CQ Worldwide VHF Contest - 2019
Call: K1TEO
Operator(s): K1TEO
Station: K1TEO
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: FN31/CT
Operating Time (hrs): 19
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 696 164
2: 132 42
-------------------
Total: 828 206 Total Score = 197,760
Club: North East Weak Signal Group
Comments:
Fun contest this time around with my best score in this event since 2006. 6
meters was open at the start and became really intense with very strong single
hop over a widespread area for much of the first 5 hours. I made half of my
QSO's in that time period and 70% of my grid total. Most of those QSO's were on
SSB as I didn't try on digital until 3.5 hours into the contest. It was good to
see life on SSB/CW - no need to try FT8/4 when the rate meter was kicking up to
150+ at times. 6 was less active on SSB and CW after those initial hours, though
FT8 and FT4 stayed busy. Sunday later morning and afternoon it was a bit
surprising as the digital sigs were often on the + side - so ssb/cw sigs should
have been good. It was difficult to stir much up on SSB or CW much of Sunday
which was a little frustrating. The last 3 hours were better as more returned to
the lower end of the band and I worked mostly non-digital stuff the last 3
hours, particularly in the last hour of the contest when I made 63 50 MHz SSB/CW
Q's.
I operated 9 hours on Saturday and made 561 QSO's. 10 hours Sunday for 267. Most
of the Sunday morning and early afternoon were very slow with rates between 11
and 28 per hour. The last 3 hours picked up with 125 Q's as 6 improved and had
more widespread openings.
As often happens in this contest, 2M took it on the chin as so many were on 50
Mhz. After the first 5.5 hours I had over 400 contacts with a total of 15 on 2.
As 6 slowed down Saturday evening I tried on 2 but there wasn't much on. I ended
up finding most of the activity on FT8 so that helped the total a bit. I was
hoping my s9+ noise issue from 270 to 345 degrees would be ok since it is often
off during the day, though always on at night. It wasn't to be as except for a
few hours early Sunday morning it was there throughout. That made it tough to
work anyone toward WNY and VE3 which is frustrating.
Usually I use msk144 more on 6 than on 2. This time I didn't push it on 6 as
when I usually operate scatter around midnight or later I already had much of
the potential grids to be worked filled in from the Es. I went to sleep instead
and got a decent amount of sleep for once. 2M scatter was there but my new array
(4 ant's) seems to be perhaps too sharp for a lot of it. I had 4 ant's before
(different array) but for some reason they worked better on scatter. Also you
can't set up any live skeds in this contest which makes it more challenging. 2 M
of course had some great Es Saturday afternoon but I only made one contact to
EM17. 6 was too busy (worked 105 Q's that hour) and a local was sitting on
144.200 where most of the action was making it hard to make contacts. After 10
minutes of trying for Es off of .200 and making just the one QSO I gave up and
went back to 6. That was the right move for contesting but sorry to have missed
Colorado which was in and would have been my first new state on 144 in 25
years.
A lot has been said about FT8 and its impact on contesting. I'm glad there was
enough activity on SSB/CW during the Saturday opening and the late afternoon
opening on Sunday. In between it was a bit disappointing to see so many only on
FT8, especially many stations within 200 miles that could be easily worked on
SSB and in some cases were missed. It also makes it tough to work them on 2M -
there were at least a half dozen easy to work grids I missed from regulars who
were on 6M FT 8 a lot but not on 2M or at least that I could find them. But FT8
has clearly added a lot of new activity which is great and can't be beat for
making QSO's with weak signals. I'm sure if I spent more time on FT8 my grid
total would have been higher but there is no way to work any where near the
rates that you can on SSB.
A funny thing happened to me relative to FT4. I was aware of its introduction
but mistakenly thought it wasn't going to be widely available until after this
contest. I was worked N2CEI (N2SVC) a minute before the contest started and
Steve mentioned it would be interesting to see how it worked. I hadn't loaded
the latest version of WSJT-X so mine did not have FT4. When things slowed a bit
a few hours into the contest I downloaded it. I gave it a try and was all thumbs
trying to keep up - I don't automatically load contacts into my contest logging
program so was toggling back and forth. But once I got the hang of it I really
liked it - it is much more engaging to me than FT8. And I found that I could get
much better results on FT4 than FT8. Perhaps because there were fewer on it so
it was easier to get answers to CQs and S&P. On FT8 even when there were 20
decodes in a sequence I often don't get answers to CQ's or answers to my calls.
In FT4 my hit rate was much higher. I found that when the band was good I could
make at least 1 QSO per minute on FT4. Congrats to the developers on a great
addition for contesting.
Overall my totals look like this:
6M QSO's
SSB/CW 575
FT8 80
FT4 36
MSK144 5
On 2M about 25% of my contacts were on FT8. That was far more than in other
recent contests.
I didn't work much DX - I purposely avoided DXing so missed out on a number or
EU opportunities (only worked EA8). I only worked one CO and one XE which was
odd since there were quite a few from both countries in on FT8 for hours. But
they didn't answer my calls or CQs so I moved on. My 6M grid distribution was:
EM 72
EN 31
FN 19
FM 14
EL 13
DM 10
FL 2
DN 2
IL 1
One oddity of this contest is that while you can't communicate on KST or Ping
Jockey the way you can in an ARRL contest, there are many stations doing so. Of
course if you aren't sending in a log you can do anything you want. But I wonder
if there is confusion about it and some are just not aware. After getting used
to the ARRL rules over the last few years I found it a little frustrating to see
quite a few easy to work stations and grids chatting while unable to reach out
to them, hi!
Tnx for the Q's and to CQ Magazine for sponsoring the contest.
Jeff K1TEO
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|