Contest categories

I see many ongoing discussions on the net that handle about the subcategories in contests.
In my opinion - of course I've also an opinion on this item -, keep it as simple as possible and make a difference in human behaviour in stead of splitting up technical situations.
There is a big difference between single operator and multi operator.  Especially after several hours of contesting, a replacement by another operator is a big advantage.
So keep it simple : SO, M/S, M2 (needed ?),  MM.  
Although this simplicity the IARU contest doesn't comply with this; no they find that an assisted single operator equals a multi-single station.  Uhhh ???  I've not enough brains to find the logic on it...

On the technical categories, I agree with QRP (10W), low power (why not <200W with all the new transceivers giving 200W output) and high power - no, correction,  better said : higher power.
And here the discussion starts with the question what is the limit high power : 1KW, 1.5KW, 5KW, 10KW ?  Does it make sense to categorize high power ?  I see many US stations crying that the limit is 1,5KW. 
Of course, the FCC doesn't allow higher power.  If FCC agrees with 2KW, are we going to change the opinion and go to 2KW ?   And what with countries that are limited to 500W ?

I see many of these guys thinking : the high power limit is what I can handle in my station/country.  And as many big contests are controlled by US hams, this means 1500 W.
On the other side, the same guys are promoting stacked yagis and multi-tower setups.  
Not that difficult if you have 100 acres in the middle of nowhere.  Where I live, I can place many towers and stacked yagis too, but my neighbours wouldn't appreciate it, so no possibility.

Keep it simple : 10W, 200W and an open category.
Open category : no power restrictions, no antenna restrictions, SO2R allowed, assistance allowed.  But : one operator and only one signal in the air.



Big respect for the teams that can handle 10KW in an M/M environment, foresee enough electricity, avoid antenna and coax burnings in the complete chain, and live in peace with the neighbours when it comes to EMI problems...





 

Alternative for WAE

After two weeks of handling with the dark side of live (hospitals, funeral, etc.) I've found back the way to the shack.
Last week I could only make some contacts within the EU HF champ. but I can still remember R3/EA8CAC.  This station had such a 9+++++ signal that my tx was pointing at the far end of the needle.  Never seen such a signal.   Even with a dummyload, I could hear it.

Yesterday I found an alternative for those who do not like exchanging QTC's...  :  the WAE WARC contest, category SO HP mixed mode - no QTC.
I was active on 12m CW beaming JA and later in the afternoon on 17m ssb beaming NA.  I made about 200 QSOs in a contest-like style with 13 new DXCC bandslots and without one QTC-exchange.
Some stations were telling that I was the only strong signal on the band.  Not that difficult, all the other stations were in the contest, hi.

Especially 12m had a nice opening to Asia.  I tried to analyse it afterwards on reverse beacon, but only the non-warc bands are taken into account.  So a small excel sheet helps also.  JE1SGH reported a relative stable signal during the one hour activity.

This week some DX stations were very active.  I could increase the dxcc counter to 287 with PJ5 on air.  CY9M confirmed 3 bands, but 20m is missing.  Apparently they've had some troubles with the log and the PC clock.  I've to resend my 20m QSO's to get it confirmed.

D64K is not for me this time.  I worked D68C on every band except on 80/160m.  Until now D64K wasn't active on the low bands...

Although my absence in the shack during the first half of the year, my degree of activity is going up faster than expected.  I've now >3000 qso's in the log during the last weeks and this makes 2012 allready a good year comparing to the past.  

With both CQWW contests to come, 2012 will end in a top-3 position  together with 2006 and 2007.

I seems that there will be a small club expedition next year in July.  Market Reef will probably be the target...

Summer fun and other stuff

Today I had my first test with the new equipment and a real expedition on air : CY9M.

How stupid can you be : I was convinced that this had something to do with Chile, or even better, the CE base on Antartica.  So this morning I was beaming SA and  I heard him calling but he was weak.... of course he was almost at the null-point of my beam...  This afternoon I tried again, this time with the laptop in the shack and N1MM running.   N1MM informed me that the good location was the other way up to Canada.  I turned the antenna, tuned to full power and the first call was a good one.  Indeed Saint-Paul Isl. is near to Canada and not an antartic base....   Stupid boy !  Thank you N1MM...  DXCC 285 is in the log.

A little remark : the lids + police heard on the band coming from Europe and Russia was incredible.  The poor operator was able to work only 1 QSO/minute and this also resulted in a cluster post : poor op, only 1 qso/minute...

This afternoon I continued to play in the shack.  Antennas to JA on 18 mhz and calling CQ with N1MM.
60  Japanese stations, some DU & HL and a few European stations were put in the log.  I've learned my lesson since Monday evening...

On Monday evening, we had only one laptop in the house and the XYL - also a licensed operator but not that interested anymore - wanted to surf on the internet.  So I went to the shack to do some holiday-style QSO'ing to the States.  With my qsl cards near to me, the plan was to make some contacts directly filling in the card.  No paper log, no pc.

Oh my God ! After two contacts a US station put me in the cluster and I had a pile-up.  I had just enough time to fill in the call, give 599 and take another card.  I worked 100 stations on this 'holiday'-style, but I'll never do it again without PC.  Sorry for all mistakes in the CW... even a 73 was like 74 and a few times I've sent OT1R instead of OT1A... too busy with writing my QSL cards...

This evening I was programming in VB in order to automate the process of the QSO flow.  Now I take the QSO's from N1MM and put them into my own logging program, send it to lotw and upload it to clublog.
During the last weeks this process took too much time and wasn't error-free.  Now it seems OK.

This week was also a good week for DX :  P29, A25, EL, ZS, ZL, T6, TO2D, FP and CY9 were added to the log.


