ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2021
Call: K1IR
Operator(s): NN1C NI1L KM3T K1IR WC1M KL9A W9KKN
Station: K1IR
Class: M/2 HP
QTH: MA
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Remote Operation
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 166 51
80: 813 80
40: 1264 97
20: 1778 102
15: 222 61
10: 25 19
-------------------
Total: 4268 410 Total Score = 5,227,500
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
Multi-op contesting is magical. It lives at the nexus of advanced technology,
focused planning and execution, and a highly motivated team of varying skills
that adapts to whatever comes in over the transom.
Thank you to the advance team that built an incredibly flexible and reliable
single-tower station, and to the outstanding crew that came together to pilot
the station for this event.
Remote was a critical component of the operation. It allowed us to host ops from
across the USA. And the implementation was solid; our ops experienced no
remote-related technical hiccups.
This year's challenge was MUF. Conditions were good on the bands that were open.
For us (in Massachusetts, in the northeast USA), the hours of darkness and the
low bands offered more opportunity for productive running on two bands or more
than did the daylight hours. We had lots of hours with simultaneous runs on 40
and 80, interleaved with a few good 160 runs. The high bands were a different
story. 20m was fabulous, but 15 and 10 were a real struggle. This made for
increased pressure on the team. We knew we had to produce on 20m. And, if you
weren't the 20m op, finding the fun got hard sometimes . . .
Thanks so much to KL9A, KM3T, WC1M and W9KKN for their willingness to take the
ride with us and lend their skills for the first time. And to NI1L and NN1C for
return performances. NN1C has to be recognized for his creativity and commitment
to the station-building part of the equation. When we saw the operating team
take full advantage of the capabilities we'd been building for so many months,
we felt we'd already achieved our biggest win.
Congrats to all category leaders. In our own M2 world, a tip of the hat to W2FU,
N4WW and others who may not have reported just yet . . . fun watching the
scoreboard, as always.
One more thank you should go out to all the ops around the world who decide to
jump in and operate for a few minutes or hours. Their participation - with
whatever station and skills they have - are the lifeblood of these high QSO
totals.
73 Jim K1IR
---------------------------------------------
Station Highlights - How valuable were some of our recent projects?
Let me preface this section by noting that the K1IR station is built around a
single, 90 foot tower. There will never be more towers on our 1-acre lot. So,
those large, nicely separated and independent yagi stacks that most of our
competitors enjoy aren't in the cards for us. Instead, we work hard to determine
what high-value additions can be made with automation and wires and small
aluminum out in the wooded area adjacent to our property.
- Antenna Switching - a huge investment of resources that went into building
the switching system that allowed any of four stations to be on any band,
including up to two stations on a single band with all the antenna sharing and
lock-out capabilities you could ever dream of. For 99.X% of the contest, this
system was perfect. It provided a level of agility that made it easy for any
combination of local and remote ops to be accommodated. Huge thumbs up.
- 20m --> 40m Interaction - by insulating the elements of the main 20m yagi
from its boom, we eliminated a 40m resonance that would make the 40m yagi
impossible to use. Big thumbs up.
- 40m Yagi Rotor - We've had many a contest severely impacted by this finicky
TIC ring. With much help from climbers and machinists, we refurbished the
primary motor and added a second. While it appears that work is still needed to
get this to 100%, performance through the contest was definitely good enough.
Thumbs up, for sure.
- 40m Four-Square - To enable in-band operation on 40m, we erected a 4-square
about 500 feet from the main yagi. Worked great. Side benefit was that it made
rotating the yagi less critical, reducing dependence on that fragile TIC ring.
The 4-square had additional benefits in that there were times when it heard
better than the yagi. Major thumbs up.
- 20m Four-Square - We knew 20m would be the largest component of our score, so
we decided to make sure in-band would be possible. The 20m 4-square worked
great. Many QSOs were made on that antenna. Another big thumbs up.
- 80m Inverted-Vee - During the week before the contest we looked at
propagation predictions and we consulted with the gurus. There was a clear
chance that southern stations might benefit from high-band openings we would not
see. We decided to counter that by focusing on what we know we can do better
than our competitors to the south - rack up the QSOs on 80m. So, we decided to
augment the existing 80m wire 4-square with an inverted-vee, which would give us
the extra edge afforded by in-band operation. When the antenna was finally
installed out in the woods, it turned out that it was too close to the 4-square
leading to intolerable interstation interference. The inverted-vee really didn't
hear DX signals all that well either, plus it welcomed high-angle arrival; it
was not a win. An unfortunate thumbs down.
