CQ Worldwide DX Contest - SSB
Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M
Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 19:52
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
-------------------------------
160: 12 6 7
80: 30 8 19
40: 45 14 35
20: 210 28 84
15: 658 33 99
10: 138 27 72
-------------------------------
Total: 1093 116 316 = 1,324,080
Club/Team: YCCC
Comments:
Station Description: FT-1000MP/Alpha 87A, FT-990/LK-550ZC, WriteLog
Antenna(s): TH-7 @70', C3E @50', 40M 4-square, 80M delta loop, 160M/80M vee @
65', 160M/80M NE beverage (578')
Club Affiliation: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
This was my first real attempt at "double dipping". I worked the first half of
the contest at the KR1G multi-multi, then drove home (2 hours) and worked the
second half single-op.
Since the idea was to contribute as many points as possible to YCCC, I decided
to work the single-op portion Assisted. I also used packet because this wasn't
an all-out effort to make the top ten (it's only a phone contest) and it's a
heck of a lot of fun to pick off packet spots with the TopTen automatic antenna
switching and autotune Alpha 87A amplifier. At times, I was able to get the S&P
rate up to almost 100/hr! Internet packet spots (with WriteLog) were a terrific
upgrade -- much more reliable and much faster response time than packet radio
(at KR1G the packet radio spots were running about an hour behind at one
point.)
Ted did a great job on the new KR1G multi station and was an excellent
host/manager/op. We did about 11.1M points, which isn't bad for a first-time
effort. The basic antenna farm is terrific, especially the 80M 4-square. Friday
night there was a righteous opening on 80M to EU -- it was as if someone
flipped a switch and suddenly I had a pileup on my split frequency. That's
never happened to me on 80M before. Boy, do I want my own 80M 4-square!
As for my place, the new low-band improvements definitely acheived the design
goal: more mults. For the past couple of years, I've felt that my overall mult
total was substandard: many stations were outscoring me with fewer QSOs and
more mults. Part of that was operating technique -- not enough S&P and not
enough skill doing it. But the rest of it was inadequate antennas for the low
bands. KR1G, also in NH, had been beating me by a few places in most of the
contests, so I analyzed his band summaries. I found that the difference in our
mult totals was entrirely on 160M and 80M. That was because I had no antenna on
160M and only an inverted vee up about 55 feet for 80M (a true cloud warmer.) I
rarely heard DX on 80M, and when I did, very few of them could hear me.
The quickest and most convenient way to improve 80M was to erect a right-angle
delta loop. I got the apex up a tree about 80 feet, with the broadside facing
about 20 degrees east of north. Comparisons with the vee were very favorable:
New England stations were louder on the vee (high angle) and DX stations were
louder on the loop (lower angle.) A few transmit tests indicated that the loop
was quite a bit louder in EU than the vee. The next job was to find a quick way
to get on 160M. I figured an inverted-L would be an effective solution, but
that would involve getting rid of the 80M vee and doing some difficult rope
work to support the top wire. At the last minute, W1ECT offered me a pair of
80M/160M traps he'd been trying to unload at hamfests. They worked quite well,
giving me a reasonable antenna for 160M while saving the 80M vee for working
New England in SS and WPX. Of course, the 160M vee is a cloud warmer, but it's
a lot better than nothing! The final addition was an 80M/160M beverage, 578
feet long, pointing 20 degrees east of north. That's an amazingly effective
receiving antenna -- sometimes EU stations literally pop out of the noise when
I switch to the beverage. With all of these improvements, my performance on 80M
and 160M was in the ballpark with many of the scores I saw posted from W1 in
this year's CQWW SSB. Still a little low, but the extra mults definitely helped
my score. Now I need to learn how to play the low bands more effectively (and
maybe at some point, put up that inverted-L...)
Conditions were a little strange in this contest. They seemed to go from poor
to good to poor to good. Friday night was fairly tough at KR1G until 80M opened
to EU around midnight. The bands sprang to life Saturday AM with a huge 10M
opening to EU and 20M short path to Asia. 15M kicked in a little later, as it
should, and we were off to the races. I left Ted's about 2PM and got home
around 4PM. After visiting with the family for a while, I was back on the air
by 5PM Saturday and settled in for the long haul. I ran off about 40 Qs on 10M
(mostly SA), then switched to 15M for a nice little JA run. I dug around on 20M
for about an hour, then returned to 15M at about 0000Z for a big run of 150
JA's in about an hour and a half. That was an excellent opening to Asia, with
plenty of nice mults calling in. The rest of the evening was spent doing S&P on
20M, 40M, 80M and 160M. The going was slow -- conditions on 80M and 160M were
poor, and 40M phone is just one giant pain in the butt (go WARC...) EU sunrise
wasn't particularly good, so I went to sleep at about 0630Z. I set the clock
for 1015Z, but found nothing on the bands yet. I slept for another 45 minutes
or so, then once again found nothing to work. More sleep, then finally I got a
little action at 1200Z. But 10M didn't open up like it did on Saturday morning.
At about 1300Z, I moved over to 15M (very early for that band) and ran there
with decent rate for the next six hours (with lots of S&P on 10M and 20M on the
second radio.) I never found the EU signals to be strong on 10M, but in
retrospect I probably should have called CQ there several times an hour just to
make sure. On the other hand, I doubt the rate would have been as good as it
was on 15M, and since there was only one day to operate single-op, I had to go
where the rate was. I cleaned up a few mults on 10M from about 1800 to 2000,
then picked up a good EU run on 20M. After that, I just did rapid-fire
packet-assisted S&P on every band, keeping up a better rate than I could just
running.
So, all in all, conditions weren't great, but they weren't bad either. I've
seen better (louder) openings to EU on the high bands, and certainly better 10M
action. 80M and 160M were generally poor. But the Aisian openings on 15M and
20M were quite good -- JA's were booming in here on 15M early Sunday evening,
and the rest of Asia and the Pacific were good too. What seemed missing was the
usual hoard of Asiatic Russians. I usually work a ton of those, but the turnout
seemed quite light this year. Probably poor over-the-pole propagation, but I
wonder if participation was down. Rumor has it that more northerly stations had
a tougher time, and I'm one of them. In any event, I managed to work 38 zones
(heard 39), so conditions couldn't have been all that bad.
By the way, I can't resist getting on my soapbox to ask one favor of the DX
stations: PLEASE TURN DOWN THE COMPRESSION! (or the mic gain or whatever is
driving your transmitter into distortion.) Yes, overdriving can cause nasty
splatter, but that wasn't the worst of it. I can't remember when I have had
such a hard time copying loud stations. The audio distortion was just
unbelievable. Sometimes this was caused by stations not being zero beat with my
signal. Normally that's a problem in CW contests, but I had to use the RIT a
lot in this SSB contest. For any station doing serious contesting, I would
suggest borrowing a receiver to make sure that your transmitter and receiver
are frequency aligned. But the bulk of the problem was overdrive. I realize
that you may believe that compression or extra mic gain gives your signal more
punch, but what good does that do if no one can copy you? You are losing
valuable time (and costing me valuable time) when your audio can't be copied.
If you got many requests for fills, think about turning down the compression
and/or mic gain!
This was a good learning experience, and nice prep for the upcoming CW fests.
Now on to SS. And the (zero) beat goes on...
73, Dick WC1M
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