WQ6X Works a Wily 4-Contest Weekend

Technically, this was the first real multi-contest weekend for 2022.  And technically, it should have been a 5 contest weekend 'cept Vermont could not be heard in the SF East Bay during the 48 hours of their QSO Party.  What good is having a QSO party that is a wonderfully 48-hours long, when no one in your state is playing on the radio - the mind boggles.  The other GiGs showed some activity,
to some extent:

• [X] - The Vermont QSO Party
  
• [X] - The XE RTTY Contest
  
• [X] - The Minnesota QSO Party (MNQP)
  
• [X] - The British Columbia QSO Party (BCQP)
  
• [X] - The North American SPRINT

 

All the above bitching aside, a major goal for radiosport activity in 2022 is to re-Learn the Art
of contest operating by way of a recently acquired Yaesu FT-2000 transceiver (a 2009 model). 
With the FT-2000, much of the IF filtering and contouring is done by way of a built-in DSP facility. 
This brings more operator options for QRM control, and, increases slightly the operating complexity,
being used in conjunction w/all of the external audio filters and DSP units.

By the end of 2022, having run 70 - 100+ contests, I will have all the interaction-nuances figured out; along with a functionally complete switching system supporting externally-processed dual-RX audio.  While a bit cumbersome, the WQ6X approach to audio is a knob-twiddlers paradise.

Technically, for this weekend, the myriad of filters was a bit under-utilized being that the major focus throughout the weekend was the XE RTTY contest; altho oddly enuf their website homepage does NoT reflect the 2022 change from 24 to 36 hours.  Because the RigExpert Plus receives received audio before all the external audio filters, no WQ6X audio processing on these signals is actually possible - Bummer Dewd.

A side-project for this year is to discover a way to intercept the RigExpert RX-audio path. 
RTTY demodulation accomplished using software algorithms is NoT all that different from running
the built-in DSP chips found in today's mid-tier (and above) transceivers; the main difference being
code execution speed.  With an additional 12 hours to play RTTY, I took the opportunity to explore
yet another variation of the world of Stereo-audio: namely Stereo-RTTY, which will be written up later.

The XE RTTY contest GiG begins at 12:00z, which is 4am Pacific time.  Approximately 2 hours spent S&P'ing and calling "CQ XE Test" on 40 & 80 meters.  At 14:00, I enjoyed the luxury of 2 more hours sleep.

While it is true that band condx. were far from optimal, I was expecting a far better turnout for the BCQP and the MNQP; especially considering that Vermont (VT) was an absolute no-show in the
SF East Bay (EB) area.  After posting my 3830 Scores last night, this afternoon I received a reply from contest coordinator Rebecca VA7BEC:

Your log has been received. I have you in the single-op low-power CW category.

Perhaps the reason you didn’t find any stations on 15 or 20 meters was because 
you weren’t listening. There were lots of VE7/VA7s on the air, particularly CW operators, and they had steady pileups on 10, 15 and 20 and later in the day 40 and 80. And from CA, you should have been able to hear the many operators on Vancouver Island calling CQ. But then, if you were playing in the other parties and XE RTTY, maybe you just had bad timing. 

What a shame. There were so many stations and so many wonderful 
multipliers waiting for you. 

73
Rebecca VA7BEC
BCQP Contest Coordinator

I really appreciate Rebecca contacting me directly and setting me straight on what I missed out
on from British Columbia. It's important to remember that this QTH is largely a receive signal vortex. Quite possibly, the REAL answer woulda been to Call "CQ BC de WQ6X/6 WQ6X/CA" attracting the S&P OP's in British Columbia. As I often say: "Maybe Next Year!".

Now the BiG question is what wassup with the MNQP and VTQP.  Looking up the 3830 score submissions, it would seem that there was SOME activity in Vermont, altho there were 10x the number of outside of Vermont callers for each VT station on the air.

For me, the MNQP was a 4-QSO disappointment.  Then again, with only 14 hours of actual OP-time allotted for the entire event, stations on the "Left" Coast (as well as Hawaii) have very little access to MINN on the low[er] bands (160 & 80 meters).  At least the BCQP gives us a 2nd-chance to work them on Sunday.

The NA Sprint contest being a 4-hour "Quickie" comes with unique challenges in that
no operator is allowed to dominate a frequency, making it their exclusive RUN frequency. 
In the Sprint there are NO run frequencies, we simply engage in a unique form of Searching
and Pouncing (S&P'ing).

The best way to explain how last weekend's SPRINT went overall is to include here a copy
of the comments I posted when submitting WQ6X's 3830 Scores entry for NA SPRINT.

While this was NoT my 1st-ever Sprint, it WAS the 1st-time I ran the Sprint using a newly acquired Yaesu FT-2000 transceiver. While I had a lot of fun, I was frustrated by the stations who need to STFD (Slow Down - QRS) and the OPs who would start sending their exchange BEFORE I was done transmitting. By the time I am finished transmitting they have already sent the number, which now requires a REPEAT. The WASTED ~6 seconds would have been UNNECESSARY if they had waited 1.2 seconds for me to finish. WAKE UP People.
I KNOW it's a SPRINT, but when you send too fast I have to ask for a repeat, slowing us ALL down.

As for the XE RTTY contest, while I would've liked to hear more stations here in the East Bay,
there were many OPs who managed to log over 1,000 contacts during the 36 hours of this contest.  While the "5NN" needs to be exorcised from the exchange and replaced with something else (like the operator's name), overall this RTTY is a lot of fun (as RTTY GiGs go), making me wish they would run it twice a year, like the NAQP RTTY events are done.

Despite all of my bitching about operator turnout, this last contest weekend added 4 contests to the
WQ6X 2022 radiosport database and gave the FT-2000 transceiver a good workout.  Like the older FT-1000mp, the FT-2000 runs 100-watt full-duty RTTY w/o generating any unnecessary heat from
the PA amplifier area of the radio.

DiD YOU participate in any of the above contests?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?