ARRL DX Contest, CW
Call: KP2CW
Operator(s): K6VVA (VIA REMOTE)
Station: KV4FZ
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: KP2 (Remote from K6)
Operating Time (hrs): 19
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160:
80: 159 44
40: 413 52
20: 749 58
15: 811 56
10: 504 45
-------------------
Total: 2636 255 Total Score = 2,012,715
Club:
Comments:
REMOTE CONTESTING operation over the Internet from California/K6 Land (another
Locust experiment).
There is no category listed for SOQLF (Single Op QLF) so things may change when
I hear back from the ARRL Contest Manager on a few issues. Due to multiple
major Murphy strikes, I ended up operating 19 hours with 100w LP from 1708 UTC
Saturday morning and was part-time QRV all bands except 160m (Herb was doing a
single op venue on this band). Sure could have used some 160m Q's & Mults to
help the score!
In spite of the Murphy events and remote control op QLF, I am further
encouraged about the future potentials of long-haul, high-latency remote CW
contesting via the Internet. Although the goal of a solid one hour rate of 200
Q's/hour was not accomplished this time, I'm fairly pleased with the remote CW
mode rates that were realized (Data Tnx to CBS v10c - K5KA/N6TV):
The best 60 minute rate was 186/hour from 2112 to 2211
The best 30 minute rate was 208/hour from 1924 to 1953
The best 10 minute rate was 234/hour from 1813 to 1822
The best 1 minute rates were:
6 QSO's/minute 1 times.
5 QSO's/minute 23 times.
4 QSO's/minute 171 times.
3 QSO's/minute 348 times.
2 QSO's/minute 306 times.
1 QSO's/minute 169 times.
My original lofty goal and plan decided upon Sunday before the contest was to
try and repeat my 2009 VP2VVA Top World Score 20m Single Band effort but this
time 'remotely from' KP2. So much for that plan.
All the remote control point gear from the KP2CW remote tests run last Spring
and Summer had been back here in K6 land QRX to be reconfigured for a new ISP
service to come online in KP2. Unfortunately, the ISP's interface box turned
out to include a router and no pass-thru-bridge capabilities, or the QoS
ability which I desperately wanted to always keep logger control signals in
primary position. Herb and I went through nightmares trying to solve problems
with the new 'Mystery Box' config to no avail. Finally Tnx to local ham Net
Guru KE6SVX on my end, some major hurdles were overcome a day before the
contest. On the remote (pun) chance that we could get things working on Friday
to start the contest, I went ahead and air shipped the gear off on Tuesday which
Herb got on Thursday not knowing if we could actually get things working or
not.
Being a non-technical zip squat has made all this remote stuff very
challenging, not to mention VERY FRUSTRATING at times. Herb worked valiantly
to help solve Murphy strike issues, and just before the contest started, got me
pre-tuned up on the amp I would use fixed on 20m. Then Murphy showed up again
as the SWR went whacko. I called Herb back and asked him to shut the amp off
and I would just do a low power thing. The contest started but the SWR was
still off the charts (the problem turned out to be a faulty bandswitch in the
amp).
But a concurrent Murphy strike also caused erratic operation of the basic
remote stuff, and problems with the audio I had never experienced before in any
of my remote operations. After several minutes and multipole reboots, things
simply were not going to work properly. So after about 20 hours of time spent
on this project from Sunday until the start of the contest, at that point I
said 'enough is enough', and disconnected all the remote stuff on this end. Bah
Humbug ;-( To say I was a bit disappointed at the time would be an
understatement.
Then I decided to make some contest Q's from the home RF Hole QTH station here
and also plopped on the couch to watch a movie. NI6T called on the phone and a
few funny stories he shared helped mitigate the disappointment. Being the
eternal glutton for punishment, mid-Saturday morning, I decided to hook
everything up again here and fiddle with some settings to see if I could
resolve the audio problems. SURPRISE, SURPRISE !!! When I turned on the
(remote) radio, everything sounded normal. Go figure. I quickly checked the
SWR and that was mysteriously back to normal. WOW ... 'Party Time' ... so I
decided to check out 10m to see if there were any signals. S9 +40dB LOUD East
Coast stations !!!
