WQ6X Wangles a Weird 7-GiG Radiosport WeeKend

The 3rd weekend in September brings us a series of 5 State QSO parties coupled with the Scandinavian CW and SPRINT RTTY contests inserted somewhere in the middle of operations.

• [X] - Scandinavian (SAC) Cw Contest
• [X] - Iowa QSO Party - IAQP
• [X] - Texas QSO Party - TXQP
• [X] - New Jersey QSO Party - NJQP
• [X] - New Hampshire QSO Party - NHQP
• [X] - Washington QSO Party - WAQP/Salmon Run (S-R)
• [X] - SPRINT RTTY Contest

QSO Party-wise, Texas (TXQP) and Washington (S-R) filled the Cw bands with signals; Ssb QSO Party activity, while not plentiful, was there to be found - made easier by the array of audio filters in use at the local (non-remote) site.

Altho the IA, NJ and NH QSO parties were allegedly underway by 16:00z, signals from those areas were not heard until 21:00z to 23:30z - Bummer Dewd!. While NHQP had a Sunday period, nothing was heard from New England - Double Bummer Dewd.  Because the RTTY SPRINT began at 00:00z, by the time it ended (04:00z), IA/NH/NJ were probably all sound asleep.

To their credit, Washington and Texas kept running until 20:00z (TX) and 23:59z (WA) on Sunday.  Texas brought us several rover stations who provided at least a dozen+ more county multipliers for the WQ6X QRP Log

Speaking of QRP, I am constantly amazed at how often the QRP signal can "bust a pileup" - much
of the time it's Luck and Timing.  Having multiple calling function keys enables several ways to slip in
the WQ6X callsign in/around the pileup mess.

While recent improvements in the Concord internet connection have considerably improved remote radio operations, later Saturday afternoon seemed like a reversion to a week ago.  Of course, on Sunday (when it is usually at its worst) was actually quite functional - GO Figure.  If I suddenly disappeared in the middle of a CW/RTTY exchange, an internet dropout was likely the cause - I wasn't ignoring you.

Lack of TRI-state QSO party action was compensated by a 15-meter (and later 20-meter) opening
to Scandinavia.  While 24 QSOs is much, at least it can be said that WQ6X was playing the SAC contest.

When it was all over, WQ6X made noticeable entries in 4 out of the 7 contest GiGs.

DiD YOU work any of the above seven contest GiGs?

Is WQ6X in any of YOUR LoGs?

WQ6X Works a Wandering WAE Radiosport Weekend

Because it is a somewhat complex 48-hour radiosport Experience, I rarely worked the Worked
All Europe (WAE) Ssb contest, altho I thoroughly enjoy the August-CW and November-RTTY WAE contest variants.  Finding the WA6TQT super station STN-2 available for the weekend, I logged in remotely Friday afternoon to setup N1MM+ to most effectively run the contest largely by way of the
voice keyer messages in the remote K3 radio's DVK facility.

With local internet dropouts a continuing problem, once started, a DVK message can be playing
out even tho a brief internet dropout occurs on the local end of the connection.  Friday evening,
(what turned out to be) a weird software conflict prevented the PTT-line from keying properly,
so, I setup a near-identical configuration on Station #1 (STN-1), only to discover no propagation
to Europe after all.

Rereading the 2025 contest rules, I discovered a disclaimer from the 2024 WAE contest.
Evidently the N1MM and WriteLog  contest logging software were somehow producing BOGUS
Cabrillo format .Log files.  I remember encountering this N1MM and somehow got around it.

With nothing left to do but sleep, I did just that.  Awakening around 14:00z, the STN-2 problem
had been resolved, encouraging me to resume the original operating plan.  With the solar flux index
(SFI) back down to the 120's the only good thing to say about it is that there were no annoying geomagnetic storms during the contest period (the storms did not arrive until after the WAE
contest was over.

15-meters made for a great contest beginning on Saturday.  Unfortunately, propagation to EU
all but folded up in the afternoon, moving WQ6X down to 20-meters, making an easy transition
into the NAQP SPRINT Cw contest - which always commences on 20-meters.  At least 2 BOOKs
of QTC were offloaded then.

