 37 9
15. 14 7
16. arrl 6
17. 10 5
18. rac 5
19. 15 5
20. iaru 4
21. aarc 4
22. 03 4
23. 59 3
24. pzk 3
25. vrna 3
26. hrs 3
27. darc 3
28. ovsv 3
29. 18 3
30. ref 3
31. 44 2
32. srr 2
33. crc 2
34. veron 2
35. mrasz 2
36. ari 2
37. scg 2
38. 12 2
39. 62 2
40. 30 2
41. jarl 2
42. 16 1
43. 50 1
44. 54 1
45. zrs 1
46. rsgb 1
47. ure 1
48. arabh 1
49. arm 1
50. 39 1
51. rl 1
52. ac 1
53. lrmd 1
54. fmre 1
55. frr 1
56. uska 1
57. bfra 1
58. 13 1
59. uarl 1
60. rep 1
61. rca 1
62. rcv 1
63. 55 1
64. 51 1
65. 58 1
66. 36 1
----
QSO Totals of Countries Worked by Band
Prefix 160 80 40 20 15 10 Total Percent
------ --- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----- -------
3V - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
5B - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
9A - - 1 1 1 - 3 0.25
9V - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
9Y - - 2 1 - - 3 0.25
CT - - 1 2 - - 3 0.25
CU - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
DL - - 1 16 3 - 20 1.70
DU - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
EA - - 1 5 - - 6 0.51
ER - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
ES - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
F - - 1 6 1 - 8 0.68
FP - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
G - - - 11 - - 11 0.93
GI - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
HA - - - 4 3 - 7 0.59
HB - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
HK - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
HL - - - 2 - - 2 0.17
HP - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
HR - - - 1 1 - 2 0.17
I - - 3 15 5 - 23 1.95
JA - - 6 14 - - 20 1.70
K 8 46 88 594 68 26 830 70.52
KH6 - - 3 6 - - 9 0.76
KL - - 3 7 - - 10 0.85
KP2 - - 1 2 - - 3 0.25
KP4 - - 1 2 1 - 4 0.34
LU - - 1 7 1 - 9 0.76
LX - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
LY - - - 2 - - 2 0.17
LZ - - - 2 - - 2 0.17
OE - - 1 1 1 - 3 0.25
OH - - - 2 - - 2 0.17
OH0 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
OK - - 1 5 2 - 8 0.68
OM - - - 2 - - 2 0.17
ON - - - 2 - - 2 0.17
P2 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
P4 - 1 1 1 1 - 4 0.34
PA - - - 3 1 - 4 0.34
PJ2 - 1 - 1 1 - 3 0.25
PY - - 3 3 - 1 7 0.59
S5 - - 1 7 1 - 9 0.76
SP - - 1 6 1 - 8 0.68
SV - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
T9 - - - 2 - - 2 0.17
TI - - - - 1 - 1 0.08
UA - - - 8 - - 8 0.68
UA9 - - 1 2 - - 3 0.25
UR - - - 3 - - 3 0.25
VE 1 4 7 62 9 4 87 7.39
VK - - 2 3 - - 5 0.42
VP9 - - - 2 - - 2 0.17
XE - 1 1 3 1 - 6 0.51
YL - - - 2 - - 2 0.17
YO - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
YU - - 1 5 - - 6 0.51
YV - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
Z3 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
ZF - - 1 1 - - 2 0.17
ZK1/S - - 1 1 - - 2 0.17
----
QSO totals of zones worked by band
Zone 160 80 40 20 15 10 Total Percent
---- --- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----- -------
1 - - 3 7 - - 10 0.85
2 - 2 4 22 1 2 31 2.63
3 - - 1 2 1 - 4 0.34
4 1 - 1 29 6 1 38 3.23
5 - - - - - - 0 0.00
6 - 12 36 194 22 6 270 22.94
7 6 17 18 72 21 9 143 12.15
8 1 15 32 327 23 10 408 34.66
9 - 1 - 8 - - 9 0.76
10 - 1 1 2 1 - 5 0.42
11 - - 5 10 3 - 18 1.53
12 - - 1 1 - - 2 0.17
13 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
14 - - 1 5 1 - 7 0.59
15 - - 2 2 - 1 5 0.42
16 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
17 - - - - - - 0 0.00
18 - - - 3 - - 3 0.25
19 - - - - - - 0 0.00
20 - - - - - - 0 0.00
21 - - - - - - 0 0.00
22 - - - - - - 0 0.00
23 - - - - - - 0 0.00
24 - - - - - - 0 0.00
25 - - - - - - 0 0.00
26 - - - - - - 0 0.00
27 - - - 19 - - 19 1.61
28 - - 4 58 9 - 71 6.03
29 - - - 13 - - 13 1.10
30 - - - 2 - - 2 0.17
31 - - - - - - 0 0.00
32 - - - - - - 0 0.00
33 - - - - - - 0 0.00
34 - - - - - - 0 0.00
35 - - - - - - 0 0.00
36 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
37 - - 1 7 1 - 9 0.76
38 - - - - - - 0 0.00
39 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
40 - - - - - - 0 0.00
41 - - - - - - 0 0.00
42 - - - - - - 0 0.00
43 - - - - - - 0 0.00
44 - - - 2 - - 2 0.17
45 - - 5 13 - - 18 1.53
46 - - - - - - 0 0.00
47 - - - - - - 0 0.00
48 - - - - - - 0 0.00
49 - - - - - - 0 0.00
50 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
51 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
52 - - - - - - 0 0.00
53 - - - - - - 0 0.00
54 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
55 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
56 - - - - - - 0 0.00
57 - - - - - - 0 0.00
58 - - - 1 - - 1 0.08
59 - - 2 1 - - 3 0.25
60 - - - - - - 0 0.00
61 - - 3 6 - - 9 0.76
62 - - 1 1 - - 2 0.17
63 - - - - - - 0 0.00
64 - - - - - - 0 0.00
65 - - - - - - 0 0.00
66 - - - - - - 0 0.00
67 - - - - - - 0 0.00
68 - - - - - - 0 0.00
69 - - - - - - 0 0.00
70 - - - - - - 0 0.00
71 - - - - - - 0 0.00
72 - - - - - - 0 0.00
73 - - - - - - 0 0.00
74 - - - - - - 0 0.00
75 - - - - - - 0 0.00
76 - - - - - - 0 0.00
77 - - - - - - 0 0.00
78 - - - - - - 0 0.00
79 - - - - - - 0 0.00
80 - - - - - - 0 0.00
81 - - - - - - 0 0.00
82 - - - - - - 0 0.00
83 - - - - - - 0 0.00
84 - - - - - - 0 0.00
85 - - - - - - 0 0.00
86 - - - - - - 0 0.00
87 - - - - - - 0 0.00
88 - - - - - - 0 0.00
89 - - - - - - 0 0.00
90 - - - - - - 0 0.00
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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