CQ 160-Meter Contest, CW - 2022
Call: K1LT
Operator(s): K1LT
Station: K1LT
Class: Single Op Assisted HP
QTH: Ohio EM89ps
Operating Time (hrs): 24.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1209 State/Prov = 58 Countries = 53 Total Score = 437,118
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
Quick summary: the first night was normal, the second night was super
slow and boring but overall this year was not the worst year. A new
noise got in the way but I persevered. Nothing blew up and some new
stuff helped.
I spent my 5 weeks of vacation at the end of 2021 trying to finish my
new phased array receiving system project. Last year I found the
'system on chip' development board I was using had insufficient
computing power to run 3 simultaneous SDR receivers despite using an
FPGA to offload some of the computing to hardware. So I bought a
better system on chip development board.
The new board required much more 'learning curve' than I had
envisioned but with the extended vacation period I conquered most of
the new software issues. Since the new board was physically larger
than the old board, I had to make a new box to house all of the
electronics. When I rebuilt everything into the new box, I found a
new receiver performance problem which I was unable to solve before
the contest. So for yet another season, no new secret weapon.
Along the way I did change my software to reduce latency. The old
software would process 2048 samples in a block, which at 96000 samples
per second requires 21 milliseconds to accumulate. The block size
allows the SDR filter algorithm enough 'taps' (think 'length' or
'memory') to make a sharp bandpass filter. However listening to audio
from the SDR and analog receivers simultaneously drives one mad with
the echo effect. The new algorithm divides the bandpass filter into
chunks and in exchange for more complexity and computing, imposes
latency on only the most recent chunk. With a new block size of 512
samples, latency is reduced to 5 milliseconds. At the same time the
filter is extended to 4096 taps to gain even sharper skirts. The echo
effect is gone.
A side effect of the improved latency is that my 'automatic mute'
algorithm no longer kept the SDR muted for the whole transmission.
The 'full break in effect' is more annoying to hear than unmuted
audio. So for the first night I turned off the mute function. No
mute made listening on the spotting receiver more difficult. Saturday
afternoon I modified the mute algorithm to compensate for the
decreased latency and Saturday evening I could operate normally. Ha!
I stated the contest knowing my station has the following flaws. The
northeast phased array seems partially deaf towards Europe. My 30
degree Beverage hears better than the phased array although the output
of that Beverage is about 10 db lower than everything else. The K3
preamp mostly makes up for the low output although finding and pushing
an extra button during every antenna change is painful.
The first night was fairly typical except the band map did not look as
full as it does a busy year. My first night QSO total was comparable
to the first night of best year 2020 but almost 200 QSOs behind last
year's first night. After a 3-hour nap starting 0800Z a busy 90-QSO
morning recouped some of the deficit versus last year. I worked all
W/VE multipliers except AK, DC, VO1, VO2, NT, NU, and YT and 51
countries.
A new noise turned up a few hours after sunset the first night
breaking a streak of several seasons without significant man made
noise issues. The less significant wandering plasma TV 'noise ribbon'
doesn't count. This noise sounds like power line arcing except that
the noise spectrum is confined to 1815 kHz and up. It seemed to
disappear after European sunrise. Also this noise seems to come from
the east or south as westward antennas seem unaffected. Also the 30
degree Beverage seemed unaffected.
While the reduced latency made high rate running more pleasant, the
lack of mute and the limited frequency agility from the new noise and
extra antenna switching meant I spent less time tuning the second
radio during pauses in runs. Maybe this excuse accounts for the fewer
QSOs.
Since I napped the first night, I had plenty of hours for the second
night which allowed me to start about an hour earlier, around 2100Z.
Unfortunately the extra hour did not make up for the dismal rate that
persisted all of the second evening. The boring slowness severely
diminished my motivation and I considered quitting but somehow I
didn't. I made only 250 QSOs and worked only 2 new multipliers the
second evening (VO1 and YV) which justified going to bed an hour
early at 0700Z.