Unfortunately, the NAQP SPRINT was RIDDLED with internet outages.  Out of the 4-hours contest time, approximately 40-minutes were WASTED just reconnecting with a stable (for 5 minutes) connection to the internet.  The last 40-minutes gave me a stable connection, altho the loss
(mainly on 40-meters) had already occurred.  At least I can say I wuz there.

Sunday morning again opened on 15 meters and stayed open well into the afternoon enabling
55 QSOs and sending 11 QTC BooKs. When 15 died a move down to 20-meters produced 5-QSOs - the ones for which QTC messages were never sent.

GOOD-NEWS: Around 22:00z to resolve a local plasma TV problem, all the cables to/from the router were pulled and reseated.  VOILA!  Most of the local internet dropout evaporated - just like that.

BAD-NEWS:  Propagation to Europe had simultaneously also evaporated - Bummer Dew!

INTERMEDIATE-NEWS: WQ6X only got stuck with 5 undelivered QTC messages - a far cry from some years back when I failed to deliver QTC messages as I went along and ended up STUCK with 72 undelivered messages when a solar flare suddenly disrupted the USA --> EU propagation link.

DiD YOU work the NAQP SPRINT Cw or WAE Ssb contests?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Wangles a Russo-Asian Radiosport Weekend

The 1st contest weekend of September is one of those "mixed-bag" affairs.  Being an Ssb contest,
All Asian is typically a major disappointment.   However, this year I discovered the Russian DX RTTY contest embedded in the packets of downtime in the All Asian GiG.

Client commitments kept me at my Alameda office (with no remote radio access) during Friday evening's potential 15 & 10 meter openings.  For WQ6X, A-A startup time did not begin until 06:00z, looking for a 20-meter opening while watching the greyline window, looking for Asia (JA in particular) to transverse into evening, when 40-meters opens in Japan towards their East - West Coast USA.

Being an Ssb contest, I was not surprised to hear the4 usual contest weekend non-amateur signals invading the lower 40-meters phoneband segments.  (For some reason, these intrusions rarely occur midweek).  The A-A contest weekend brought us the following 40-meter occurrences:

• 08:48z - 7132.66 - A station (LOUD S-9) was sending 5-character code groups.
  (WQ6X was running a frequency on 7135.35)
• There was what I call a "Data Cranker" - some sort of digital signal that sounds kinda
  like a toilet.
• There was of course the usual not-allowed Ssb operations in the middle of the CW/RTTY segment of the 40-meter band.
• The Russian "K"-Beacon is of course heard every evening, after about 07:00z on ~7.039.

Over the course of the 48-hour contest period, WQ6X made it all happen in only 3 operating periods:

• Friday Evening
  06:00z - 08:37z - 100 QSOs on 20-Meters
  08:50z - 12:35z - 59 QSOs on 40-Meters
• Saturday Evening
  06:41z - 07:27z - 8 QSOs on 20-Meters
  08:50z - 12:35z - 10 QSOs on 40-Meters
• Sunday Afternoon
  08:50z - 12:35z - 21 QSOs on 15-Meters

According to the 3830 Scores website, WQ6X took 1st-place for USA using Low Power (LP).

In between the non-Asian openings, I switched to running the Russian DX RTTY GiG.

Making this contest work using an older version of N1MM required patching two different
log segments together to deduce the proposed ending score.

The Tennessee QSO Party (TNQP) is one of those GiGs that doesn't know what weekend it belongs on.  While I like the idea of running on Sunday, this year, client commitments kept me off the air for most of the contest.  Then again, when I WAS on the air there were hardly any TNQP stations being heard, nor any being spotted - Wassup with that.

Bottom line, WQ6X added 3 contests to the 3830 Scores list to say I wuz there.

DiD YOU work the above radiosport contests?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

XYZZY

WQ6X PiTches a Case for the California QSO Party (CQP)

In preparation for the 2025 California QSO Party (CQP) event coming up in October, I followed
the steps outlined in the recent Blog post on Preparing for Preparation ([CLICK HERE] to read that). 
As President of the Amateur Radio Club of Alameda (ARCA) my goal is to pitch a case for club members to be involved with this monumental annual radiosport event.

While ARCA has always made a notable Field Day presence, operating the California QSO Party
is a relatively new experience for the radio club.

