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?