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TnQP 2010 – Summary

Sep 6

Posted by Mike in Contesting, QSO Parties | No Comments

I had a very busy Sunday, spending most of my time with family doing holiday things. I was able to get on the air for about 1.5 hours and operate the TnQP. I operated 40m only, on both CW and SSB. I mainly wanted to get on the air and give out a few Qs — the TN guys are very active in our OhQP and I wanted to reciprocate to the extent that I could.

I only made 41 Qs, but 21 of those were with 10 different mobiles. There were so many mobiles out and about. It was great. The downside was that there was always a pileup for the mobiles [I think everyone was chasing mobiles]. I didn’t seem to have a problem getting through to the mobiles, but I had much difficulty copying their exchange after I would throw out my call because 10 other stations would be repeating their callsigns trying to make the Q. Also, the TN mobiles often delayed giving their calls ovver the course of many Qs and so I’d have to wait around to get their call just to know who I was working.

Weather was great. 40m to TN was awesome. There were more Qs to be made, but I just didn’t have the time. When I first got on the air I checked 10/15/20. On 15 I heard KH6MB CQing and he was S9+, so I had to snag him. Heard a few other 15m DX stations. If I wasn’t interested in making a few Qs in the TnQP I would have stayed on 15m and worked a few other stations.

Anyway, nothing heard on 10/15/20m for the TnQP when I listened. I didn’t bother to check 80m because I was having so much fun on 40m.

I sure wish I could have operated the TnQP from beginning to end. I think I could have done pretty well. Thanks to all of the TnQP participants on the air, especially the bevy of mobiles that had ascended upon TN counties during the contest. It was really fun to chase them.

I can’t remember if I used my DX-EE or the 80m V for this one. I just tuned up whatever antenna was already chosen.

My Results


Tennessee QSO Party

Call: AA8IA
Operator(s): AA8IA
Station: AA8IA

Class: SO Fixed LP
QTH: Toronto OH
Operating Time (hrs): 1.5

Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs Mults
-----------------------------------
40: 35 6 29
-----------------------------------
Total: 35 6 0 29 Total Score = 3,393

Also get bonus points for contacting the TCG station.

Club: Mad River Radio Club

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CoQP 2010 – Summary

Sep 6

Posted by Mike in Contesting, QSO Parties | No Comments

I’d have to say the CoQP was the most fun of all of the QSO parties I’ve worked thus far. Yep, even more fun than the OhQP for me. I worked hard to get the limited number of Qs that i got [72 total], but it was very relaxing to me. 20/40m were awesome. Weather was great. There were very low noise levels. I rarely had to call a second time to get a CO station. Their mobile ops are just great, able to handle fast/slow CW but predominantly sending at a much slower rate than ops in many other contests send. I think this is great because it is more appealing to casual participants, especially those who aren’t used to copying at such high speeds. Whether the CO ops knew it or not, I think they were presenting themselves in a way that made even the most green of participants want to give them a call. Thumbs up to them.

I had a blast working the mobiles. All of the CO mobiles were solid copy and had surprisingly strong sigs on both 20/40 for the duration of the contest. It was really a great way to spend a lazy Saturday before the holiday weekend kicked into gear.

Thanks to all of the CO participants… and especially the CO mobiles that made it so fun to chase them from county to county. W0UA/M and W0ETT/M were everpresent and easy to work. I also liked that the mobiles appeared to often QSY up or down the band after changing county, which made it more challenging since you couldn’t count on them being at one particular frequency through multiple counties.

Another thing I noticed is that my low 80m doublet was the best antenna for 20/40, beating out my DX-EE every time I checked. I was really glad I had the 80m V up.

I had never intended to operate 8 hours, but it was so fun that I got sucked in!

My Results


Colorado QSO Party

Call: AA8IA
Operator(s): AA8IA
Station: AA8IA

Class: SOMixed LP
QTH: Toronto OH
Operating Time (hrs): 8.2

Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs Dig Qs
----------------------------
80: 10 0 0
40: 26 9 0
20: 36 17 0
----------------------------
Total: 72 26 0 CW Mults = 32 Ph Mults = 16 Dig Mults = 0 Total Score = 16,320

Club: Mad River Radio Club

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160 meter antenna for limited space

Sep 1

Posted by Mike in Antennas, Contesting, DX | No Comments

When I first got back into the hobby I had no ambition of operating 160m. I had never had a proper antenna for 160m in the past. My experiences revealed that it was very difficult to hear stations on 160m.

Times have changed. I’m interested in a challenge. I’m interested in Contesting. I’m interested in DXing. Furthermore, after doing some reading I realized that there are times when 160m is better (nighttime, winter, solar cycle minimum). It very well could have been that the combination of a lack of proper antenna plus exploring 160m during the summer and/or at the height of the solar cycle caused me to come to the wrong conclusion about 160.

