WQ6X Wangles a WEIRD-ly Different ARRL DX Ssb ConTesT

Two weekends back, WQ6X ran a uniquely unique ARRL DX Cw contest, purposely operating
the in-house Yaesu FT-2000 transceiver I maintain at W7AYT's East Bay (EB) ARRL section QTH in Concord.  For the Ssb counterpart of the ARRL DX contest pair, permission was granted to run QRP Ssb from STN-1 @WA6TQT's Superstation on the hilltop in Anza California.  As it turns out, this was
a mixed blessing.

Having access to ~100' towered stacked-yagi arrays (40m thru 10m) makes a 5-watt QRP signal sound more like 400 watts - operators frequently don't believe I am running QRP until they lookup WA6TQT on QRZ.Com.  During the contest weekend, the downside of ~100-ft towers was manifest when 75-mph winds whipped through the Radio Ranch Real Estate Saturday & Sunday afternoons.  To protect the yagi-stack elements, the masts were all positioned @ more-or-less ~49-degrees, which of course while great for working Europe, was nearly useless when it came to quality communication with Asia and Hawaii.

While there was access to a KT-36 rotatable yagi pointed 300-degrees azimuth, at ~50-feet high, its performance hardly compares with 100-foot yagi stacks.  Essentially, it was either antenna safety at the risk of antenna destruction or risk it and take a chance.  The KT-36 safety method won out - as it turns out, Asian participation was significantly less for this year's contest incarnation.,

Behind the scenes, Space-WX anomalies of various flavors riddled (or should I say whittled) the operating experience.  Depending on which operators (at different locations across North America), EU was wide-open or non-existent.  At WA6TQT is was a mixed bag.  On Saturday, working into EU was an unfilled dream, only partially realized on Sunday morning.

DX Ssb contests are actually my least favorite of all radiosport events.  Stations around the world know just enough English (the predominant language used in radiosport contests) to more-or-less make 2-way QSOs a possibility.    Many OPs think all they need to be able to say is "5-NINE Kilowatt" and understand things like "5-NINE CALIFORNIA" - would that it would be that easy.

In the past, I have written a number of Blogs detailing my MAJOR Beefs during radiosport.

It would seem that the 2o26 ARRL DX Ssb contest has brought them back to the surface with
a few additional specifics.

• Stations often copied my callsign as Whiskey Quebec FOUR (4).  HuH? 
  How do you get QUEBEC-4 out of 6-XRAY?
• Otherwise, stations copied my callsign as Whiskey Quebec 6 Foxtrot? 
  HuH? REALLY?
  How does X-RAY become FOXTROT?  The don't sound anything alike.
• Operators spoke their callsigns WAY to FAST - the caveat being they were
  often mis-spotted Fast but Unintelligible. actually slows EVERYONE down. 
  The solutions is to STFD - Slow Down!
• Similar to Cw and RTTY contests, are stations who turn my uniquely chosen RUN Frequency (Ex: 21377.77) into their own run frequency.  HuH?  Wassup with THAT? 
  I understand coming somewhat CLOSE to my run frequency (Ex: 21377.00 21378.00) however, when they are EXACTLY zero-beat, I know that is no accident. 
  AT the very least, it is RUDE and poor operating ethics.
• During Ssb DX radio contests, the after midnight (local time) periods are often littered
  with bogus RTTY-type signals, such as the one heard on 7141.41 @09:58z.  
• Earlier (08:15z), there was what I call the "wind noise jammer" on 7144.44,
  with high-speed RTTY heard way in the background - HoW WEIRD is THAT?!
• Later, back on 7144.44, out of nowhere JA stations went into ragchew mode on 7143.09,
  creating UNBEARABLE SPLATTER!   Obviously, they are NoT going to move - time to yet again find a new run frequency, good until Billy-Bob and his brother Barney show to enjoy their cross-town ragchew, exactly zero-beat with my latest run frequency.
• Near the contest end, we were frustrated by 5Z4A (Kenya) who would call CQ despite already having 50-stations calling him on 14.172.  To make matters WORSE, this frequency also became a National Tuneup Frequency.  In the course of 30 minutes,
  I believe he work less than a dozen stations.  REALLY?  Am I missing something? WTF?!

When the contest weekend ended, just under 24-hours OP time made it into the WQ6X QRP LoG.
According to 3830Scores.com, WQ6X took 2nd-place of USA/NA in the event; not bad for just
winging it all the way.

DiD YOU work the ARRL DX Ssb contest?

If you were DX, is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Wings a WEIRD NAQP RTTY GiG and NAQP QSO Party

The 2o26 contest weekend brought us a radiosport weekend bridging Saturday (in FEB) and Sunday
(in MARCH).  The 12-hour NAQP RTTY contest always runs the 4th weekend of February, which
this year scheduled it in heel of the month of February, with the NAQP QSO Party always on the
1st Sunday of March, which occasionally follows NAQP Saturday?  Sound complicated?  I guess
it all depends on your point of view.

The weekend brought us 3 radiosport GiGs, only 2 of which were available to me.

