WQ6X Survives COVID w/BARTG

As you probably know, planet dirtball Earth is in the middle of WAY overreacting to the COVID situation; people all over have decided to stay indoors, but dunno what it is they wanna do during
this time.  For those of us who play radiosport, at least on the weekends, there is nearly always some sort of radiosport competition that can be engaged in. 

For this last weekend, the main event was the British BARTG RTTY contest and in the background, the VA (Virginia) QSO party, which I chose to run remotely from W7AYT's QTH in Concord.  I also took the opportunity to integrate a Rockville 4-channel stereo audio mixer into the station operation; but after the radiosport events were over.

While I have participated in the BARTG Springtime HF RTTY GiGs before, 2020 was my first real effort at making a presence in this contest.  Fortunately, the above 4 events have been written up in this Contest Blog,

• [x] 2016 BARTG Contest Weekend
• [x] 2017 BARTG Contest Weekend
• [x] 2018 BARTG Contest Weekend
• [x] 2019 BARTG Contest Weekend

As you can see, depending on the year, more attention was given to the Russian DX contest,
versus the BARTG RTTY GiG and vice-versa.  In the VAQP WQ6X won a number of 1st/2nd place wins for California.  While there was also participation in the LAQP QSO party, no certificates have ever been received.  Looking at the 2020 WA7BNM Contest Calendar, I see that the LAQP has
been moved to the 1st weekend in April; I guess not to be in contention with VAQP QSO party.

The BARTG RTTY Contest
is strikingly similar to the CQ WPX RTTY GiG just weeks before. 

The difference is that in the BARTG contest we also exchange the Time-of-Day (T-o-D) in addition to sending 5xx and a Serial #; the time is normally obtained from the transmitting station computer.

During this year's events,
I was more focused on RTTY operations than anything else; as such, Russian DX Contest signals never made it to the headphones.  Having never won a certificate in this GiG
I wasn't too disappointed.


Being a 48 hour contest, the BARTG RTTY GiG gives many opportunities to explore each band more than once.  Using the NCDXF beacons for predicting band openings only work on 15 & 10 meters as stations RUDLY congregate on the 14,100 beacon frequency.  It's one thing to "accidently" be in the vicinity of the beacon frequency; it's quite another to be EXACTLY on 14.100. In my opinion, stations operating exactly on 14.100 should have their log entry DQ'd; or at least, those 20 meter QSOs should not count towards the score.

On 40 meters, officially, we have no official beacon system; unless of course you consider the

not-well-known Russian Single Letter Beacons (SLB's).  I have written about these beacons before.  ([CLICK HERE] to read about that.)

During this contest weekend, only the "F" & "K" beacons were heard.  In fact, the "M" beacon has not been heard in several weeks, leading me to believe that the transmitter in Magadan is not currently operational.

A couple of times during the weekend, it seems that NX6T ran out of new stations to work. 

This gave an opportunity to put WQ6X on the air from W7AYT's QTH in Concord.  Not many
WQ6X QSOs were made, altho it was a nice diversion; however, the time prolly shoulda been

spent sleeping.

The world around us may be in considerable turmoil, however thanks to radiosport we can do what we've ALWAYS done (operate) and contribute to the safety of everyone on the planet.

Did YOU play in the BARTG RTTY GiGs?

Is NX6T or WQ6X in YOUR Log?