JARTS WW RTTY Contest
Call: K0RC
Operator(s): K0RC
Station: K0RC
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: MN
Operating Time (hrs): 20
Summary:
Band QSOs Pts Mults
-------------------------
80: 62 124 16
40: 107 228 25
20: 338 856 68
15: 178 452 56
10: 29 65 18
-------------------------
Total: 714 1725 183 Total Score = 315,675
Club: Minnesota Wireless Association
Comments:
Rig: IC-756 Pro-3, IC-2KL @ 350 Watts
Antennas: HyGain TH11-DX @ 72 ft & some wires
Soapbox: The Japanese JARTS (RTTY) is always a fun, high scoring contest. The
individual call districts in K, VE, VK, and JA provide an additional source of
multipliers. And you get to count all multipliers over again on each band.
This year 10 meters had some limited openings. Several of the PJ stations
(PJ4B, PJ4D, PJ7E) were active, including 10 meters. I made 7 contacts on 4
bands (missed 80m). Their participation probably drew additional digital
operators to the contest this year. They were working split frequencies in
order to manage their pile ups.
The biggest surprise was Prasad, VU2PTT, who called me with an S-9 signal on
20m. He was booming over the pole on Saturday about 2:00 PM local time. I had
been running European stations at a good clip for the previous hour with no
indication a path might be open.
Another notable QSO was on 10 meters Sunday afternoon about 2:30 local time
when a path opened up to VP8NO, Falkland Islands. I found Mike chatting with a
station so I waited until they were finished and gave him a call. I heard a few
other stations calling after we finished but his signal disappeared into the
noise not too long afterward.
The only VK multiplier I logged was a VK4 on 15 meters Sunday afternoon about
4:00. A few others in the log were ZL1, FM, FO, 7K, and 4Z... all very nice
prefixes to find in the contest but nothing exotic.
There were times the rotator got a good workout. There was one N2 who called
and I swung the antenna toward the east coast. When I keyed up to listen, his
signal was gone. I turned the antenna back toward the SW and worked him (with
some delay). I looked him up on QRZ and saw he was in Arizona, which tells the
story.
There were no equipment problems and only minor software issues that were
mostly operator induced! Sometimes my fingers find hidden "short cuts" that
send me off in a variety of unusual directions. I did get some practice with
the "logthengrab" feature to stack qso's in a row. That worked pretty slick.
Regarding stateside QSO's, I found all the usual suspects. I worked three
stations 5 times. Both AA3B and N0KE were 5-banders. The other station, who
will remain 'call-less', was worked 5 times on 15 meters. He must have really
liked my callsign or something! It doesn't matter, he's in the log all 5 times
and can pick up confirmations for any or all of our contacts via eQSL or LoTW.
There was another incident where a calling station had his callsign only once
in his calling macro. And there was no trailing space after the call. He called
me three times and I got 3 different callsigns out of that! I had a little fun
with him when I went to keyboard mode and said I have three different callsigns
so far, and that he should insert a trailing space. We worked that out and I
found he had a 1x2, not a 1x3 call. He sent a bunch of "thank you's" so I think
he was appreciative of the operating tip.
My ultimate achievement during the contest this weekend was working the last
state I needed for 6-band WAS via LoTW (only). North Dakota is the next state
to the west, and its boarder is about 200 miles away. I needed ND on 15 meters,
which makes it difficult to get a contact that close on that band. Tuning across
the 15 meter band I heard a European station working KD4POJ. This is Dwayne,
near Minot, ND. That city is in the north-central part of the state, about 440
miles NW of my QTH. I couldn't hear Dwayne, but I was glad to see he was
running stations and not S&P. I swung the yagi around and turned on the Twin
Peak Filters. I was amazed that I was printing him about 90%. The thought going
through my mind while waiting my turn to call him was that his yagi was probably
pointing to EU. My luck would be that I was sitting in a deep null off the side
of his antenna! I called him once or twice and we made the contact. My log
shows that I took an hour break after that contact to revel in the glory!
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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