At 1100Z I returned to the radio and found and promptly worked KL7SB
which was a terrific morale boost. A little later I called RM0F but
he could not hear me, nor did he seem to hear anyone else, except a
station in Arizona. I listened for several spotted JAs but heard
nothing. On the other hand the morning rate was better than any time
during the second night.
I worked another 25 stations during the last 100 minutes of the
contest.
DX worked: 4X, 9A (4), CM (2), CT, CT3, CU, DL (33), E7, EA (4), EA6
(2), EI, ES, EU, F (2), FM, G (21), GM (3), GU, GW, HA (4), HB (3),
HB0, HI (2), I (3), IT9, LA, LU, LX, LZ (2), OK (8), OM (5), ON (4),
OZ, P4, PA (5), PJ2, PJ4, S5 (11), SM, SP (3), UA (2), UA2, UR (7), V3
(2), XE, YO, YU (3), YV, and ZF for a total of 53 entities.
959 2 point QSOs (79 VEs)
154 10 point QSOs
Running yearly comparison:
__ Year QSOs States DX Hour Raw score Ops Asstd Pts/QSO
__ 2022 1209 __ 58 __ 53 _ 25 __ 437,118 __ 1 __ y ____ 3.26
__ 2021 1466 __ 60 __ 56 _ 30 __ 594,384 __ 1 __ y ____ 3.50
__ 2020 1392 __ 58 __ 82 _ 30 __ 826,700 __ 1 __ y ____ 4.24
__ 2019 1408 __ 58 __ 62 _ 30 __ 588,720 __ 1 __ n ____ 3.48
__ 2018 1275 __ 60 __ 62 _ 30 __ 498,004 __ 1 __ n ____ 3.20
__ 2017 1308 __ 59 __ 52 _ 29 __ 460,095 __ 1 __ n ____ 3.17
__ 2016 1210 __ 58 __ 54 _ 28 __ 456,848 __ 1 __ n ____ 3.37
__ 2015 1274 __ 59 __ 42 _ 30 __ 374,609 __ 1 __ n ____ 2.91
__ 2014 1199 __ 58 __ 48 _ 30 __ 367,820 __ 1 __ n ____ 2.89
__ 2013 1329 __ 58 __ 58 _ 32 __ 536,140 __ 2 __ y ____ 3.48
__ 2012 1297 __ 59 __ 47 _ 30 __ 396,016 __ 1 __ n ____ 2.88
__ 2011 1471 __ 59 __ 67 _ 30 __ 670,320 __ 1 __ n ____ 3.62
__ 2010 1559 __ 58 __ 75 _ 39 __ 776,587 __ 2 __ y ____ 3.75
__ 2009 1416 __ 59 __ 71 _ 30 __ 757,510 __ 1 __ n ____ 4.12
__ 2008 1350 __ 58 __ 64 _ 38 __ 553,758 __ 2 __ y ____ 3.36
__ 2007 1063 __ 58 __ 68 _ 32 __ 422,100 __ 1 __ n ____ 3.15
__ 2006 _ 764 __ 58 __ 47 _ 26 __ 260,505 __ 1 __ n ____ 3.25
This year was 3rd worst by QSO count and 5th worst by score ignoring
2006. Or the lowest score since 2015. Or the lowest QSO count since
2014.
Now the analysis part. The first day was fairly normal but
participation was thinner, which might be the normal as we get away
from the magical solar minimum years. The chart above shows somewhat
the same pattern for the years after 2009. The second day was crap.
Nevertheless, the points per QSO seem not so bad for a couple of years
past the solar minimum year.
Equipment: K3S/100, P3, K3/100, P3, Alpha 8410, 2x3 BS-EF phased
array, 2x4 BS-EF phased array, 2x2 BS-EF phased array not used,
60-foot "Tee" over about 75 radials, weird signal combiner to make
full-duplex possible. Several Beverages of which only 3 were used.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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