Realizing I was now coming to the party too late to do a serious single band LP
effort on 20m and with Herb QRL on 160m for SOAB purposes, I just found a clear
frequency and sent out my first (remote) CQ to play for a bit. After a few Q's,
I realized another major operator QLF - I had forgotten to modify my exchange
from the original 'K' (HP) and had another one of those deer-in-the-headlight
moments. How could I change it to '100' after already making some Q's? That
would certainly wreak havoc in log checking for those I already worked. If
this operator QLF of running '100' watts but sending 'K' ends up DQ'ing my log
into Checklog status when all is said and done, so be it... as long as nobody
else gets burned.
After making over 220 Q's on 10m (including several S9+60dB stations!), I
switched to 15m to see what that was like. More action. The audio was working
great, but not the operator. One Murphy strike unresolved was the lack of rig
control, and forgetting to manually change bands in the logger resulted in some
SRI WKD B4 anti-dupe messages. After a few of these, I realized what the
problem was. Apologies to those who called but I didn't work ;-(
Realizing I had an opportunity to at least do some more valuable remote haul
experimenting on various bands, I ended up operating more that I thought I
would. Near the end of the contest, some new insights were gained into how to
de-QLF remote CW operating a bit and save some keystrokes and minimize operator
related delays for the next time. The 200ms to 250ms Internet latency delays
each way of course result in on-air delays ... not much I can do about that
situation which unfortunately causes some operational problems. Apologies to
K3LR and NN7SS for several known Internet or Operator QLF errors on my end, and
to those who got vaporized in the non-operator induced crashes.
The long-haul Internet being what it is, I had periodic lockups and crashes
that required rebooting everything. Unfortunately, this happened during some
QSO's (sorry, guys) that could never be completed. If you heard me just
'vanish' at times, I was experiencing less-than-desirable circumstances on my
end ;-( The electricity went off suddenly for a while on Saturday Night, so
Murphy certainly got in a lot of licks this weekend.
An amazing thing was that without bandpass filters, Herb and I could operate
simultaneously without too many problems (he was running an amp too!).
Especially, since there were overlap times when his shunt-fed tower 160m
antenna also supported the beam I was using on 20m {SIGH}. Herb's tribander is
a home-brew post hurricane mixture of a Hygain Exporer 14 and a Cushcraft A4
using the Hygain parasleaves feed for floating 10 meter elements and a 24 foot
boom to add a director to the normally two element beam. Some of my fellow
NCCC members said I was loud on the West Coast, and it seemed to work great.
Any future serious dual single-band efforts will necessitate bandpass filters
and maybe stubs if I decide to operate 40m or 80m where things did get a bit
dicey a few times. Also, a creative addition of another Cisco router with QoS
in the food-chain down in KP2 beyond the ISP's box.
In spite of all the Murphy strikes, disappointments and Internet related
crahses, operating another remote contesting experiment had some advantages:
1. I did not have to deal with long lines or luggage hassles at airports.
2. My refrigerator was only 5 feet away and my headphone cord reached OK !
3. Very importantly, my privates didn't get fondled by airport TSA Gropers :^)
One major wedgie: EU and other DX stations continually calling when I can only
work W/VE. It happens every time. WHY ???
Very strange heavy QSB/Echo and 'watery' sounding W/VE signals on 40m and 80m
that I never recall experiencing from the Caribbean before. Perhaps due to the
solar stuff going on?
Regarding my CQ-CONTEST Post about 'QZB' issues, I'm happy to report that
Dmitiry/UA4WLI has just rapidly integrated Anti-QZB packet related offset
capabilities into TR4W which I will be testing in the next few days.
REMOTE GEAR:
Home QTH/Control Point: ASUS Eee PC900 + Ergonomic Keyboard + Remoterig Control
Unit + Cisco Router + TS-480 Control Panel.
KPW CW Remote Point: ASUS Eee PC900 + Remoterig Radio Unit + TS-480 TXRX Rig
Body + WKUSB (Winkey USB).
TightVNC was used instead of WinDOZE Remote Desktop for the confuzer
connections via the Internet.
IMHO, Remoterig (by Mike/SM20) deserves some kind of technical award for
AWESOMENESS !!! http://www.remoterig.com
73 & Tnx for the (remote) Q's & Mults...
Rick, K6VVA * The Locust
Remote Contesting Advocate
Trustee, KP2CW (Contest Warriors Contest Club)
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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