 



  

new DXCC and logbook of the world

One week after the IARU contest and 4 new countries (of the 13 new ones) are confirmed by LoTW : YS on 20m, GJ and CW on 15m, YA on 10m
31% confirmation within a week without sending any card, IRC or green stamp.  Nice tool !

Doubts about contest results part II

I just remembered that there is a very nice presentation on the webseminars of the PVRC given by K1DG.

Indeed, if you really want a famous contest award, make it your own,  but put an asterisk :-)

Doubts about contest results

A few days after a big contest, it's time to analyse the things that happened.  
During my own log analysis it's clear that running gets more QSO's with less multis, and S&P get more multis with less QSO's.  Nothing new, all seems very evident.
I also know myself : in ssb I can make contacts very fast - I had ratings of 6 Q's/minute ) so making faster QSO's is possible but there are limits.  At a top speed hour I make 180-190 Q's with HIGH power.

Now the reality : claimed scores of "top-performers". 
I look closely to SO HP Mixed (non assisted) because I suppose that there are assisted stations between it who will no declare it and so some of these guys were direct competitors for me.

I see single operators non assisted stations making >150 Q/hour and this hour after hour during 24h.  No problem, but in the mean time they are capable to have >300 mulipliers. 
OK, it's simple, they are SO2R playing. 
But with this high Q-rate they have even almost no free time to listen to a second radio.  With such a rate you almost never have to call CQ...
Conclusion : I can't see a possibility that a single operator - normal station, not at a special location - can do both run 150 Q/hr during 24hrs and make such an amount of multipliers non-assisted with only one transmission signal in the air. 
Even in assisted mode I've serious doubts.    Possible reasons :  Multi two ? Multi four ?

As a control : looking further than the top 5 result, everything becomes normal : special location stations make more contacts, stations with less contacts make more multis.

I'm not playing for a top position, certainly not.  Without stacks and arrays this will - in my opinion -  never be possible.  If I want a trophy for a special personal performance, I'll buy one for myself.

Nevertheless, I may hope that the contest committee will look very closely to some superhuman results.  It is nice to see some other stations perform better;  this will give power to improve your own capabilities. 
But with such differences, it becomes frustating...

IARU contest 2012

IARU contest 2012 : what a nice contest !

I had some clear objectives this time :
- (re)become familiar with strategy during the test.  What band, mode, running or S&P
- test the new amplifier
- test the 80m antenna in order to make a technical choice for the coming winter
- make a least 2000 QSO's, something I never did before during a 24h game

The decision was made to go assisted, which means reclassification to M/S.  Not fair, but who cares...  However, there is a survey going on contesting.com about this subject.   The cluster didn't help me
much, so next year no more assisted for me.

I started on 15m, went to 10m, came back to 15m and finally went to 20m where I stayed until 0h UTC.
After a slow start with 86 and 60 qso/hr, I ran two hours at 134 Q/hr.

At midnight I received a message from OQ5M indicating that there were more bands than only 20m :-)
During the night I was very active on 40m with many 5 pts QSO's, a bit afraid to go to 80m.  
I didn't had found the time to install a K9AY array and I feared the qrm on the vertical antenna.
Not so ! I still regret that I went too late to 80m...
Made only 100 Q's all runs in CW, with about 30% outside Europe.
Very happy with this setup at only 800W output : 25x W, 2x VE, CX, 2 LU, 2PY

This confirms my first opinion to install a vertical wire antenna tuned by the new MFJ998RT.
After consulting the reviews on eham.net it became all a bit confusing.  This month the tuner was tested
by QST magazine, and it seems to fill in my demands.
IMO the basic point is to put only 10W at the tuner to let it tune.  More power will attack the RF detector.

After the 80m success, the fatigue started to play and I made a mistake : in stead of going back to 40m, I went to 20m to work Asia.  This was the worst decision during the contest.  I lost time and became frustated.
I bit later I received a new message from Franki, OQ5M : 1600 Q's in the first 16 hrs.  I had only 1450 Q's.
Damn !  Although he had much more experience and played SO2R, this wasn't looking good because I was in mixed mode and had more possibilities to work stations two times on the same band..

I took up my courage and restarted on 40m for another 240 QSO's in CW.
Then I went to 20m for a nice run in SSB : 281 QSO's within only 2 hours.
Finally I did a quick tour on 10m, with the same result as on Saterday : poor conditions, not many stations on the band.   I'm very surprised that other stations did work much more on 10m...

The last hour the weather changed and a thunderstorm came close. New message from Franki : QRT due to nearby lightnings.
I decided to continue and made 65 QSO's in the last 30 minutes on 20m CW.  Ten minutes before the end VK6DXI called me, a nice final event.   2145 Q's was the final report.  Ouf ! 

S&P was and is not my best point.  Even with the clear purpose that multipliers were not a personal goal, I feel that I must be much more quicker to turn on the band to search for multis.  
For sure I lost time with tuning tests on the amplifier.  OMpower seems to be very sensible to incorrect
matchings, but during this test not one fault occurred.  Ig2 is sometimes too high.  I'll do more dummy load tests on this item to see where it goes wrong.
Another fear was EMI problems in the shack:  not one problem detected.
Also no negative reports from the neighbours.  Even the electronic horse fence of the neighbours gave no problems on reception.

After every contest I look always if there are new ones for my DXCC program.
The crop looks good : EK and BA on 40m; YS and CO on 20m; CX, EI, GJ, TA, YS, CO, TI on 15m and YA + 9Y on 10m.
After all, I worked 86 DXCC countries and 30 WAZ in only 24h.

So, new goals are defined : A complete low band wired TX and RX setup for the CQWWDX with a nice money save by not buying vertical alu antennas.