WQ6X Wangles another QRP World-Wide RTTY ConTesT

As solar cycle 25 continues its inevitable decline, this year's Sept. CQ W.W. RTTY contest paled significantly to this same event last year, when we experienced a noticeably higher solar flux index (~150).  Attempting a duplication of last year's 391 QRP QSOs once again the decision was made
to run QRP from WA6TQT's Anza STN-1, base rotor for the 10/15-meter stacked arrays was out for repairs, leaving the yagi's fixed at 35-degrees - more-or-less perfect for working EU.
(For working AS, OC & SA, a rotatable KT-36 yagi is always at the ready)/

The last weekend in September brings us 3 radiosport events:

• [X] - CQ W.W. RTTY Contest 
• [X] -Maine QSO Party (MEQP)
• [X] - The YU DX Contest

Band-condition wise, overall signal-levels were way down.  Additionally, 15 and 20 meters were plagued with slow to medium fading.  It is for this reason that stations calling CQ should repeat their callsign several times; that way, when their callsign gets "clipped by QSB" we get another chance
to copy it, instead of having to wait for the next CQ call.

As part of ongoing research for my upcoming book on Stereo Audio, the weekend decision was
made to diddle with the Stereo-RTTY method moving the cables into various different configurations between a WinDoze-11 an MSI gaming laptop and the RRC-1258 coupled to a k3/0-Mini control head.
([CLICK HERE] to learn more about Stereo-RTTY.)

 

In previous years, time was spent on the MEQP and YUDX.  This year's focus on Stereo-RTTY sidelined those two events.  The SFI being a lowly 106 made for relatively POOR band conditions.  
The biggest problem experienced universally was QSB everywhere requiring repeats.  Unfortunately, many stations would give up after my 2nd repeat request - what's the big hurry?

There were many VK stations on Friday/Saturday, but none on Sunday. There were no ZL stations heard this year - missing Zone 32.  EU was also noticeably lacking on the West coast.  JA participation also seemed to be considerably less than last year.

Wassup with RTTY operation EXACTLY on 14.100 QRM'ing the NCDXF beacon - that is pretty LAME (and LiDDiSH) if you ask me. 

There is plenty of room on 20-meters that we can give the 14.100 frequency plenty of room.  I heard stations on 20 meters all the way up to 14.148.

The last 2-hours was spent working random stations on 15 and then 20 meters, alternating between Japan,
the Caribbean and South America.

With such a low SFI, this was considerably challenging.  At least the A-Index and K-Index numbers were near the bottom.

Overall, propagation was weak, and combined with excessive QSB, accurate signal decoding a challenge requiring multiple repeats.  Unfortunately, many stations would give up after my 2nd repeat request - what's the big hurry?

When it was all over, 202 QSOs made
it into the log.  The distribution was 28
countries and `9 zones.

DiD YOU operate the CQ W.W. RTTY Contest?

How many countries and zones did you manage to work?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?