During low sunspots, the height of atmosphere/ionosphere decreases and low
angle antennas/locations gain big advantage.
Being more south in PY and having higher angle signal could aggravate the
situation. So both factors contributed.
When I had 7 El Stacked Razors I could see the big difference and advantage
during low sunspots over the "regular mortals" with run of the mill Yagis.
During high sunspots, angles are higher and regular antennas are OK and
shoulder to shoulder. Having extra dBs at a right angles can bring whole new
layer of stations and that's what wins contests - working those that other's
can't.
It's in the antennas/location, hearing and working stuff before the packet mob
gets to it :-)
Yuri Blanarovich, K3BU
----- Original Message -----
From: Ted Bryant <w4nz@comcast.net>
Date: Sunday, August 20, 2006 11:44 am
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Why did the Canadians (PT5M) beat the Americans
(PW5C)in WRTC 2006?
> Very interesting analysis and obviously a LOT of effort went into
> this. Reading this, a few thoughts
> occured:
>
> 1. Did the guys at PT5M also have a 40m terrain advantage over
> others (PW5X, for example) in top
> five? Top ten?
> 2. If the terrain profile to the USA is an advantage on 40m, isn't
> it also an advantage on the
> higher bands?
> 3. From the coordinates given, it appears PT5M is almost 200km
> North of PW5C. Could this also
> account for a much different propagation to USA on 40m?
> 4. HFTA's angles are averages over solar cycles, months, etc. It
> would be interesting to generate
> arrival angles based on actual solar data for the period of the
> contest and re-run the analysis.
>
> Jose, thanks for an interesting perspective on the differences in
> the top two scores.
>
> Congratulations on your first child!! Hope mother, child..and
> dad..are doing well.
>
> 73, Ted W4NZ
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com
> [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com]On Behalf Of José Nunes
> CT1BOHSent: Saturday, August 19, 2006 9:39 AM
> To: cq-contest@contesting.com
> Subject: [CQ-Contest] Why did the Canadians (PT5M) beat the Americans
> (PW5C)in WRTC 2006?
>
> Why did the Canadians (PT5M) beat the Americans (PW5C) in WRTC 2006?
>
> The answer to this question is actually quite simple: Not enough
> Americansworked PW5C on 40 meters. No, it was not a national
> boycott to the American
> team by their fellow compatriots as you will see below…
>
>
> After reading the answer to the first question I will just ask one
> morequestion:
>
> Do we need a handicap system for WRTC's?
>
> The 2006 WRTC is over and done, and to start with I think it is
> not enough
> to say the PY's did a FANTASTIC job. I repeat a FANTASTIC job.
> Although I
> was not able to attend, because of my first child birth, everyone
> who was
> there and I talked to had nothing but praise words to the
> incredible effort
> put up to make WRTC 2006 the best WRTC so far.
>
> I worked the event from home and followed with particular interest
> the hour
> by hour live scoreboard and the battle between the first two teams
> PT5M(VE3EJ + VE7ZO) and PW5C (N6MJ and N2NL) with PW5C leading the
> first hours
> and then a turn around with PT5M claiming victory.
>
> With all the logs available on WRTC official web site I retrieve
> these two
> and begun analyzing them to try to explain why such a turn around
> in the
> last hours of the event.
>
> Just looking at raw QSO data, plotting the difference of QSO's
> between PW5C
> and PT5M, it is interesting to note that the difference in QSO's
> between the
> two was always up and down between 0 and around 50 QSO's from
> the start of
> the contest at 12:00z the first day until 03:00z the second day
> (note: the
> Americans were leading in score because they had a better
> multiplier total).
> At 03:00z the difference between the two teams was just two (2)
> QSOs. After
> 03:00z until 10:00z the Canadians gained about 215 QSOs. After
> 10:00z and
> until the end of the contest at 11:59 again there was not much
> difference in
> the effort of the two teams to work QSO's. The edge the Canadians
> gained in
> QSO's during 7 hours of the contest (03:00-09:59z) eventually was
> enough to
> overcome their multiplier disadvantage and win the event.
>
> The astute readers will realize one very important fact to explain
> why the
> answer to the first question is so simple: propagation on 40 dies
> betweenPY5 and Europe around 03:00Z as all the logs demonstrate
> it. 20 meters was
> dead and 80 was not productive. All there was to work was USA and the
> American continent, as the rest of the world QSOs was negligible.
> Repeatthere was no Europe to work as all the logs show it. It is
> also important to
> note that after 10Z with sunrise approaching contesters tend to
> move to the
> high bands.
>
> Click the link below to see the graph (at 13:24 for instance a
> value of -43
> means PW5C is 43 QSO's behind PT5M)
>
> http://ct1boh.planetaclix.pt/wrtc/pt5mvspw5c.JPG
>
> Wow! What happened in those 7 hours between 03:00z and 09:59 that
> dictatedthe final outcome of the WRTC 2006 winner?
>
> During those 7 hours both stations were on the low bands (mainly
> 40 and
> occasionally on 80), but their efforts netted very different
> results, and
> the key element is the fact that because of propagation
> characteristics in
> Brazil and the low part of the sunspot cyle, the contest during
> those 7
> hours turned basically into a 40 meter/USA only event.
