WQ6X runs CQ-MM & 4 other Radiosport GiGs

Remote Operation from Alameda

A major goal for WQ6X's 2019 radiosport operations is to participate in a large variety of different radiosport events throughout the year, exceeding the 82 events run in 2017 and even the 74 events during last year's operations.

There exists a number of ways to accomplish this.  Last year I transformed what began as a "flirtation" with Dual-OP'ing contests (operating NX6T remotely, utilizing the "off time" to run as WQ6X from W7AYT in the same contest) into a legitimate, premeditated, operating strategy.

Depending upon the collection of radiosport events on a given weekend, in past contest years I have occasionally run a "separate-but-dual" operation from Fallbrook; joining the NX6T crew's Multi-Single DX contest operations (on STN-2), while running a state QSO Party, or a "little" RTTY contest from STN-1. 

A secret to making this work is to REMEMBER that our amateur bands are more-or-less harmonically-related.  I take the attitude that the NX6T operation takes priority over WQ6X's
runs on STN-1.  Altho I've never dual-OP'ed from NX6T in the same contest, theoretically, doing-so
is legitimately "cheating, but within the rules".  The recent WPX-Ssb & JIDX events are examples of [off-site] dual-operating a single contest event. 

AUTEK QF-1A  &  MFJ-751

This weekend offered up the opportunity to test-run an Autek QF-1A and MFJ-751 filter combination while running several different contest events remotely from Alameda in order to "UP" the 2019-year total.  Scrolling through the WA7BNM Contest Calendar identified 7 contest events over a 50+ hour timeframe, beginning 21:00z on Friday, ending 23:59z on Sunday.

1.  ([View]) Holy Land DX Contest
2.  ([View]) ES-Open (Estonia) 80m/40m
3. ([View]) WA-PoC (China)
4. ([View]) YU-Dx Contest
5. ([View]) CQ MM Contest
6. ([View]) MIQP - Michigan QSO Party
7. ([View]) ONQP - Ontario QSO Party

 

While I listened for Holy land stations and noticed over a dozen bandmap spots for those stations, similar to previous years, no QSOs were logged with those stations.  From Southern California, the secret to working into the middle east is to point antennas in that direction during the morning and afternoon "greyline" time periods.  Doing that in the past has allowed me to "happen onto" a 5 - 15 minute "opening" allowing 4X6 or 4X4 stations to drift and float in/out of the receive passband.

Likewise, while spots were seen for "ES" stations, none were actually heard above S-2 in Fallbrook, leaving 5 out of the original 7 radiosport events to fill out WQ6X's contest weekend.  Overall, this weekend was QUITE a disappointment; other than the CQMM contest, the WAPoC, YUDX and both QSO parties lacked the kind of participation I would expect in such radiosport events. 

Because of other non-Radiosport commitments, it was not possible to begin the CQMM event until 01:25z (Saturday afternoon PDT).  However, once I got started, the QSO total took off immediately.

Usually the remote operations from NX6T bring out the intentional QRM'ers in the evening/nighttime on 40 meters.  This CQMM contest was similar but different; at 02:00z while running a frequency (14026.26) an annoying
"data cranker" made the scene.
Shifting up frequency worked for a
few minutes until he followed me
again and again.  By 03:00z 40-meters was way overdue, offering a legitimate reason to make the switch to 40-meters, without the data cranker.


At 05:00z an I encountered a CQMM station on 7.000.22 with a station purposely tuning up atop the CQ'ing station, making QSOs with the band-edge station, all but impossible.  Tuning below the band edge (6997.5) the "CQ MM" call was plainly copyable, technically out-of-band.  While an intentional-carrier is an intentional-QRM violation, if the CQ caller had been running on 7002 (or above) I doubt the interfering carrier would have started-up in the first place.

On 40-meters in the evening, RTTY QRM usually occurs during Ssb GiGs (like the recent ARRL Dx Contest).  For this weekend the RTTY QRM occurred at 05:00z while calling CQ MM on 7015.15. 
Are people THAT bored they have nothing else better to do than play RTTY in the Cw portion of
the band?

W Q 6 X  after  DARK

Running frequencies is always full of surprises.  One such surprise occurred this weekend during the CQ-MM contest when out of nowhere 9L1YXJ called "out of the blue", sent "5NN AF" and promptly disappeared back into the NR-Dsp threshold; at first, Initially, I thought it was a KL1 station (Alaska) as the antenna was pointed to 330-degrees, not 90-degrees.)

C - 3 1 (Tower #1) & Stepp - IR + Shorty - 40 (Tower #2)

Another surprise was finding Sunday openings to South America on 10 & 15 meters. Then it occurred to me that switching from the C-31 Yagi to the Stepp-IR on Tower 2 allows the possibility of running BI-Directional to work Asia (AS) and South America (SA) simultaneously.  Because QSOs outside
of NA are worth 3 to 10 points, running BI-Directional is a good strategy.

C Q M M  - E n d I n g  S t a t s

Submitting all 5 logs and posting the scores on the 3830 Scores website, it would seem that technically, even with minimal score submissions, WQ6X may have inadvertently taken a 1st place in several of those GiGs.  For the CQMM contest, WQ6X may well have made a 1st-place for the Left Coast.

Did YOU work the CQMM contest (or one of the other GiGs)?
Is WQ6X in YOUR Log?