On 7/25/2014 8:48 AM, John Henry wrote:
Rick is right, there are a lot of teams that run their contesting on the
weekends
Duh! That's when contests occur.
based upon their contest software, period. At the time they chose
the rig, they also chose the software logging program they wanted to use,
and standardized on it,
It seems to me that contesting outside of North America is rather
different from our experience here, largely because more of us on this
side of the Atlantic have home stations. In many parts of the world,
especially EU, contesting is done from super-stations built by local
clubs. There are some super-stations in NA, but nearly all have been
built by individuals. In most contests, especially the major ones, they
participate as multi-ops.
This demands that logging software be the same for all operating
positions. Some big stations have the same rig in all operating
positions, some do not. When I moved to CA in 2006, I operated a half
dozen contests from N6RO, a super-station about 100 miles from me. At
the time, N6BV's Orion I lived in the 15M station; the rest were MPs
that either Ken owned, or that participants brought. Last I heard, they
are all K3s (or perhaps K3s and the Orion). Then they were using DOS
logging - CT and TR, which I found quite awkward. They have since
migrated to N1MM.
W6YX is on a lovely site on a hill overlooking Palo Alto (it's the
Stanford club station), and has a rather nice antenna farm. No stacks,
but lots of antennas, with space between them, so that in some contests
(Sweepstakes, RTTY RU) the site often hosts two or three different
stations, each with their own callsign. There's not a lot of rigs,
especially not a lot of fancy new rigs, that live there, but there are
power amps and switching for the antennas to several operating
positions. When operating as a multi-op, they use WriteLog.
K6LRG is the newest of the superstations, built by a group of younger
hams from the IT world, more or less led by N6WM, who lives in that
world, but also has a VHF site on a small mountain above Livermore. It's
still under development, and is often operated remotely during the week
by N6ML, one of those young IT guys. They use N1MM.
K5RC has buiit a spectacular superstation on a ridge above Reno, NV, and
often hosts both single-ops and multi-ops. N6TV won CW SS this time
around from there. WK6I works RTTY RU from there. They're all K3s. As a
single op, logging software is whatever the operator wants. Don't know
what they do for a multi-op.
W6NL has built a very nice station on his mountaintop property. It's set
up for SO2R, and N5KO uses it for domestic CW contests, most notably
NAQP and Sprint. He's won from there.
The operators at these super-stations are mostly guys who have no home
station, or one with a limited antenna farm. In this respect, they are
very much like those who participate in the EU club stations.
K6XX has a superstation three miles up the road from me. Although it's
set up to be a multi-op, he's hosted a serious multi-op only once since
I moved here 8 years ago. That's because he's in serious competition for
a spot on a WRTC team, so operates all the major contests single-op
unassisted. He does, however, use the multi-op to host new operators.
Bob uses TRWin.
Most serious contesters around here are members of the Northern
California Contest Club, but you'll find the same sort of variety in
rigs and logging software as exhibited among WRTC competitors. A few,
most notably N6TV, use WinTest; a strong majority use N1MM, and a strong
minority for WriteLog. I switched from WriteLog to N1MM around 2007.
Why do I use N1MM rather than WinTest? First, I LIKE N1MM, and I've
used it long enough that it's second nature. Second, WinTest does not
support CQP. A third new reason is what N6TV observed in the summary I
posted -- no ongoing development. Fourth, it's VERY well supported.
N1MM is under constant development, with a TEAM of developers that
includes N2IC. Steve either wins or places well in most domestic
contests from his home station in NM, so he really understands what a
contest logger should be. There's also a very active yahoo reflector,
which the developers read regularly. They are also pretty good about
adding modules for new contests, although there was recently an EU
contest a month or so ago for which I couldn't find the right module.
73, Jim K9YC
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