WQ6X Talks About: HERE-KiTs and THERE-KiTs - Pt. 2

I recently posted a WQ6X BLOG Entry about HERE-KITs and THERE-KITs ([CLICK HERE] to read that) as preparation for sending a message to John Bisset, columnist with Radio World Magazine on the topic of "GO KiTs".  He used my original picture and created a reasonable facsimile for his rewrite of my message to him.

The above text began some momentum that I endeavor to keep alive from time to time in this
contest BLOG.  KUDOS to Radio World for keeping the world of radio relevant for not only the broadcast community, but we Wanna-Be broadcasters - radio amateurs.  I have learned a LoT
about station and equipment maintenance from the magazine - John Bisset's columns in particular
as he frequently writes about the nuts-and-bolts of electronics and radio.

Thank you John and Thank You Radio World.

   Ron

WQ6X

WQ6X runs Triple QRP QSO Parties from Ramona

This is the radiosport weekend every year that opens with so MANY possibilities, yet usually
ends with mild disappointment.  This year in particular, it seems that despite AWEsome Space-WX conditions, QSO Party participation was completely sub-PAR (saying it nicely).

KQP ending at 02:00z shuts down JUST as 40-meters is finally opening to Kansas; we NEVER
get a chance on 80-meters on the Left Coast.  Having another KQP run on Sunday is certainly nice, however it doesn't resolve the 40/80-meter discrepancy.  By default, KQP became a Cw-only GiG when on Saturday, band sweeps on 20/15/10 found no Ssb stations.

The BiG Sunday surprise was hearing OM2VL on 10-meter Cw (sounding like he is next door), frantically looking for KS stations.

OHQP is not much better.  While 80-meter contacts DiD occur (just before the QSO Party's 04:00z ending), like with Kansas, we largely get cheated out of 40-meter action.  Sweeping the Ssb areas Saturday afternoon found no Ssb stations, making this a GiG a Cw-only affair.

The Hawaii QSO Party GiG  (HQP), while giving us a whopping 48 hours to look for KH6, isn't
worth very much if only THREE stations are on the air all weekend.  When I sent (on CW) "S S B?"
to KH6AQ, his reply was "no MIC".

The YO DX contest provided a few dozen contacts from Ramona, altho the bandmaps were LOADED with EU stations - which was great for East Coast operators, but not so hot on the Left Coast.  Not having a QRP category in this contest, I ran the remote K3 at about 88-watts, which was enough to snag 3-EU stations on 40-meters.

At 5pm Sunday, the only thing of significance for the weekend was adding 4-more operating
events to the WQ6X 3830 Score list for the 2024 calendar year.

Here is how it all turned out:

DiD YOU work the state QSO Parties or YO DX contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Wanders around a WEIRD Saturday-contest WeekEnd

For THIS weekend, it was NEITHER the Best Nor Worst of times - but certainly was the Weirdest, no 
matter how you look at it - at least for ME anyway.  Lesse if I can document some of the weekend's weirdness.

We could say that this contest operations qualified as an "Almost" weekend, all weekend.
The contest agenda showcased:

• ILLW - International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend
• SARTG - Scandinavian Amateur Radio [Teleprinter Group]
• NAQP - North American QSO Party (Ssb)

Behind the different radiosport events the weekend opened and closed with the annual International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend.  During the NAQP Ssb GiG several lighthouse stations made it
to the WQ6X and NX6T logs.

The SARTG RTTY GiG is one of several [RTTY] contests which break the contest operating
period into three 8-hour operating slots: 8-hours ON, 8-hours OFF, 8-hours ON, 8-hours OFF,
ending with 8-hours ON.

My BiG OOPS for this event was failing to pack a DB-9 gender changer adapter for the RigExpert PLUS external RTTY decoder/encoder.  Rummaging thru my "THERE-KIT", a couple of 1/8" patch cables enabled cross-directing the audio between Laptop #2 and the K3/0 Mini control head mic and
audio ports.  Because the SARTG GiG has no QRP category, the K3 was dialed back to 75 watts, running as a Low Power (LP) operating entry.

Unfortunately, client commitments kept me out of the operating chair for the first six hours,
probably missing a juicy 40-meter opening.  The Sunday morning opening (to Asia?) was
marred by the ubiquitous East Asian OTH RaDaR NoNsense.

The 9am restart of the SARTG GiG offered 2-hours of RTTY running until the NAQP Ssb contest started @18:00z (11am PDT).  I checked back with RTTY throughout the day, blissfully unaware
of the pending solar activity slowly tweaking upper bands.

