Monthly Archives: August 2010

2010 SCC RTTY Contest Summary

Just finished up the 2010 SCC RTTY ham radio contest. It’s a 24 hour contest that runs from 8am (1200z) Saturday to 8am (1200z) Sunday morning. I got started a little late on Saturday and the conditions didn’t seem too good. DX was a bit hard to come by and many of the contacts were local (US) stations. At least US stations outside of the 2 call area are worth 2 points.  I checked 15m a couple of times and it was again dead to me. I made just 2 contacts on 15m which is disappointing.

After logging a station on 15m and then going to log the same station again on 20m, N1MM crashed. I went over to the N1MM Group and saw that I wasn’t the only one. In true N1MM fashion, K3CT was working on a fix and had posted a patch. I misunderstood the instructions but K3CT set things straight and N1MM then worked perfectly.

In the late morning things picked up a bit and the DX started coming in. I even worked TA2ZF in Turkey again. Folks on the RTTY reflector were commenting on the poor conditions and AC0C noted that for him, logging me in NJ was DX for him based on the conditions. By mid afternoon things were going along well but I was set to head out for a few hours with the family so off I went. I got back in the early evening and things were still ok on 20m with the 40m activity picking up and doing well. I thought I was done for the night but I needed to pick up my daughter from a friends late in the evening, so I popped back on and made some contacts on 80m finishing with a quick scan of 20m netting me ZL3TE/1 in New Zealand before heading off to bed.

I woke up Sunday morning with a little time before the end of the contest. EU stations were weak and I had already worked the strong stations so I waited a bit and signals picked up enough to log 9 more before things ended. In the 2008 SCC RTTY contest I made slightly more contacts then I did this year while in 2009 I only made a handful.  Reading the log from 2008 I seemed to have spent much more time operating then I did this time around. I also hadn’t switched to using N1MM and MMTTY yet.

Here’s the 2010 SCC RTTY score summary:

  Band    QSOs    Pts  Sec
   3.5      14     26   13
     7      55    115   34
    14     117    269   56
    21       2      4    2
 Total     188    414  105

 Score : 43,470

Contacts have been uploaded to HRDLog.net, LoTW, eQSL and now QRZ.com’s logbook as well. I’ll have to see which ops I want to send paper QSL cards to. The cabrillo log file has also been submitted for the contest.

73 & good DX,

K2DSL

2010 SARTG RTTY & NAQP SSB Summaries

As noted 2 days ago in Too many contests this weekend! SARTG NAQP NJQP + more! I was looking forward to sneaking in some ham radio contesting in between everything else. In the end, it mostly worked out like I thought it would. Friday night we had family over to celebrate recent birthdays including one of my daughters who turned 15 on Saturday. I got on near the end when folks started to leave and worked a bit of the SARTG contest Fri night. I think I ended up with about 70 contacts that evening. On Saturday I worked about 3 more hours of the 2nd SARTG section before heading off to the NY Giants pre-season game. I was hoping for a bit more 15m activity in the SARTG contest but it wasn’t happening for me. There were some contests a couple months back where 15m was hopping but that seems to have ended, at least for what I can hear.

Around 11pm local time (0300z) Saturday night I got home from the football game and started logging NAQP contacts. I spent 2 hours & 15 mins in the contest and ended the evening about 1:15am (0515z) with 76 contacts. Since it was already very late, I only logged a few strong west coast stations on 20m including Alaska. I heard KL7RA as the first station when I turned the radio on but he had a good amount of folks calling so I worked other stations before coming back to him on 20m. Its always nice to have a quick contact on SSB with some folks that are in all the RTTY & CW contests. It is a good feeling to hear them address you personally and even by name just from hearing your call sign. I ended the evening working KL7RA as my last contact on 40m. I then went to bed and slept late for me before waking up and getting on the air for the last 3 or so hours of the final SARTG section. I ended the contest with a total of 171 SARTG contacts.

The NJ QSO Party takes place over 2 days and had a portion on Saturday and a portion on Sunday. I wasn’t around on Saturday but after the SARTG contest on Sunday I listened and didn’t hear any NJ stations. I then went on 20m and started calling CQ NJQP but never had anyone answer. Seems I’m not the only one as W2LJ reported the same on his blog – NJ QSO Party – “Chirp, chirp, chirp”.  We had some pretty heavy weather in Northern NJ on Sunday with passing thunderstorms and periods of real heavy rain. When I’m posting this, there’s still over 2 hours left in the NJQP if I wanted to get on and keep trying but I don’t think I will. K2DBK had let me know that I would probably be disappointed based on his past experience with the NJQP and he was unfortunately right on with his prediction.