• [X] - (2021) - K6QLF Runs a Memorable 1st-time ever CQP Event
• [X] - (2024) - Amateur Radio Club of Alameda (ARCA) runs a CQP Training Exercise

To assist people in understanding what makes CQP so significant, I offer you these thought morsels:

• WHAT is CQP?
  CQP is the pre-eminent State QSO Party - one of the last state QSO parties
  for the calendar year.  Think of CQP as the ultimate Emergency Preparedness Exercise.
  
  
• WHEN is CQP?
  CQP Runs the 1st FULL weekend in October (Oct. 4th 9am PDT to Oct. 5th 3pm PDT).
  Ideally, equipment is setup and tested the day before - Oct. 3d.
  
  
• WHY is CQP?
  CQP provides activation for ALL California Counties - specifically the "RARE" ones,
  enabling operators to qualify for the coveted WACC (Worked All California Counties)
  Award.
  
  
• WHERE is CQP?
  CQP is anywhere you want it to be.  When choosing a location give thought to the
  importance of operating ALL 30-hours.
  
  
• The GOAL of CQP
  Over the course of ONE weekend you can learn superior operating skills
  that will be with you for the rest of your time on HF radio.
  
  

As it turns out, the 2024 operations for K6QLF and WA6OYC - simple CQP setups from the Oakland Yacht Club (in Alameda) - netted us a 5th-place win in the Expedition class and a QRP county record for Alameda County - proof once again that sometimes just showing up is enough to be some sort of

a contender.

For 2025, Alameda County (ALAM) has risen on the county needed list from #58 (Bottom) to #44.

WHAT are YOUR ThoTs on Operating the quickly upcoming 2025 CQP QSO Party?

WQ6X Posts Blog #777 after 13 years

It seems astonishing to me that despite often hit-missing Blog postings, the WQ6X
contest Blog has now reached the lucky 777-th post.  While some blogs do indeed share
common characteristics, most of the Blog posts are completely unique.  Here is an overview

of how things turned out.

• [X] BLOG #001 - The World of WQ6X Contest Activities
• [X] BLOG #100 - WQ6X Contest Blog 100th entry! - the REAL value of Radiosport
• [X] BLOG #200 - WQ6X Single-OPs CQ W.W. Cw Remotely
• [X] BLOG #300 - WQ6X Blast from the Past: ARRL RTTY RU

• [X] BLOG #400 - WQ6X Wangles another Weird Triple-contest Weekend
• [X] BLOG #500 - WQ6X Posts Contest Blog #500
• [X] BLOG #600 - WQ6X SURPASSES 600 Blog Posts
• [X] BLOG #700 - WQ6X CONTEST BLoG - PosT #700

Blog #700 was posted about this time last year.

The Question is, when can we expect Blog Post #800?

Stay Tuned for the upcoming answer to that Question.

WQ6X Wanders thru a Weird QSO Party weekend.

Whenever there is a 5th contest weekend in August, it brings out the WEIRDness in things. 
Throughout the weekend, I relied HEAVILY on the F-12 (WEIRD) key in the N1MM software. 
The previous weekend WQ6X dabbled in the Ohio QSO Party (OHQP) and the Hawaiian HQP
(which was a DuD like COQP).

• [X] - COQP QSO Party
• [X] - KSQP QSO Party
   

Taking the time to setup N1MM software macros and load up the K3/0-Mini voice memories
made for a more-or-less "seamless" operation.  Voice QSOs are always tenuous in state QSO
parties - having 3 different styles DVK recording to say the callsign certainly made a difference.

Overall, the KSQP is one of the BEST organized state QSO parties as represented by the THOROUGH website behind the entire operation.  This website has been meticulously maintained
for years, and seems to get better every year I make preparations for the KSQP QSO Party.