- Active Receive Vertical - Unwilling to give up on the idea of in-band
operation on 80m and looking to the possibility of adding a quieter and more
isolate receive antenna for 160, we decided to deploy a single active receive
vertical as far from the rest of the antenna farm as possible. This decision
happened less than 24 hours before the contest was to start. A roll of RG6 was
procured and a way to power it over that long distance was cobbled together.
There was an excursion into the deep woods to pay out the feedline through 16
inches of snow and, as darkness was setting in just 90 minutes before the start
of the contest, we were pounding a ground rod into the frozen turf and
connecting the feedline. This antenna was an outstanding performer on 80m. It
enabled lots of QSOs by a helper in a second chair. It didn't work on 160m at
all. Not sure why. But, the net result was definitely a strong thumbs up!
---------------------------------------------------
Cabrillo Statistics (Version 10g) by K5KA & N6TV
http://bit.ly/cabstat
-------------- Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour 160 80 40 20 15 10 Rate Total Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
0000 0 107 135 0 0 0 242 242 5.7
0100 1 73 104 0 0 0 178 420 9.8
0200 0 49 78 0 0 0 127 547 12.8
0300 25 18 43 1 0 0 87 634 14.9
0400 21 45 59 0 0 0 125 759 17.8
0500 6 67 44 0 0 0 117 876 20.5
0600 3 84 34 0 0 0 121 997 23.4
0700 2 34 33 0 0 0 69 1066 25.0
0800 0 8 47 0 0 0 55 1121 26.3
0900 0 0 34 87 0 0 121 1242 29.1
1000 0 0 25 140 0 0 165 1407 33.0
1100 0 1 0 171 7 0 179 1586 37.2
1200 0 0 0 176 13 0 189 1775 41.6
1300 0 0 0 152 27 0 179 1954 45.8
1400 0 0 0 107 24 0 131 2085 48.9
1500 0 0 0 101 15 0 116 2201 51.6
1600 0 0 0 113 15 0 128 2329 54.6
1700 0 0 0 83 22 3 108 2437 57.1
1800 0 0 0 72 11 6 89 2526 59.2
1900 0 0 59 37 7 10 113 2639 61.8
2000 0 0 119 13 9 2 143 2782 65.2
2100 0 0 136 24 1 0 161 2943 69.0
2200 0 85 76 2 0 0 163 3106 72.8
2300 0 58 27 0 0 0 85 3191 74.8
0000 0 14 11 0 0 0 25 3216 75.4
0100 27 7 17 0 0 0 51 3267 76.5
0200 12 12 21 0 0 0 45 3312 77.6
0300 13 22 12 0 0 0 47 3359 78.7
0400 11 29 9 1 0 0 50 3409 79.9
0500 23 14 7 0 0 0 44 3453 80.9
0600 19 41 6 0 0 0 66 3519 82.5
0700 3 31 12 1 0 0 47 3566 83.6
0800 0 2 22 2 0 0 26 3592 84.2
0900 0 2 13 5 0 0 20 3612 84.6
1000 0 0 4 26 0 0 30 3642 85.3
1100 0 1 0 57 0 0 58 3700 86.7
1200 0 0 0 72 6 0 78 3778 88.5
1300 0 0 0 88 1 0 89 3867 90.6
1400 0 0 0 67 0 0 67 3934 92.2
1500 0 0 0 63 8 0 71 4005 93.8
1600 0 0 0 33 13 0 46 4051 94.9
1700 0 0 0 28 8 0 36 4087 95.8
1800 0 0 0 10 4 4 18 4105 96.2
1900 0 0 9 4 13 0 26 4131 96.8
2000 0 0 17 1 16 0 34 4165 97.6
2100 0 0 26 5 2 0 33 4198 98.4
2200 0 1 19 23 0 0 43 4241 99.4
2300 0 8 6 13 0 0 27 4268 100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 166 813 1264 1778 222 25 4268
Gross QSOs=4450 Dupes=182 Net QSOs=4268
Unique callsigns worked = 2636
The best 60 minute rate was 255/hour from 0005 to 0104
The best 30 minute rate was 294/hour from 0018 to 0047
The best 10 minute rate was 312/hour from 0038 to 0047
The best 1 minute rates were:
8 QSOs/minute 1 times.
7 QSOs/minute 12 times.
6 QSOs/minute 18 times.
5 QSOs/minute 52 times.
4 QSOs/minute 178 times.
3 QSOs/minute 375 times.
2 QSOs/minute 577 times.
1 QSOs/minute 817 times.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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