Amongst the different WEIRDNESS encountered throughout the contest weekend I include:

• At EXACTLY 20:00z, my 28417.77 QRP Run Frequency became the National Tuneup Frequency (NTF) for about 10 continuous minutes.  While the auto-notch filter (ANF) worked on the Ramona end, potential calling stations may not have been so lucky
• OTH RaDaR with its carrier ZERO-BEAT at 7.033 INSIDE the worldwide 40-meter
  Cw band segment - wassup with THAT?  Rotating the Shorty-40 yagi toward East Asia confirmed its geographical origin.
• The real question is why there was [English-speaking] Usb ragchewing happening
  on 14.080 (middle of the RTTY spectrum) - with no callsigns, of course.  I'm used to
  the usual Spanish-speaking ragchewers (w/o callsigns) on 40 and 75 meters, however hearing English in the RTTY band is a new experience.
• Internet dropouts on Laptop #2 resulted in "Blue Screens" every time the decision was made to restart the computer - but FIRST, the BLUE Screen.

When it was ALL OVER, it would seem that WQ6X took 1st-place over WC7S, while NX6T
took an overall 3rd place, pushing N6RO into 4th-place.  For SARTG while I submitted a log,
I believe I will end up in 50+ place - not bad for just screwing around.

 

DiD YOU work the NAQP Ssb Contest?

Is NX6T or WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Wobbles thru another WEIRD WAE Cw Contest

The middle of August brings us the 1st of THREE Worked All Europe (WAE) radiosport contests. 
As a function of pre-contest research, I harked back to the BLAST-from-the-PAST Blog written last
year about the WAE Contest overall.  ([CLICK HERE] to review it.)  For the August 2024 WAE Cw GiG, I opened the 3830 Score submission to read:

"It was the BEST of Times --- It was the WORST of Times".

The above summarizes the WAE weekend which began with GUSTO and declined on Sunday
into abysmal walls of uncertainty and noise.  For me, one of the downsides of competing in 48-hour radiosport contest GiGs like the WAE is that I often miss the opening 5 - 6 hours.  Currently, my Alameda internet connection seems to be unable to connect over I-P (it used to work just fine). 
Because I often see neurofeedback clients on Friday evenings, the arrival time @W7AYT's QTH
is often around 05:00z (10pm PDT).  

Technically, there are only TWO 40-meter openings during the entire contest period, missing
most of Friday evening is a lost opportunity.  (Unlike Asian-based contests, there are no 40-meter openings to EU after midnight.  Instead for Europe, with the SFI index @300+, it is reasonable to expect a 20-meter opening before-during-after the midnight period.  While the QSO-rate was less than I would have liked, dozens of multipliers made it to the 20-meter log section.

Because sending QTC traffic is nearly 50-percent of the ending score, the decision was made to
NoT initiate QTC message sending until I've had a double dose of Black coffee Saturday morning.  Sometimes European stations can be a bit aggressive in asking "QTC?".  When there were no overt QTC seekers, while running a frequency I would use the F1-Key followed by the F-10 key to send:
                    "CQ  EU  TEST  WQ6X  WQ6X  HV  QTC"
An important operating goal is to "Dump" your QTC traffic before the final 00:00z ending time. 
One year I got stuck with 50+ unsent QTC messages when propagation to Europe suddenly disappeared.  For 2024, I was left with only 5 undelivered QTC messages.

Band conditions on 15 & 20 meters were amazing on Saturday.  Unfortunately, 10-meters was
its currently usual virtual no-show throughout the weekend.  Reading the soapbox comments from
other operators confirm that in the USA (at least in California and the Northwest), 10-meters was
a MASSIVE-DuD!  The one 40-meter opening for WQ6X occurred Saturday evening at 02:55z. 
After nearly 90 minutes only seven 40-meter QSOs actually made it to the log.

Being an EU only contest made it EASY to point the 40-meter Shorty-40 and 20-15-10
STEPP-IR Yagi's to around 38-degrees azimuth and more-or-less leave them in that position. 
(We do something similar when working ASIA-only contests - point the Yagi's to ~300-degs azimuth.)