A unique characteristic of the KSQP QSO Party is the use of 1x1 Callsigns to spell out
various  words for Bonus points and awards for: KANSAS, QSOPARTY, SUNFLOWER
and YELLOWBRICKROAD.  [CLICK HERE] to see what 1x1 stations were on.
Of 72 1x1 callsign possibilities, WQ6X managed the following:

• K0A, K0B, K0C, K0F, K0I, K0K, K0P, K0Q, K0R, K0S, K0T, K0U, K0W, K0Y, K0Z
• N0A, N0B, N0C, NOD, N0J, N0K, N0N, N0P, N0Q, N0R, N0S, N0T, N0U, N0W
• W0E, W0F, W0I, W0K, W0L, W0O, W0P, W0R, W0S, W0W, W0Y

The Kansas QSO Party brought us over a dozen rover stations, each with a pre-announced
path to activate dozens of counties. I found the above stations to be representative of how it's
all done.  [CLICK HERE] to see the list of Rovers and Expedition stations.

My only BEEF with the KSQP GiG is that it ends for the day on Saturday @02:00z (7pm PDT),
just as 40-meters is opening up to the state of Kansas.  Altho KSQP allows 80-meter operations,
we never get a chance at 80 on the Left Coast - Bummer DEWD.  

At the break, WQ6X had put 100  QSOs in the log.  Then again, on Sunday, KSQP brings
us  6 more hours of county hunting beginning @14:00z.  This year, those 6 hours produced
another 50+ QSOs, something that WQ6X has yet to accomplish in past events.

 

One of the nice things about running only state QSO parties throughout
a weekend is that the antennas can
be  set to one azimuth position and pretty much left there for the entire
time of the QSO party.

Because the Shorty-40 and Stepp-IR yagi antennas are 90-degrees opposed, when it finally came time to move down to 40-meters, the Shorty-40 needed to be turned 90-degrees bringing it to the same azimuth occupied by the
Stepp-IR earlier.

Of course all these wonderful pieces of technology all have one  potential caveat - a solid internet connection; lose that and it's all over.  Fortunately, there were only a handful of full-blown internet dropouts over the weekend - amazingly most being on Sunday morning.

When it was all over, it would seem that WQ6X took 2nd place to K7SS in Washington for
the QRP mixed-mode category - not bad when you continue what I had to work with overall.

DiD YOU work the KSQP and/or COQP QSO Parties?

How many counties made it into YOUR Logs?

WQ6X Wings yet another Weird Worldwide Weekend

The 4th weekend in August is always a mixed bag - two state QSO parties with the YO DX contest placed more-or-less somewhere in the middle of it all.  Chronologically for the weekend it went like this:

• [X] - 04:00z - HQP - 48-hours
• [X] - 12:00z - YO DX contest - 24-Hours
• [X] - 16:00z - OHQP - 12-Hours

For the Hawaiian QSO Party (HQP), I like the idea of starting 4-hours later than most 48-hour contests.  My issue with HQP is the dearth of in-state operations - this year's event brought only
7-stations, with many of the island counties dormant (as far as HQP is concerned).  It is easy to
get used to the California QSO party (CQP), where making a county sweep is a distinct possibility every year.

By 08:00z, on 4 QSO with 3 stations (KH6LC, WH6R and NH6V) made it to the log.  With nothing further heard, the better use of my time was spent sleeping as I needed to be up early to make the monthly meeting of the Amateur Radio Club of Alameda (ARCA) - I am club president - where we enjoyed a presentation by Mitch W6MLW on "Screwdriver" vertical antennas, after which WQ6X
made a brief presentation on the concept of noise-cancelling at the antenna end of things.

Tom WB6RUC always sets up a marine battery run ICOM 7300 Xcvr in the meeting room, feeding
a horizontal J-pole wire antenna atop the Oakland Yacht Club building in Alameda.  Running as WA6OYC, a search was made of the higher bands for OHQP stations.  The RFI-noise and atmospheric noise was so strong no Ssb copy was possible, prompting a switch to 20-meter Cw.  

With the 7300's digital noise reduction (DNR) enabled, after considerable "effort", KW8N made
it into the WA6OYC log.  Submitting that 2-point score to WQ6X's 3830 score list, added another
contest event to the list, bringing the GiG total to #86 thus far this year.

When it was all over, WQ6X set any records and made no high scores. 
Instead, the claim-to-fame was 4 contest events added to the 3830 scores list..

Thanks to the YO DX contest, I gained experience searching for Hawaiian stations
(altho somehow, I missed WH7T by not knowing when/where to look).

DiD YOU work the weekend contests?

