This year, the 3rd weekend in October brought us the Japanese-based JARTS RTTY contest as a
48-hour backdrop and playing field for 2 state QSO parties, the Stew Perry SP-160 contest and the Worked All Germany (WAG) GoG, which as it turns out, I had little time for. The decision was made
to run all the events using STN-1 at the WA6TQT superstation in Anza California.
Because Anza is technically not RTTY-equipped, to make it all work, the RRC-1258 box (which controls the K3 radio on the other end) is itself com-port controlled by a RIG Expert PLUS rig
control unit. It's all accomplished by way of a morass of cables hidden in a cubby hole on the operating desk. Because the RX audio wanders its way through a Radio Shaft 16-channel
equalizer into a pair of Autek QF-1A analog audio filters, what I call "STEREO RTTY" comes
into play to enhance the character decoding process.
Despite the Space-WX storms, the band condx. were most exceptional into Europe and W. Africa
on10 & 15 meters. It may be signals between NY and the left coast may have been skipping over their intended locations. Around 02:00z, it was finally time to give 160-meters a look. Thanks to a pair of solar storms, the high noise-level on 160 was no surprise. The decision to NoT run QRP
was certainly vindicated. Calling CQ, only RBN receivers as far as Kansas could hear WQ6X
on 160-meters, and then not very loud.
An hour into the SP-160 GiG, after doing a RTTY signal check on 40-meters, suddenly the switching network on the 160-meter Tri-Square failed to activate, creating a near-infinite SWR condition on that band, effectively ending WQ6X's Stew Perry contest run - time to finish the evening running RTTY.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the NYQP and ILQP GiGs, my only real beef is that bothevents provided us with limited OP-time. Ironically, while NYQP ran until 02:00z (7pm),
an opening to NY could not be expected by then, even using an 80-meter 4-Square array,
whereas on Sunday, despite an earlier QSO party ending, it was possible to put 5 80-meter
ILQP contacts into the log before it was over - GO Figure.The JARTS RTTY contest ended @00:00z with 523 QSOs in 39 countries making it
to the WQ6X log kept locally at the run site in Concord (EB section). While not a super
score by any means, it certainly surpasses anything I've ever done in this 48-hour RTTY
contest event. ToTaL OP time for this event was close to 22-hours over the weekend.
DiD YOU work any of the above 5 radiosport events?
Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?
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