Here’s my score summary from the 2010 NAQP SSB ham radio contest:

   Band    QSOs     Pts  Sec   NA
    3.5      34      34   20    0
      7      32      32   21    0
     14      10      10    6    0
  Total      76      76   47    0

  Score : 3,572

And here’s my score summary from the 2010 SARTG RTTY ham radio contest:

   Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty   Sec
    3.5       5      50    1    3
      7      28     290    8   11
     14     119    1430   30   12
     21       9     100    6    2
  Total     161    1870   45   28

  Score : 136,510

Thanks to all for the contacts! 73,
K2DSL

Too many contests this weekend! SARTG NAQP NJQP + more!

This weekend will be very busy both on the air and off.

1) When I get home from work tonight there will be a party at my house with my wife’s family to celebrate a few birthdays that have just passed or about to come.

2) Starting 8pm tonight is the first of 3 legs of the SARTG RTTY contest. The 3 legs are 0000Z-0800Z Aug 21 and 1600Z-2400Z Aug 21 and 0800Z-1600Z Aug 22.

3) Saturday is my younger daughters 15th birthday.

4) The North America QSO Party is from 1800Z, Aug 21 to 0600Z, Aug 22. That’s 2pm Saturday through 2am Sunday. It overlaps the 2nd leg of the SARTG too. A single op can work 10 of the 12 hours which is good because of #5.

5) NY Giants first NFL pre-season game in the new stadium. That starts at 7pm Saturday and I need to be there about 4pm or even a little earlier. I’ll be going with my older daughter while my younger daughter goes to a concert on her birthday with my wife. The game will last until 11pm and then it will be about 12 midnight (0400z) when I get home. This will eat into a tremendous amount of the NAQP.

6) The NJ QSO Party has 2 time slots from 2000Z Aug 21 to 0700Z Aug 22 and 1300Z  Aug 22 to 0200Z Aug 23. I’ve missed this contest the past 2 years since I’ve been away on vacation right around this time. We’ll have to see if there’s any activity for this since the SARTG and NAQP are much bigger contests. The first leg is almost completely during the NAQP but the Sunday leg is pretty much on its own.

I think I need to write this down in some graphical manner as WA7BNM does on his contest calendar and overlay in the non amateur radio events I need to attend. It will be a busy weekend!

73,
K2DSL

WAE CW and Rookie Roundup Contests

I’ve been extremely busy at work and had family events the past couple of weekends so I’ve not spent much time on the radio. This weekend I was able to put in a few hours on Sat & Sun afternoons and worked a bit of the WAE CW ham radi ocontest as well as some Rookie Roundup SSB contacts.

Saturday I got on the radio late in the morning and early in the afternoon and made a bunch of 20m CW contacts with stations in Europe. The WAE contests also have a operation called QTCs where you can send a batch of 10 previous contacts you’ve worked to the operator for additional points, but I’m not comfortable enough with CW to do it in this mode. I have done it in the RTTY version of this contest. I checked 15m once or twice but didn’t hear much so I stayed on 20m. By the time 40m would be active I was done for the day and had other things to do in the evening. On Sunday I had our local ham clubs annual picnic to go to so I was busy with that until mid afternoon. Once I was home I made some more contacts with European stations and though the weather outside was a bit rainy, the signals towards EU seemed pretty stong. I ended up with a total of 81 contacts in 27 different DXCCs.

Here’s my score summary:

 Band   Q/QTC  QSOs    Pts  Cty
   14    QSO    81      81   54
Total    All    81      81   54

Score : 4,374

Sunday afternoon was also the ARRL Rookie Roundup SSB contest and I ended up working 12 different ops in 10 different states. What qualifies as a rookie in this contest is someone licensed in 2008, 2009 or 2010 so I just miss out. Each of the rookies I worked in the contest was extremely courteous and pretty efficient. They seemed comfortable on the air and knew the exchange well. I guess I expected a bit more stumbling but if they were nervous it didn’t come across over the air. It’s always good to hear that you gave one of them a new multiplier from the rare state of NJ! Nice job to all the ops!!

I also made 1 lone MD QSO Party contact on 80m.

Next weekend is the opening [pre-season] game for the NY Giants in their new stadium so I’ll be there for that on Sunday. It’s also the SARTG RTTY contest as well as the NJ QSO Party. For the past 2 years I’ve been away on vacation that week and missed one of the SARTG sessions as well as being out of state for the NJ QSO Party. With the Giants game being that weekend, it looks like I’ll now be missing air time for that.

73,
K2DSL – David