Monthly Archives: September 2011

CQ WW RTTY Statistics

I posted my 2011 CQ WW RTTY Summary a couple days ago with a couple of maps showing contacts made on 10m and for the entire contest. Here are some stats from what was just a fantastic weekend of RTTY ham radio operating.

My overall summary was the following:

 Band    QSOs    Pts  DXCC Zone States
  3.5      48     58    5     4    23
    7     194    313   34     9    41
   14     256    570   61    19    40
   21     250    624   56    16    23
   28     214    523   49    16    15
Total     962   2088  205    64   142

Score : 858,168

so the # of DXCC, CQ zones and States/Provinces by band are all there.

Of the 962 contacts logged, there were 625 unique callsigns. 4 of those callsigns were logged on the 5 bands (10m, 15m, 20m, 40m & 80m) with 2 being US stations and 2 being outside the US. Surprising to me is that P49X wasn’t one of them. 27 stations were worked on 4 bands – 7 were NA stations and the rest were DX stations.

Of the 625 unique callsigns worked in the contest, 488 of them had previously appeared in my log which makes 137 new stations in my log. It looks like over 100 of those were new DX stations worked.

I worked 24 unique CQ zones and 72 unique DXCCs. Of the 72 DXCCs, I made 1 contact in 9 of them and multiple contacts in the other 63, though a few had multiple band contacts with the same station.

Looking at the breakdown by DXCCs, the US led with 358 contacts or 37% of all 963 contacts logged over the weekend. 2nd was German with 56 contacts followed by Spain, Canada and Italy in 3rd to 5th most contacted DXCCs.

Of the 24 CQ zones worked, the zone with most contacts was my own zone 05 followed by zones 14 & 15 which are Europe.

I’m still amazed at what the conditions were last weekend. Hopefully they will stick around a while.

73,
K2DSL

2011 CQ WW RTTY Summary

This weekend was the 2011 CQ WW RTTY ham radio contest and what a weekend it was! The band conditions were never this good since I got my license in 2007 and it was non-stop fun across the bands.

Though I usually post this at the end, here’s my score summary which will quickly show how good conditions were.

 Band    QSOs    Pts  DXCC Zone States
  3.5      48     58    5     4    23
    7     194    313   34     9    41
   14     256    570   61    19    40
   21     250    624   56    16    23
   28     214    523   49    16    15
Total     962   2088  205    64   142

Score : 858,168

I’ve never worked 10m into Europe on my 10m dipole but this weekend it was easier to work EU on 10m than on any other band. 10m was so quiet and you rarely had to send a repeat with stations getting your call on the first attempt. There were points on Sat and Sun when I had more Q’s on 10m than on the other bands. 10m was so quiet and strong I worked ever single station I could hear with the exception of one in the United Arab Emirates. I think that was the only station I heard I didn’t get in the log.

Here’s a map of just my 10m contacts (click to enlarge):

10m contacts in 2011 CQ WW RTTY

OJ0X in Market Reef was participating in the contest and I worked their DXpedition on 15m, 20m & 40m. I don’t think I worked any new entities beyond Market Reed though I worked many new entities on 10m.

On Saturday evening at 10:30pm I had matched the QSO count from the 2009 CQ WW RTTY contest which was the most Q’s I had logged in this contest. Since I had so many more multipliers than in 2009 with 10m being open, the same number of Q’s this year resulted in 60k+ increase in score. Sunday morning I worked 40m and then checked 10m and even early in the morning I was still copying lots of signals so it seems like 10m would be hot again and it was all day long.

Sunday I spent most of the time moving between 10, 15 & 20m with 20m and just having a blast. There were a few times when the op I worked sent a personal message (beyond something in their canned macro). One in particular was from John GW4SKA just after a QSO I had with OJ0X. Another notable was a nice comment from Randy K5ZD where we were each others last contact at the end of the contest.

Here’s a screen capture of all the contacts made this weekend (click to enlarge):

All contacts in 2011 CQ WW RTTY contest

I’ll be putting together some stats over the next few days and create a new post with anything of interest. N1MM reports a total of 31.5 hours on the air out of the contest 48 hours  based on any off time > 30 mins. Thanks to all for the many contacts and a really fun filled ham radio weekend!