• [X} - CQ 160 Ssb Contest
• [X} - NAQP RTTY Contest
• [X} - NCQP North Carolina QSO Party

The Anza superstation was already claimed for the weekend, so there was no CQ 160-meter
activity for WQ6X on this weekend, which is fine by me - even with a simple exchange as "5-NINE CALIFORNIA", over two evenings, one's voice can be seriously compromised over the coarse of two contest evenings.

Saturday morning, a meeting of the Amateur Radio Club of Alameda (ARCA) pre-empted an early NAQP RTTY start.  When I finally got behind the radios @W7AYT's Concord QTH, the remote location in Ramona was experiencing internet dropouts making remote running all but impossible.  Similar to the weekend before, the decision was made to run RTTY locally from the Concord location using the onsite Yaesu FT-2000, running about 75-watts RTTY.  

For 20 & 15, the 10-meter Long John yagi was tuned as a rotating dipole.  On 40-meters, a classic 8JK Cobra dipole wire array more or less did the job.  Unfortunately, signal levels were so low, in the end, only 26 QSOs (16 Multipliers) made it to the WQ6X Log.  At least it can be said that WQ6X made the scene.

For Sunday, the day opened running 16:00z TO 18:00z until there were no new callsigns to work.  Because I had a biofeedback client scheduled for my Alameda office, a break was made to get to Alameda to take care of business.  At 21:20z I was back at it, again finding new stations to work. 
On a whim, @21;34z the radio made it to 40-meters with the stacked 40-meter yagi's at the Anza location pointed directly at North Carolina to put 2-QSOs in the log - amazing for so early in the afternoon.

At 23:54z, with just over an hour left, the decision was to end the NCQP running on 40-meters. 
After nearly an hour with only 11 40m QSOs in the log, the decision was made to Call CQ NAQP. 
As it turns out, only ONE out of 6 callers was actually in North Carolina.  Out of frustration, another installment was made in the Blog series detailing why you should not call me.  ([CLICK HERE] to
read that Blog entry.)  Aside from the single NC QSO in the log, at LEAST there was a plethora of RBN SPoTs.

When it was all over WQ6X managed a 1st-place for CW-only from California.

DiD YOU work the NAQP RTTY or NCQP QAO Party?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Reiterates Reasons Why YOU Should Not Call me.

Running an ad-HOC North Carolina QSO Party (NCQP), near the end, I ran out of NC stations calling CQ (that I could hear at any rate), so I modified the F1-CQ macro to call CQ for NCQP looking to pick up any NC stations that (for whatever reason) are not calling CQ.  This is what I sent:

• CQ  NCQP  WQ6X/6  WQ6X/CA

TRANSLATION: I am calling CQ looking for NC stations in the NCQP.
                             This is WQ6X in the 6th call area and therefore in CA.

Now NOWHERE does the above call indicate (or even suggest) that I am in North Carolina,
that in FACT I am in the state of California.  It would seem to me that the above CQ call makes
it clear that I am calling from California and NoT North Carolina.
And yet, of the 6 stations who called me, only ONE (NC4KW) was actually in North Carolina.

It is from years of participation in other state QSO parties that I began a series of Blogs on the 
topic of Why You Should NoT Call Me.  ([CLICK HERE] to read some of these Blog entries.) 

While I have said all of this before, let's review the above reasons in the context of the North
Carolina QSO Party (NCQP).

• Do you Know What NCQP Is?  (If NO, then you should not call me.)
• Do you Know That WQ6X/6 means I am not in North Carolina? 
  (If NO, then you should not call me.  If YES, then you should not call me)
• Do you Know That WQ6X/CA means I am in California not in North Carolina? 
  (If NO, then you should not call me.  If YES, then you should not call me)
• Do You Know that even if I DO send you an exchange your callsign will then
  be WIPED and NoT added to the Log?  BoTTom Line? - You should NoT call Me.
  
• Do you know that when I am running a contest that I am NoT looking to Ragchew?
  If you want to chit-chat, then you should not call me.
• If I am asking for a particular station and YOU are NoT that station, 
  then you should not call me.
• If we have already worked on this band/mode, then you should not call me.
  
  
  
  

Now as it turns out, there was a contest known as "SST" running on 20-meters in much
the same frequency space as the NCQP and POTA events.  However, that is no excuse
for NoT listening and BLINDLY calling me.

• If you hear me call CQ for a contest event and you don't know what that is,
  then you should not call me.
• Instead, lookup the contest name (in this case NCQP) on the internet and then
  RTFR - Read The Rules.
• Another approach is to LISTEN to stations working the contest, and you will quickly
  learn the proper exchange for the event.   Then again, if I am calling for North Carolina
  and you are not in North Carolina, then you are wasting your time.

In order to become successful at ANY form of radio communication endeavor, before we thrust our callsign into an already cacophonous frequency spectrum, we should FIRST and FOREMOST
LISTEN BEFORE WE TRANSMIT.  Then, after transmitting, we should LISTEN AGAIN!

I look forward to a QSO with you in the various radiosport contests coming up. 
Listen first and then call me in the appropriate contest at the appropriate and we
can share entries in each other log.

C U Down the LoG.