ARRL 10-Meter Contest - 2023
Call: N9NC
Operator(s): NO0BEAT
Station: N9NC
Class: SO CW Unlimited HP
QTH: FN43md
Operating Time (hrs): 27
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW: 1880 163
SSB:
-------------------
Total: 1880 163 Total Score = 1,225,760
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
A great contest, nice to work many new and old friends!
EU was better on Saturday than Sunday, Cycle 25 is here but not fully for 10M,
no zones 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 26-28, in really good years all those Asian QSOs
are workable from NH. JA was light, only 2 logged on Sunday eve, the band seemed
open for just some 20 minutes around 2155Z. Stateside seemed better on Sunday,
lots of tropo and some MS on Friday eve, but almost no one there Sat eve though
the band seemed open. Missed DC, NF, NT, NU, overall: 72 S&P, 91 DX.
RE: NO0BEAT
An anecdote illustrating an existing problem in CW contests that seems to be
getting worse.
People click on packet and RBN spots and all end up zero beat on exactly the
same TX frequency. This has been referenced recently in some CQ WW comments, it
continues to be an issue, even for stateside QSOs:
Late Sunday afternoon, Pat N9RV showed up, between being a relatively rare MT
mult, and fresh meat on an otherwise worked out band, pretty quickly he had a
huge pile up.
After a couple of minutes, he paused the normal QSO rhythm to say "you are
all zero beat", obviously hoping to help everyone make Qs quicker.
Some callers got it: Pat proceeded to work a bunch of JAs, who were the ones who
evidently both copied and understood his plea. OK yes, some astute stateside
callers also got through.
What to do about the CW packet spot zero beat problem?
Some ideas, perhaps not new or not original, but worth repeating for the greater
good:
All logging programs should make 'randomize incoming spot frequencies' be
default true/active/checked. Currently, this feature is buried in various menus
which takes effort to find, even if you know to look for it.
Until then, manually randomize your TX frequency with TX offset or split TX VFO
when calling packet spots.
If you are in doubt as to when randomizing your TX frequency is appropriate,
always randomize your TX frequency when calling packet spots.
If you are still in doubt, one indicator that I have found useful:
If when you call, the DX station comes back to no one, then finally comes back
to that guy you hear who just called with a really high (or really low) pitch,
then it is really likely that too many callers were on that same spot TX freq,
so he came back to the station who was in the clear, i.e. the one he could
actually copy.
End of rant.
TU again for the Qs and CU in the next contest,
73,
Tom N9NC
IC-7610 / Alpha 87A / yagis: 4 el rotatable, 3 el fixed EU, 4 el fixed SA, all
at 28 feet up
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|