World Wide Digi DX Contest - 2019
Call: NN7SS
Operator(s): K6UFO
Station: NN7SS
Class: SOAB QRP
QTH: WA
Operating Time (hrs): 11
Remote Operation
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160:
80: 20 9
40: 61 16
20: 146 21
15: 0 0
10:
-------------------
Total: 227 46 Total Score = 16,376
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
I'm very pleased and honored to participate in the very first
WW Digi DX Contest! As usual when I contest, I entered QRP.
I couldn't schedule to be at the station, so operated remote, with a
new internet connection just installed yesterday :) So, no SO2R,
lots of glitches... sigh, its sometimes hard being at the far end of
a long wire.
I got up before sunrise for the start to try low band to Asia. On
80m worked a lot of USA West Coast :) 40m a bit better with a
VK and KH6.
20m bustling, but I seemed to take w-a-y too many repeats.
But there were always FT4 stations to call, so I kept at it.
At one point I found my clock was 0.6 seconds slow. Yikes,
I've never had that problem, and a restart fixed it. "Maybe"
QSOs went faster with less repeats...
I would stop and check if my frequency was clear, and at
QRP it hardly ever was... so find a new freq and start again.
Otherwise, I tried to have a TX every cycle either a CQ or
to call someone. Not that it helped when QRP...
Overall, I think QRP has less of a "disadvantage" than in
other modes. If I had a clear frequency, and called in the
right cycle - I had a "reasonable" chance of getting anyone
above SNR -10 or so.
For a supposed "automatic" and "robot" mode - I sure had to
do a lot of monitoring and clicking and maintaining to keep
things working and progressing!
Family activities took up most of midday, but I contested for an
hour or two here and there.
Lots of unlogged "QSOs" because the sequence was messed up
and people wanted Signal Reports and didn't send RR73 so it
didn't auto-log. Rules don't require signal reports - come on!
I caught a few, but I'm sure I missed a bunch.
Tried some FT8 but not as many stations, and s-l-o-w. I copied
Europeans on 20m FT8 but no good working them QRP from WA.
I only used the "contest" frequencies, and FT4 when I seemed to be
getting through efficiently, or switch to the FT8 when I needed more
reliability getting through. I'd guess there was twice as much FT4
action as FT8 action on the bands.
I tried CQing on 15m, but no luck. During the mid-afternoon slump
I seemed to do better on 20m FT8 scaring up some South Americans
and JA's for 3 points each! No sunspots, A of 36! and it showed on
the bands... really weak. 40m was okay later, 80m very noisy and
weak, I copied a bunch on 160m, but couldn't get an answer.
I finally pulled the switch at 05:30Z and did not set the alarm to try
again before 12z. Done!
A great introductory contest for new modes and a new exchange
and scoring system. The software worked well, the operators
"mostly" worked well. I rate it an A-minus! Thanks for the fun.
NN7SS Burt WA (K6UFO op)
15m, 20m: GXP 3 element yagi at 72 feet
40m: GXP 2 element yagi at 72 feet
80m, 160m: wire 4-square arrays
Elecraft K3 at 5 watts
RemoteHamRadio.com
Writelog and DigiRite
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