A number of interesting anomalies presented themselves this weekend:

• Throughout the weekend (and especially on Sunday), the bands would seem to be dead and then out of NOWHERE an S9+ (usually mid-European) signal would PUNCH through.
• As the weekend moved forward and atmospheric conditions quietly worsened, signals (mostly coming over the North pole) began to sound scratchy and raspy.  
• At one point, with some signals I heard what sounded like another station transmitting
  on top of my caller, but in fact was simply a quickly delayed echo of the signal itself.
• EU stations have a tendency to feel that running 35+ words-minute in CW contests
  is CooL.   The truth is that under marginal conditions (like this weekend), dits/dahs get
  clipped from the individual letters of your callsign producing copy-errors.  Has it ever occurred to these BOZOs that one of the reasons their run-rate has dropped is because nobody can copy their callsigns?  Stations with callsigns like S55S, OE2S, SE5E, DM5EE, 9A/EI5LA, II8K, UT2II, II2C, SE4E & IO0A should be sent MUCH MORE SLOWLY.
• DiD you hear me send QRS throughout the contest?  Between the raspy signals,
  polar flutter and noise barrage, callsign copy was often quite difficult.  If you check the RBN Stats for WQ6X, you will see that I ran EXACTLY at 25-WPM the entire weekend. 
  While speeding up to 30-WPM might have added 5 more QSOs to the log, that's NoT enough to make a usable difference w/o increasing the repeat-rate considerably.

After 6+ hours of sleep, I was back in the chair at 14:26z.  15-meters seemed to be already reasonably open to EU.  In fact, only 19 QSOs made it into the log (and 10 of them were QTC messages).  Frustrated, I enjoyed 2 more hours sleep, only to discover that some sort of solar disturbance had occurred during my sleep periods.  

Restarting @17:32z during the remaining 6 1/2 hours produced on 29 QSOs and enabled me dump all of my QTC traffic except the last 5 messages.  15-meters disappeared at 20:00z leaving the last
4 hours to utilize the "crowbar" method to wangle a MASSIVE 11 QSOs in 4 hours - PATHETIC.

When it was ALL over, I was relieved to be able to do something else that DiD NoT involve looking
for stations to work on the radio.  Instead, I tuned the K3FEF to the 6.925 - 6.931 Pirate Radio window and enjoyed some unique stuff hearable ONLY on the East Coast.

DiD YOU work the 2024 WAE CW Dx radiosport contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Dual-OP's Yet Another NAQP Cw Contest

While the above is a typical BLOG TiTLe, there was NoThing Typical about THIS 12-Hour NAQP Cw Contest - NoT a SPRINT and yet, nowhere NEAR a full 24 or 48 hours.  We could say that NAQP GiGs are the Goldilocks of domestic radiosport contest events- JUST Right!  Not since the All Asian contest has NX6T put together a multi-single event and even MORE months before that a Multi-2 from NX6T.  The August NAQP Cw GiG was the logical choice to run a Multi-2, altho we will face serious left-coast competition from N6RO in Oakley (N. California.

The finalized NX6T operator schedule put me in for the 4-hour 5pm to 9pm "Dinner Shift" (00:00z
to 04:00z).  Running this shift solved for me the the question of the single-OP mandatory 2-hour off-time.  Off time is defined as a time-period when NO contacts are being logged; checking for internet spots and manually tuning the bands IS allowed during off-periods.  When it was all over, WQ6X/QRP put ~8-hours in the OP chair, whereas WQ6X as NX6T ran 4-hours in the middle of it all.

Because Anza and Ramona are so close geographically, reasonably identical propagation conditions [should have] existed at both locations.  15-meters was THE Band, while 10-meters offered only a brief opening, not only in Ramona and Anza, but all over California and the West coast.  As usual, calling CVQ produced dozens of RBN spots with very few human operators actually spending time
on 10-meters.

Most of the afternoon was spent jumping between 20 & 15 meters.  When the rate dopped on one band, a switch was made to the other and then back again when that band produced nothing. 
At 00:00 (5pm), my shift with NX6T put me on 20-meters for the 1st 2-hours, while N6KI finished
15-meters and then moved down to 40-meters.  

By 02:30z 20-meters was over relegating my move to 80-meters, using the "crowbar" approach to open the band "early" for the Left coast.  At 04:00z WQ6X was again QRP from Ramona running
40-meters until an 80-meter opening finally materialized at 05:20z, just in time for a CQ call on
the Redwood Radio Roundtable.  Hearing no callers, the last 20 minutes of the contest was spent running frequencies on 80-meters.  When that was over, one last QSO on 7.037 w/N4VI ended the
August 2024 NAQP Cw contest.

When it was all over, WQ6X took 4th-place overall, 3rd-place for USA and 2nd-place for CA.
NX6T (in So. California) surpassed N6RO (in No. California) by a mere 18K points.
The scores are so close, that a not-insignificant number of QSO errors could make all the difference.

DiD YOU work the NAQP Cw contest?
Is NX6T or WQ6X in YOUR LoG?