CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
Call: WC1M
Operator(s): WC1M
Station: WC1M
Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 11.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 12 7 10
80: 48 13 44
40: 281 27 92
20: 143 27 66
15: 41 13 33
10: 12 7 11
------------------------------
Total: 537 94 256 Total Score = 495,950
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Scheduling permitted only a partial effort this time. That was for the best,
given the poor conditions on the first day. Not the worst I've seen, but pretty
dismal. Virtually no Russians or over-the-pole stations. The second day was a
little better. Worked a couple of Asiatic Russians and even got a JA
"run" going on 20 in the late afternoon.
The no-pressure effort allowed me to practice with and troubleshoot my new
Assisted configuration, which consists of 100% local CW Skimmers. I have two
Afedri SDR-Net SDRs, each sharing the main antenna with one of my two K3s via a
splitter and the RX IN/RX OUT loop (thanks to N6TV for this idea.) I also have a
third SDR that can access some of the antennas not being used by one of the two
radios.
The setup allows me to run three copies of HDSDR and three copies of CW Skimmer
to monitor three bands at the same time. I modified my antenna switching
software to make the LO frequencies in the SDRs and CW Skimmer follow the K3
frequencies (the third SDR's LO is set by manually clicking on a band button.)
The Skimmers send spots to Writelog, which displays them in its packet spot
window and bandmaps for each of the two radios and the third SDR.
The interaction with Writelog in SO2R mode can be complicated, so I spent most
of time just grabbing and working spots to figure out the most efficient way to
do it. Kinda fun. Toward the end of the contest, I started running and grabbing
spots at the same time. It took some getting used to, but it's really not much
more insane than regular SO2R.
I went through all this trouble because I'd like to do more Assisted operating.
As I get older, it gets tougher and tougher to do a full-blown hour Unassisted
effort.
I went with an all-local SDR setup because there's something cool about all the
spots originating right here at my station, using my antennas. Back in my ARRL
CAC days, I was a strong proponent of classifying CW Skimmer as Assisted, even
when used locally, and I still hold that view. But while the key criterion of
having to tune for mults is not met, local-only Skimmer is a variation that
doesn't depend on other human ops. Also, I can be sure all the spots can be
heard (and probably worked) with my antennas, and the Skimmer spot accuracy is
many times better than the spots posted by human ops on the packet cluster.
Anyway, it appeals to me more than hooking up to the cluster, which is a lot
simpler to do!
Hope to see everyone in a more serious effort next year.
73, Dick WC1M
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