No contest this weekend but with conditions being so good it was easy to make some contacts to new places on new bands. Since I’ve only been licensed since 2007 and the conditions have been poor, having the bands open like this is a real treat.

Over the weekend I worked random stations mostly on 10m and 12m for a total of 42 contacts to a total of 30 different DXCCs. I worked stations on RTTY, SSB, CW and even a couple of long distance 10m FM contacts.

Some of the more interesting contacts were location in: South Africa, India, Israel, Marquesas Island DXpedition, New Zealand,  DXpedition to Guernsey, and Cyprus along with many others. Even had a couple of short chats with some ops that recognized my call from contesting and and hope to work each other in coming contests.

Great fun!

73,
K2DSL

The preliminary results for the recent 2011 NA RTTY Sprint that took place have been posted and it looks like I just squeaked out coming in first in the 2nd call area. I had a 8 contacts removed from the score I posted that I’d be interested in trying to figure out how I blew them. I have the LCR (Log Checking Report) and need to compare it to what the MMTTY log

I ended up coming in 4th overall in the Low Power category and 11th overall regardless of power. A fun short sprint!

73,
K2DSL

I had almost no available time to operate this weekend with other events (mostly football – high school, college and professional) going on Fri night, all day Saturday and most of the day Sunday. For a total of 1 hour operating, I made 27 contacts, all on 10m. I’m sure I could have switched bands, but I was having fun on 10m since it’s all “new” to me with the band being open.

Saturday morning I had 30 mins from when I was ready to leave before heading out of town for the entire day so I fired up the radio to see if I could hear anything on 10m and the JARTS RTTY ham radio contest was going on and I could hear some signals so I quickly configured N1MM for this contest and made a few quick contacts. The exchange is your age which is fun to see vs a sequential serial number. In the 30 mins I made 15 contacts all with stations in Europe. I needed to run so I shut things down and didn’t think I’d be on any more this weekend.

Sunday a bit after  7pm I was able to get back on during the last hour of the contest and figured I’d see if 10m had anything and boy I’m glad I did. The first contact on 10m was a strong JA station for my first JA station logged on 10m. I worked a total of 6 JA stations on 10m RTTY in 30 mins. To top it off I worked a VK4 station in Australia, again on 10m RTTY for yet another new DXCC worked on this band. I didn’t hear any European stations coming in but did hear some US West Coast ops.

If the reported ages sent in the exchange were accurate. 4 of the 27 operators worked were younger than me and one was my age (48). The youngest sent their age as 32. The oldest op worked skipping the 99 reported age for multis was 76. There were 3 ops over the age of 70.

All this with 100w and a dipole. What a lot of fun!  I don’t know how the bands were for the contest throughout the weekend but I’ll check out the reports on 3830 and see what folks have to say.

73,
K2DSL

This past weekend was the Makrothen RTTY ham radio contest and the NA RTTY Sprint. The Makrothen RTTY contest is three 8 hour sessions and the NA RTTY Sprint is 4 hours right after the 2nd Makrothen session ends.

The Makrothen contest exchange is grid square and the points are calculated based on distance. Also there’s a bonus for contacts on 40m and 80m but no other multipliers. The first Makrothen session was Friday night and the bands were very noisy for me and it was rough going and I only worked a bit of the time before calling it a night. I ended up with 74 Qs and 219,000 points when I set off for bed. Saturday’s session started at noon local time through 8pm and the bands were much quieter and the activity was up.  10m was open from time to time and worked ZS2 in South Africa on 10m. I was working S&P a lot but it wasn’t too hard to find spots and call CQ for a bit which I did on 15m and 20m.

I broke 1 million points with a contact on 15m with JM1CXW, a JA RTTY op I can always count on to hear my faint signal. I worked a few different JA ops and even had two 10m contacts to JAs on 10m which is a first for me. I noticed in the middle of the contest that KH2/N2NL was spotted on 12m CW and since I didn’t have Guam on any band/mode I switched to see and he was coming in loud. It didn’t take long at all to have my first contact with Guam. Starting around 6pm local time I was able to work Hawaii, Alaska and Japan all in the span of a couple of mins for nice long distance contacts. Around 6:20pm local time I passed last years score which is normally a goal I have in any contest. Just after 6:30pm I was able to work the two JAs on 10m. I ended up at the end of Saturday’s session with 281 Qs and 1.223 million for a score.