Is WQ6X in your YO DX contest LoG/
How many HI & OH counties are in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Works a Weirdly disjointed Radiosport weekend

The third radiosport weekend in August offers up a mixed bag of events spread from Friday afternoon (west coast time) thru Sunday afternoon.  Over the years, different events have come and gone over that weekend, while the NAQP Ssb GiG occurs right on schedule.  The weekend schedule included:

1. [X] - International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend
2. [X] - SARTG RTTY Contest
3. [X] - North American QSO Party (NAQP) Ssb
4. [X] - CVA HF Dx Cw Contest
5. [X] - ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY

Contest weekend three runs concurrent with a non-Contest event known as the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend (ILLW).  In 2012, I made a lighthouse activation driving trip
along the Central California coast, making NAQP Ssb contacts along the way, using the same
"Ron in CA" exchange from all location stops.

On the way back, I made mobile contacts for the rest of the NAQP GiG.  While technically, running mobile in NAQP is a violation of the fixed station rule, a checklog was submitted anyway, and the score counted as an event-point on WQ6X's 3830 event list for 2012.

Every year I promote the ILLW GiG and yet nearly every year I fail to hear (much less work)
and Lighthouse stations probably because I am engaged in other radiosport events.  Technically,
the ILLW is not a radiosport contest, it is an Operating Event (which is why it is never on the WA7BNM Contest Calendar).

For this year's NAQP Ssb GiG, NX6T was unable to find enough OPs for a Multi-2 Anza operation (@WA6TQT), so the station was offered up to K6JO who eventually took a 1st-place for single-OP.  The WQ6X goal was to run QRP from Ramona (@KN6NBT) in the NAQP Ssb GiG.

Interspersed with the NAQP and ILLW GiGs is the 40-hour SARTG RTTY contest, with its unique
8-hours on, 8-hours off, 8-hours on, 8-hours off and 8-hours on.  With the 8-hour breaks, it gives everyone the opportunity to sleep or engage in other activities outside of the SARTG contest.

The decision for Saturday morning was how many hours should be devoted to the SARTG RTTY event Vs. the NAQP Ssb GiG, considering that another SO-A QRP winning score is being sought.  WQ6X took 2nd-place in the NAQP Cw GiG - a 1st place for Ssb will ease the Cw sting a bit.  

Because the 2nd shift of the SARTG contest ends at 00:00z, that factor requires consideration. 
Thanks to the 10-hour (Max) operating limit for Single-OPs, the main time allocations were
deemed to be:

• Forgo the 1st 2-hours of NAQP and work the SARTG RTTY contest.
• Forego the 1st/Last hour of NAQP, using those hours for SARTG.
• Begin NAQP @18:00z, taking a mode-break whenever the rate drops, propagation
  shifts unfavorably, Space-Wx worsens, or mode-fatigue (Ssb or RTTY) sets in.
• When boredom sets in on a mode - time to switch to the other

Because many stations run the first 10-hours (regardless of rate, or propagation concerns),
the final 2-hours can be (and usually is) painfully / excruciatingly Quiet

Part 2 of the SARTG GiG brought us a domestic opening on 20-meters, followed by
a reasonable opening to EU on 15-meters.  Typical of this period in the solar cycle,
10-meters was nearly a now-show (RTTY-wise at any rate).

Being that the Ramona station possesses no inherent (onsite) RTTY capability, a hybrid approach 
has been devised to generate/decode RTTY tones on my end thru the internet to the radio, which 
is controlled on the remote end by software on my end (instead of using the software on the remote end).

Even though the solar cycle seems to be on its way down, lots of Space-WX disturbances occurred before, during and after the contest weekend.  Why do Space-WX storms seem to always happen
during radiosport contest weekends?

As part of a competition team with the Southern California Contest Club (S-C-C-C), my NAQP
goal was to put in 8 to 10 hours for NAQP, while looking for RTTY openings in between lulls
in Ssb activity.  

Because NAQP counts multipliers on
a per-band basic, when K6AM (John)
called me on 75-meters, he offered to walk
me up the bands for a contact on each.

Thanks to John new multipliers were added
for 80 & 10 meters.  Altho WQ6X was QRP,
his QTH is within the groundwave distance
to Ramona on all 5-bands (no 160 yet @KN6NBT).

