Makrothen RTTY Contest - 2020
Call: AB1J
Operator(s): AB1J
Station: AB1J
Class: SO/Single Xcvr LP
QTH: Waltham MA
Operating Time (hrs): 18:15
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
80: 70
40: 144
20: 161
15: 32
10:
------------
Total: 407 Total Score = 1,651,372
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
I've enjoyed RTTY contesting since 2008 and have been dancing the
"Makarena" since 2013. I like the concept of distance-scored contests
even though it leaves a lot to be desired. QTH, propagation and path lengths all
matter and are hard to handicap for. Perhaps Plato's ideal scoring system is out
there somewhere.
I enjoy squandering time thinking about alternate scoring methods: improvements
on distance scoring and other things such as DXCC entity rareness scoring (from
the ClubLog list). This is one of the prerogatives of being retired, you don't
have to be productive any more.
The contest was a lot of fun and this is my best score ever, better even than
when there were sunspots, but it's still OK with me if the prodigal sunspots
come back. I'll welcome them with open arms, kill the fattened calf and
celebrate.
I hadn't reviewed the rules recently and forgot about the differential scoring
for the low bands, so that was a nice surprise. The problem is I can't work much
DX on 80m, so didn't benefit there, but it helped a lot on 40m.
I'd been doing 15m FT8 all week and found we had good EU and Middle East
openings on our local mornings, so I looked for that to continue in the contest.
It did but perhaps people weren't aware of it. 15m did open up nicely on Sunday
but I was hoping for more than 32 QSOs, not all of which were in EU.
I got all my spots from K1TTT in western MA. I don't know where all the other W1
area spotters went. K1TTT skimmed the high bands during the day and the low
bands at night, so during the transition periods I had to resort to good
old-fashioned S&P. Of course, having a bandscope and a logger bandmap are a
couple giant steps up. I can remember having a standard paper form I used as a
bandmap in days of yore. Before contests I'd print up a bunch on a copier at
work. Almost as much fun as paper duping.
Because I like RTTY I hope it endures even if only a contest mode. Over the
years I've enjoyed futzing about fine-tuning my station software and hardware.
It's an ongoing project and I still have some ideas I want to explore. I'm still
working on the ultimate MMTTY profile.
Thanks for the QSOs and all the fun.
73,
Ken, AB1J
Flex 6500
N1MM Logger+ MMTTY(narrow profile) 2Tone(Selective) GRITTY(Makrothen)
20m & 15m attic dipoles
80m, 40m & 20m outdoor end-fed 66' stealth wire and indoor counterpoise
LoTW eQSL ClubLog
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