WQ6X Dual-OP's another ARRL RTTY Roundup (RU) Contest.

With 2022 now long behind us, looking into the radiosport possibilities for 2023, I rewound the timeline back to October 1st and my favorite operating GiG, the California QSO Party (CQP),
wherein I accomplished a triple-OP operation, putting in operating hours at NX6T, running K6Q
as a low power operation from Contra Costa County and finding the wherewithal to slip in some
OP-time running WQ6X in QRP mode.  The CQP results are now on the website: NX6T took a resounding 1st-place as a Multi-OP, K6Q took a resounding 1st-place for Contra Costa and WQ6X
set a new county record operating as a QRP operation.

One of the radiosport goals for this year is to replicate the different operating-styles that worked
well in 2022, in a context befitting 2023.  The 1st radiosport GiG of the year (the RTTY RU) created
a framework from which capitalize on dual-OP'ing as LP and QRP for a given event.  For this contest weekend, a new addition was made to the portable setup at W7AYT's QTH in Concord. 

A new MFJ-993B IntelliTuner relegated the manually operated MFJ-949E VersaTuner to
"Top-shelf status".  Anticipating future remote access to the Concord QTH, the MFJ-993B is
one of the many steps towards that goal.  Thursday evening was spent taking the tuner through
all bands (160 to 10 meters), giving it the opportunity to memorize settings for each band-mode
(Cw, RTTY & Ssb).  

Friday evening, after rerouting the coax cables properly, another trip through the bands ensured
that the IntelliTuner would be primed and ready to tune the myriad of different antennas at W7AYT:
an 8JK-style Cobra dipole array, a CH-250 vertical and a Hygain 3-element 10-meter "Long John" yagi.  Additionally, one of the Cobra dipoles can be redirected as a noise antenna for the MFJ-1026 noise canceller also inline between the FT-2000 and the MFJ tuner.

While the MFJ-993B tuner certainly accomplished what I set out to accomplish, it also provided
an unexpected surprise.  While running RTTY on 28088.88, I inadvertently typed in 21088.88 and began calling CQ.  After a delay caused by a short flurry of relay clatter, the MFJ-993B continued on.  After making a handful of 15-meter contacts, it occurred to me that the 993B had tuned the 10-meter yagi on 15-meters, I guess turning it into a rotatable dipole.  Not only was it directional, the noise-floor (compared to the 8JK cobras) was nearly ZERO - as it turns out, the Long John yagi makes for a very LOW-noise receiving antenna on 15-meters.

In previous RTTY-RU contests with N6GEO (George), the W6R has been used, so as NoT to favor WQ6X or N6GEO.  In honor of that, for this year's roundup GiG, the choice was made to reprise the W6R callsign (the "R" in W6R representing RTTY) allowing WQ6X to run as a QRP station, banking on callsign recognition to make up for a weaker signal than people are used to hearing from WQ6X.

As in recent contests, operations began on 10-meters, switching between running as W6R (LP) and WQ6X (QRP) working down to 15 and then 20 and 40 meters, before calling it quits for the evening
on 80-meters (RTTY contests are purposely NoT run on 160 meters).

Near the end, I took advantage of WQ6X's low QSO count spending about 90 minutes calling 
"CQ RU Test" on 10, 15 & 20 meters.  Because a 5-watt signal lacks presence, keeping a run frequency meant moving around a lot, looking for the RBN receivers to put WQ6X back on the frequency list.

With 69 QRP QSOs in the WQ6X and [hopefully] a new record set for East Bay (EB) section,
the last 70-minutes of the RTTY RU was spent running as W6R running frequencies and S&P'ing. 
The decision was made to move back down to 40-meters during the last 30-minutes of the contest.  Doing this put another half-dozen multipliers in the 40-meter register.

DiD YOU work the 2023 RTTY RU Contest?

Is W6R or WQ6X in YOUR LoG?