Being close-in, John could hear the Xmit audio "up close", noting any nasty artifacts from the weird cabling, implemented to switch the microphone jack between a Mic and the
RTTY computer audio.

Fortunately, the audio was clean.

At the last minute I discovered the Brazilian CVA Dx Cw contest.  The yagi was pointed to South America (SA) and a few QSOs were logged in that event - enough to say I wuz there.

When it was all over, it would seem that WQ6X was the only Single-OP Assisted QRP
entry in the NAQP GiG, resulting in a 1st-place for that category by default.

On Sunday, there was a 6-hour ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY event, which encouraged
more RTTY activity to round out this weird contest weekend.

Did YOU work the NAQP and/or SARTG RTTY contests?

Is WQ6X in YOUR Log?

WQ6X Works another nearly-Wrecked WAE Contest

The 2nd radiosport weekend in August brought us a triple whammy radiosport weekend. 
Beginning with a solar CME blindsiding Earth around Friday evening, it became increasingly
chaotic as the weekend progressed, finally settling down by Sunday morning.  Offsetting that somewhat, I had access to  STN-2 @ super-station WA6TQT ("Radio Ranch") atop the mountain
in Anza, with it's bevy of stacked arrays.

Getting a later start than I wanted, on Friday evening WQ6X missed whatever 40-meter opening
there was; if Friday evening compares to Saturday, then approx. ~50 QSOs were missed by that
late start.  Only II2S and EA5FID made it to the log.  Tuning around on 20-meters no WAE activity
was heard.  Ironically, a dozen (mostly LOUD) VK / ZL stations were heard working Europe, even
off the back of the yagi stacks.  With no need to run a 2am shift (as is done when working Asia),
there was an opportunity to get plenty of sleep.

Saturday overall was largely a BiG disappointment.  Space-WX investigations revealed the K-Index between 4 - 5, with a comparatively high A-Index (40 to 50).  20-meters never opened until well after the poor opening on 15-meters (which produced another 2 QSOs)and brought only another 2 QSOs for a WHOPPING total of 6 (hard earned) QSOs.  

Being a Cw only contest, using the QF-1A-based Stereo-Cw facility often made the difference between no-copy on receive and shifting the signal to a different "location" in the listening experience
to pull a given station out of the noise (already reduced considerably by the K3/0-mini's NR facility).  When running frequencies. using the R-I-T control brought seriously-off-frequency stations perfectly into the passband.  When the F3-TU function key is pressed, it resets the R-I-T back to Zero (0).

Moving to 40-meters @02:06z, was just in time for a West coast opening to EU. 
Those on the East coast had been at it on 40-meters for hours.  While a LoT of time
was spent in S&P mode, w/the WQ6X call, calling CQ produced several fine frequency
runs w/enough QSOs to make possible sending several "books" of 10 QTC messages.

Throughout the day, the bands
were near-futilely scoped looking for Maryland DC (MD) QSO Party stations. 

With only 12 QSOs (with 8 actual stations) and no internet spots, I again asked the question: "What's the point
of hosting a state QSO party with only
a dozen in-state stations participating? "

At least another radiosport contest was added to the 3830 scores list (currently
@78 GiGs thus far).  As EU moved into daylight, one more QTC book was sent before, 40-meter  opportunities quickly disappeared  (@04:17z) - 20-meters offered nothing.

Sunday morning, starting @17:15z 20-meters seemed rather dormant (EU-wise), however
15-meters was loaded w/possibilities.  Thanks to a finally declining K-Index, the band remained
open for some time well after sunset in Europe.  Running out of QSO/QTC possibilities at  @22:17z, moving down to 20-meters picked-up (somewhat) where 15-meters left off adding 6-QSOs to the log.

Before I realized, the final hour was approaching and there were still 22 undelivered QTC messages.  Out of nowhere, EF5Y and RA1A enabled me to dump 16 of those QTCs messages, being stuck
with only 6  messages undelivered,  resulting in an approx. ~480-point lost opportunity.

When it was all over WQ6X placed 46th in the SOALP category.

In summary, looking back on the weekend, it would seem that the number of participating EU
stations was way down from last year, while the number of USA stations, significantly increased.

DiD YOU work the WAE Cw contest?

If you are an EU station, is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?