WQ6X Runs a 1st-time QRP Weird Prefix (WPX) RTTY Contest

Throughout the year 2023, I have been finding excuses to run radiosport contests at QRP power - RTTY contests in particular.  The January RTTY RU run with QRP power was a resounding success.  Because the WPX GiGs are truly world-wide events I took the opportunity to explore the world-wide aspects of running QRP power (<5-watts).

The newly acquired MFJ 949 IntelliTuner has made running QRP power much easier than running
a manual MFJ tuner last year.  The built-in wattmeter facility in the 949 gives a precise power output reading for the FT-2000 transceiver.  It turns out that altho the FT-2000 indicates we are running
5-watts, in fact the output power is closer to only 3-watts.

Also discovered this contest weekend is the fact that the 3-element 10-meter Long John yagi
is tunable by the MFJ-949 on 15-meters as a rotatable dipole.  While there is no gain from this approach, there IS directionality.  At other times, the yagi makes for a LOW-Noise receive
antenna, almost as good as a Beverage - AWEsome.

The BiG challenge for this year's WPX RTTY contest was of course Space-WX disturbances. 
During the 2022 event, while there were ALSO Space-WX disturbances, the SFI was a mere 117, compared to this year's SFI of a whopping 215.  As a result, upper-band conditions were not nearly
as bad as the A-Index and K-Index would have us to believe.

While every Weird Prefix contest has some weird things happening, this year (as you can see above) involved some unknown station attempting to EXTORT AB0RC into sending him money for some reason.  The jamming station went on and on for nearly a half-hour with his threat - WEIRD.

Because things are sometimes so weird, I have defined N1MM's Function Key 12 (FK-12) to send "WEIRD - WEIRD - WEIRD".  A typical weird thing is when a calling station frantically calls in (obliterating the other stations), I send him an exchange, and he promptly disappears. 
Some stations did this 3-times over the course of a half-hour - HuH?  (WEIRD!)

The REAL interesting statistic is looking to the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) to determine where the WQ6X signal is being heard world-wide.   The problem with RBN reporting is that while our signal is being heard by SDR receivers in QTH's like EA8 (Canary Islands), if there are no HUMANS running a radio there, it simply becomes a tease that leaves me frustrated and wanting.

When it was all over, comparing the online score board to the QRP entries submitted to the 3830 scores website, I have NO idea what place the WQ6X QRP score actually took.  I get to wait for at least the preliminary scores to be published by the CQ contest team.

DiD YOU participate in the 48-hour WPX RTTY radiosport contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Zig-Zags thru another XE-RTTY Contest

Becoming a fan of RTTY contests, the XE-RTTY contest has become an annual enjoyment. 
While I've been running a number of radiosport events (such as the RTTY RU) with QRP power,
the XE-RTTY GiG has no QRP-category, encouraging me to run Low Power (LP) - 99.5 watts. 

This year, my BiG question was: WHERE were all the XE stations?  Less than a dozen XE callsigns were heard in the SF bay area.  Less than a handful of different Mexican states actually ended up in the log.  Was the XE turnout actually that low or was it just the effect of the Concord receive-vortex, missing all the XE signals?

In recent months I have also been turning on the access to the contest online score board. 
It's actually a kick to see WQ6X move up and down in the standings.  Running low power,
WQ6X typically places at around 25th-place.  An interesting feature of the scoreboard is the
ability to track QSOs, Multipliers and total score on an hourly basis.

Typical of radiosport weekends this year,
10-meters has been THE band; at least, in the daytime.  Next up has been 40-meters, altho for the XE-RTTY GiG, turnout on 40-meters was actually quite a disappointment.  

For some reason, this year, 20-meters has been a "non-producer" overall; especially in recent RTTY contests, where 20-meters used to be THE RTTY band.

While there is a pair of Autek QF-1A
filters installed in the receive audio line, unfortunately, they are of no use to RTTY operations as the RigExpert PLUS unit intercepts the audio BEFORE the filters
"see" the data. 

I am proposing an experiment wherein the RiGExpert audio is intercepted and routed THRU the pair QF-1A filters BEFORE being re-directed into the computer's sound card facility.  This will open up the possibility for TRUE stereo RTTY - similar to the way we run Stereo-Cw and Stereo-Ssb.

DiD YOU work the XE RTTY contest this year?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Wanders through a Weird dual-Contest Weekend

For 2023, the final contest weekend in January brought disparate pair of radiosport events:
The CQ-160 Cw contest and the Winter Field Day (WFD).  While K6PO and N6KI ran the
CQ-160 contest from Station-2 at the WA6TQT Super Station, there was some down time
on Friday/Saturday evenings and after midnight on both days, giving WQ6X the opportunity
to make another 160-meter QRP run from the Anza station.

During Saturday and Sunday in the daytime, WQ6X ran QRP-Cw in the Winter Field Day
(WFD) event; mostly on 10-meters, but a handful of contacts on each of the lower bands.

As it turns out the WFD would not LoG properly in the version of N1MM+ in use @W7AYT
(running a "broken" WIN-7 has rev-locked N1MM+).

For the WFD event, the new MFJ IntelliTuner beautifully tuned ALL the antennas at the W7AYT
site giving a more accurate 5.0-watt indication than the FT-2000's power level display.  When the transceiver indicates 5-watts output, in fact, the power-level (shown by the tuner's wattmeter) is between 2.5 ==> 3.0 watts.

There really isn't a lot to say about the CQ 160 contest other than the fact that running QRP
power into a full-size Tri-Square array found many operators reporting that it sounded like I was running an amplifier.  Once the scores were posted to the 3830 Scores website, it would seem
that WQ6X took 6th-place overall, 5th-place for USA and 1st-place west of the Mississippi - NoT
too shabby for just ad-libbing it from the 1st-QSO.

DiD YOU work the Winter Field Day or CQ 160 contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG/

Aug-30 NEWSFLASH:  

The CQ magazine contest write-up ([CLICK HERE] to read it) paraphrased a quote from the logfile entry SOAPBOX (a good reason to ALWAYS write a SoapBox entry for EVERY contest entry).