Right after the end of the 2nd Makrothen session is the start of the NA RTTY Sprint. I grabbed a quick dinner, got back on the radio, reconfigured N1MM for the Sprint and started that 4 hour contest. The Sprint is an odd format in that after you work a station, that operator relinquishes control of the frequency to you and he needs to QSY to another frequency. It is a little tricky at first but pretty easy once you get going. Because it’s very different, not all the ops that are participating in the contest understand the flow and continues to call CQ when he should QSY or the new station doesn’t take the frequency and call CQ. But it’s quick and fun. Because it’s all after dark, it’s mostly on 40m and 80m with a bit of 20m activity. Since you can only work a station once per band, there are points where I have worked anyone I could hear and calling CQ is sometimes futile. If there was more activity, the fun could last the whole 4 hours. I beat last years score but a good amount, but I also was able to put in more time. The score summary is below.

At midnight after the NA RTTY Sprint ended I went off to bed. Sunday morning I woke up with just a bit of time to operate while I get ready to head out to go tailgating for a football game. The bands weren’t very good early in the morning and getting to 300 Qs (from the 281 the night before) was going very slow. Most stations I could hear I had already worked, 40m was empty as was 10m so it was hunt and peck on 20m and 15m. Near 10am (1400z) when I needed to head out the bands seemed to getting better, but I needed to leave. Based on the outcome of the football game maybe I should have stayed and spent more time in the contest. As I shut things down I ended up the contest with 301 Qs and a score of 1,313,052.

Here are the score summaries from N1MM for both contests. Following the summary is a map screen shot of the contacts made in the Makrothen contest with some nice long distant contacts to South Africa, Japan and Asiatic Russia. All logs have been sent in and uploaded to LoTW and eQSL. Thanks to all the ops that made it another fun RTTY contest weekend!

Makrothen Summary:

Band    QSOs    Pts
 3.5      18   23302
   7      43  143750
  14     141  628130
  21      73  371162
  28      26  146708
Total     301 1313052

Score : 1,313,052

NA RTTY Sprint:

Band    QSOs    Pts  Mlt
 3.5      21     21    2
   7      51     51   18
  14      25     25   13
Total     97     97   33

Score : 3,201

Map of Makrothen RTTY contacts (click to enlarge):

73,
K2DSL

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

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

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

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

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

Spent Friday evening after work and all day Saturday prepping for Irene, removing everything from the yard, prepping a 5700 watt generator, running extension cords, getting flashlights/batteries ready, etc. The rains started on Sat night and it rained and rained and rained. The winds weren’t bad during the storm when it was running. About 3:30am early Sunday morning we had a series of short power losses and just before 4am we lost power. I went outside, started the generator, plugged the sump pump in for myself and my neighbor and couldn’t go back to sleep.

I stayed up throughout the storm and things weren’t too bad until late morning on Sunday when the water in my backyard started. We have a pond and stream behind our house and only one time before was it an issue – Hurricane Floyd in 1999. The stream overflows its banks and that isn’t so bad until the pond also overflows and then all hell starts. The water started to rise and what happens it will start to hit my detached garage before it hits the house and flows like a river around the garage. It got to the garage, but that was it. It was about 4-5 feet deep in the backyard and the when the rains stopped and it was at its peak, the kids were kayaking in it. Within about 60-90 mins after the rain stopped, all the water had receded and other than debris, there was no sign my property was underwater.

The sump pump powered by the generator kept up and there was no water in the basement and no trees came down. That’s much better than many of my neighbors were they had 6+ inches of water in their basement and one lost the top of a big pine tree, though other than the fence around their garden it didn’t damage anything. I spent the day helping the neighbors deal with their homes. Once the rain stopped, that’s when the wind kicked up and when all the tree damage started. We had dozens of HUGE trees down on our side of town with minimal home damage from what I saw but lots of power lines down and streets closed. We had a few neighbors over for an impromptu BBQ. Around 10pm Sunday the wind felt like it was dying down a bit and the storm was really passed us at that point.

There was still no power when we went to bed but I got a call about 4:30am from the neighbor saying the power was back on. Went and unplugged the sump pump and the refrigerator from the generator and put them back in the outlets and shut down the generator. Without the generator it really would have been a mess.  With all the wind, my G5RV and 10/15/20m dipole were blowing like mad, but stayed up. I did need to drop the fan dipole to untangle 2 wires that had crossed but that took 5 mins this morning.

With not being around much yesterday and helping the neighbors I didn’t monitor the repeaters so I hope everyone in the area was ok. I know my county activated at least 1 shelter as I received an email on Saturday before the storm hit asking for folks to assist with communications, but without power I didn’t want to leave the family at home with the generator. I saw lots of emails on rivers in the area 10+ feet over flood stage and areas around them being flooded out.

I missed out on a few contests this weekend so I hope those that got on the air had fun. I’m not sure if having a lot of folks on the east coast not participate was noticed or not. I guess if folks were prepared, and depending on where they were located, they could have gotten in some air time before the storm hit them. I’ll have to read the lists and see how things went.

73,
K2DSL