>
> Let's check PT5M QSO's 03:00 – 09:59z
>
> 20 meters: 2 QSO's
> 40 meters: 477 QSO's
> 80 meters: 56 QSO's
>
> Looking for 40 meters the continent distribution was:
>
> Europe 8 QSO's
> Japan 20 QSO's
> Other 97 (basically North and South America) QSO's
> USA 352
>
> Let's now check PW5C QSO's 03:00 – 09:59z
>
> 20 meters: 0 QSO's
> 40 meters: 272 QSO's
> 80 meters: 50 QSO's
>
> Looking for 40 meters the continent distribution was:
>
> Europe 3 QSO's
> Japan 5 QSO's
> Other 62 (basically North and South America) QSO's
> USA 202 QSO's
>
> During these 7 hours, while on 40, the Canadians ended up working
> a lot more
> QSO's and those QSO's were the difference to their victory against the
> Americans.
>
> And what were the state side boys doing these hours? Well they
> couldn't do
> much, they were crying like babies but mom and daddy did not come
> to feed
> them…They were calling CQ, CQ, CQ, CQ,CQ and getting not many answers.
>
> Let's check for every one of these 7 hours, how many minutes each
> team had
> with 0 (zero) QSOs:
>
> Hour PT5M PW5C
> 3z 10 21
> 4z 11 32
> 5z 17 22
> 6z 12 15
> 7z 22 37
> 8z 30 42
> 9z 24 41
>
> Total 126 210
>
> In these 7 hours the state side boy's team had 210 minutes with
> zero QSOs,
> and I bet they were not sleeping or taking a time way to pee….
>
> If we now look to the minutes with QSOs we can check that the
> Canadians had
> 294 minutes with QSOs – 535 QSOs at a rate of 1,82 QSOs per minute
> and the
> Americans had 210 minutes with QSOs – 322 QSOs at a rate of 1.53
> QSOs per
> minute, i.e. the Canadians were working stations faster and at
> least two
> levels of stations PW5C could not work or copy as we will see why
> ahead in
> the text below.
>
> Now if you remember, in the first 15 hours of the contest both
> teams worked
> almost exactly the same number of QSOs:
>
> PW5C 1757 QSOs and PT5M 1759 QSOs
>
> So if these two teams had such similar performances why such a
> differencenow on 40?
>
> The answer is LOCATION/TERRAIN and LOW ANGLES…
>
> With latitude and longitude coordinates of both locations PW5C 27
> 44 20S, 48
> 30 41W, PT5M 26 08 52 S, 49 10 47 W) and Google Earth it is
> possible to
> check the PY5 – USA path from the two sites, and use the terrain
> data to
> analyze the take off angles of the signals using HFTA (N6BV great
> program).. For this analysis I used the PY1 to US data available
> in the ARRL
> Antenna Book CD.
>
> Click below to see the terrain characteristics of both teams
> toward USA and
> the figure of merit of the two antennas on 40 taking into account the
> terrain and the angle information of the signals between PY5 and
> the whole
> of USA.
>
> Terrain graphs:
>
> http://ct1boh.planetaclix.pt/wrtc/pt5m_pw5c_terrain.JPG
>
> Image of view of PT5M towards USA:
>
> http://ct1boh.planetaclix.pt/wrtc/pt5m_usa.jpg
>
> Image of view of PW5C towards USA:
>
> http://ct1boh.planetaclix.pt/wrtc/pw5c_usa.jpg
>
> Figure of merit of antennas taking into account terrain:
>
> http://ct1boh.planetaclix.pt/wrtc/pt5mvspw5c_fom.JPG
>
> What's so interesting about these graphs?
>
> To start PT5M had a geographical location advantage towards USA
> over PW5C.
>
> Now let's check the low angles and the antenna performance (Dbi)
> accordingto the terrain data:
>
> First, PT5M 40 meter antenna/terrain has a FOM (figure of merit)
> of 6.9 DBi
> compared to 4.7 DBi of PW5C. Those 2.2 DBis open a level of stations.
>
> Second looking at the very low angles, surely used by signals for
> this part
> of the cycle we have:
>
> Angle PT5M PW5C
>
> 1 -3.7 -7.0
> 2 1.2 -2.0
> 3 3.4 -0.6
> 4 4.4 -0.9
> 5 5.4 -1.6
> 6 5.5 3.4
> 7 3.8 3.9
> 8 4.9 4.3
>
> >From 1 to 6 degrees on average PT5M is 4.15 DBi better than PW5C.
> It's two
> levels of stations.
>
> PT5M beats PW5C all the time in the low angles, and these zero to
> eightdegree angles represent statistically 34% of the incoming
> signals.
> No wonder PW5C is about 40% down on QSO's on those 7 hours against
> PT5M.
> It is clear to me Location/Terrain was the factor for N6MJ/N2NL
> loosing all
> those QSO's during those 7 hours on 40/80 between 03:00 and 09:59z.
>
> Note I'm not saying N6MJ/N2NL should have been the winners,
> although I have
> my own thoughts. We do not know what their performance would be at the
> command of PT5M on those 7 hours. Nor we know what VE3EJ/VE7ZO
> would do at
> the command of PW5C from 12:00 to 03:00z and then from 10:00 to
> 11:59z. But
> the fact remains that PW5C lost ground and eventually the contest
> because of
> what happened from 03:00 to 09:59z on 40 meters.
>
> Anyway, what is all this about?
>
> Well it is clear that WRTC is not a plain level field event!
>
> I just looked into two stations but I'm sure a lot more
> differences exist,
> and unless everyone goes to the flatlands of Russia , or to BS7H
> rocks with
> verticals probably no WRTC will be even, unless a handicap system is
> developed. We have the technology to adjust each location to it's
> true radio
> potential, using programs like HFTA. Perhaps then, with a handicap
> system,WRTC will truly measure team operator performance.
>
> 73
>
> José Nunes
>
> Contest CT1BOH - www.qsl.net/ct1boh
>
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