73,
K2DSL

 

2011 BARTG Sprint 75

This afternoon was the 2011 BARTG Sprint 75 baud RTTY ham radio contest. Most RTTY contests run at 45 baud (60 words per minute) but this contest and a few others run at 75 baud (100 words per minute) so text sent/received just happens a bit faster. The exchange itself is also short with just a serial number and not even an obligatory 599 so you can whip through a contest QSO quickly.  It’s a 4 hour contest with a rule that you need to stay on any band for 5 mins if you make a contact so you can’t pop back and forth between bands without staying a while on each.

The money band was 20m though there was some activity on 15m. I’m not sure what impact the 5 min band change rule has on folks trying 15m  more. I guess if folks do make a contact, they need to hang around for at least 5 mins, but I wonder if folks avoided making a contact so they didn’t have to stick around?

My contacts started out being primarily NA based at the start, but the EUs eventually came in strong and stayed strong for me throughout the remainder of the contest. I spent a bunch of time calling CQ and then scanning the band and finding a spot to call CQ again. The band wasn’t too crowded, like it will be next weekend in the CQ WW RTTY contest, so finding a spot even with just 100w wasn’t difficult. I had many DX stations come back to me when I was calling CQ so thanks to all of them for finding me.

I popped over to 40m just near the end of the contest and made a few quick contacts and also the 3 call area which I didn’t log on 15m or 20m. I only worked 2 Canadian call areas and didn’t here any VK or JA stations. Not sure if folks on the west coast logged any VK or JAs.

Here’s a map of the contacts made during the contest (click to enlarge):

You can see from the map that there wasn’t anything logged into the pacific and other than 1 South America station I didn’t hear much in that direction.

 

Here’s the  N1MM score summary:

  Band    QSOs    DXCC   Areas   Cont
    7      10        0       1     0
   14      88       22      10     4
   21      19        1       1     0
Total     117       23      12     4

Score : 16,380

I’m looking forward to future 75 baud RTTY contests.

73,
K2DSL

2011 NA SSB Sprint Contest

Saturday night was a 4 hour NA SSB Sprint ham radio contest. The format is fun and quick as no one maintains a frequency and calls CQ over and over. After a station is worked, the new station takes the frequency and becomes the calling station until they work another station and that next station takes over the frequency.

It started at 0000z (8:00pm local) and all I was all set to get going at the start of the contest, but I wasn’t hearing much activity on 20m. I’d hear a few stations but they weren’t strong and it was much quieter than it should have been. After about 20 mins of no activity, I got up, did a few other things and came back to the radio and realized I had my dual band FM antenna coax plugged into and not the 20m dipole. Doh!!! After switching coax to the proper one, magically I was hearing stations, and they could hear me.

I didn’t spend the remaining 3.5 hours of the contest active on the air, but I kept coming back for short stints while I was doing doing some other things. I didn’t end up with a big number of contests, but I enjoy the format of a Sprint contest and I enjoy the  friendly atmosphere. Thanks to all the ops for the contacts – nice to be on the air!

 Band    QSOs    Pts  Mlt
  3.5      18     18    9
    7      29     29   11
   14      22     22   12
Total      69     69   32

Score : 2,208

73,
K2DSL

Ham Radio Deluxe – Sold to New Developers

I’ve been very busy at work and home and haven’t spent a lot of time on the air lately. This weekend I couldn’t even make it up to the site where my club was operating the VHF contest though I did make 3 contacts with them on the bands I have. In total I made 14 contacts in a few mins of working them and whoever else I could hear at that time. Hopefully I will be able to participate fully in the RTTY contest in 2 weeks.

With the title of this post, the forums and mailing lists were abuzz with news that Simon Brown HB9DRV has made a deal to sell his popular and free Ham Radio Deluxe software. The group making the purchase is http://www.w4pcsoftware.com/ – Mike Carper WA9PIE, Randy Gawtry, K0CBH and Rick Ruhl W4PC.

A lot of the posts I saw were reactions and assumptions around the program likely moving from free (though you could donate) to a paid product. Reactions were pretty upbeat from what I saw with hopes being reasonably priced and continued support/enhancements, where enhancements have been slow to come lately with Simon focusing on a SDR program. When I last looked there wasn’t any official response from the team making the purchase.

I imagine that those where price might be a factor will look elsewhere and those comfortable with the program and seeing a decent value in a modest cost (if it will be a paid program) will likely stay and see how things progress. Of course, the current version would likely continue to work for quite a while and folks can remain on the version they have and wait things out.

A link to a QRZ thread on the topic – http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?312536-Development-to-continue-on-HRD...

Simon produced a fine program for many years and though I tried many others, I kept coming back to HRD. We’ll just have to see what happens in the future.

73,
K2DSL