Now that I’ve pretty much decided upon a plan this fall to get my 100+ ft doublet (technically not since its terminated with a balun and 8 ft of RG-213 after the ladderline) up in the air permanently, it’s time to move on to thinking about possibilities for 160m.

I’m ruling out a dipole for 160m for multiple reasons. I lack the space for anything even approaching an efficient 160m dipole. A dipole isn’t the best antenna for DXing 160m, especially if you are unable to get it up in the air above 65 feet. An inverted-L seems to be an extremely popular antenna for 160m, and from the reading I’ve seen it’s doable here. I could potentially get the vertical section of an inverted L up about 45-50 feet. And I would have enough horizontal space to run the horizontal portion of the L out the remaining distance. I’ve read about 1/2w loaded inverted Ls, but the 1/4w inverted L is simple and effective. I’d probably go with what is best documented, and that would be a 1/4w with a good radial system. This antenna would be a wintertime-only antenna. After the mowing season is over I’d throw out as many long radials as I could out from the end of the back yard up into the side yards. I have no experience creating matching systems or anything like that. I don’t have an antenna analyzer, and an analyzer certainly would be a useful tool to have.

160m is a challenge for DXing. But I could potentially create a 160/80m combination inverted L if i were ambitious enough and try my hand at some DX on 80m as well.

I must have bookmarked 30 different websites documenting various inverted-L antennas today. I’ve still got plenty of reading to do. Noise on 160m receive is also often an issue. I venture to say a beverage would not be doable here. I could run a beverage many hundred feet downhill into neighboring land that doesn’t belong to me and nobody would ever know. But I question how useful it would be if it’s laid out in the woods and would be continously decreasing in elevation at the bottom of the gulley. Seems like way too much work. If I can get a 160m inverted-L up for transmit, then I’d probably just use that antenna for receive and see if I enjoy 160m enough to try and improve the receive side of things over the course of the next year.

Yep, I think I’ll put some effort into getting an inverted-L up. Seems like a useful antenna.

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Colorado QSO Party / Tennessee QSO Party — This weekend

Aug 31

Posted by Mike in Contesting, QSO Parties | No Comments

The Colorado and Tennessee QSO parties are both this weekend. Fortunately, each is held at a completely different time — thus no contention.

Colorado QSO Party 1200Z, Sep 4 to 0400Z, Sep 5
Website: http://www.ppraa.org/coqp/

  • 160-10m (no WARC bands) + VHF/UHF
  • CW, SSB, Digital

Tennessee QSO Party 1800Z, Sep 5 to 0300Z, Sep 6
Website: http://www.tnqp.org/

  • All amateur bands (except WARC bands)
  • CW, SSB, Digital

I will try to make a few contacts. However, my brother and his wife are coming in from CMH this weekend so operating time will be limited. Great WX forecast this weekend here in Ohio…. hopefully I can take advantage for a few hours.

I’m not sure about activity in the CoQP, but the TnQP is a very popular contest. If you are going to work the TnQP you should anticipate a lot of activity.

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Ohio QSO Party 2010 – Summary

Aug 30

Posted by Mike in Contesting, QSO Parties | No Comments

(subliminal message – If you operated the OhQP this year, and especially if you were an Ohio station, please upload your logs to Logbook of the World (LOTW) and eQSL. Many people worked this contest in the hopes of getting a rare Ohio county confirmation. Do your part and upload your logs. It’s not difficult. If you want to know more about LOTW and eQSL, click on the link at the top of this page)

I put a tremendous amount of thought into OhQP 2010 operations from my home this year. That’s not to say that I put enough effort into optimizing my antenna system. I did not. However, I did manage to at least get the 80m dipole up in inverted-V fashion. It sure is a good thing, because I actually made more Qs on 80m than anywhere else.

80m was rocking, both on CW and SSB. Unfortunate for me is the fact that I didn’t take into account how important SSB operations would be if i wanted to reach as many stations as possible. My 80m Vee tuned fine on CW but would not tune on SSB. I could not resist the temptation to operate [at reduced power levels] on 80m SSB even though I couldn’t come anywhere close to tuning the SSB portion. I made quite a few 80m SSB Qs, all things considered. But, next year I will be sure to have an antenna that easily tunes on 80m CW and SSB. Even with my situation on 80m SSB, stations seemed to copy me without a problem.

40m was a bust band for me. Apparently I didn’t know when the right time was to get on 40m. I made some 40m CW QSOs, but I didn’t make any 40m SSB Qs. And I see that a lot of other Ohio stations made significantly higher numbers of Qs on 40m. So I was definitely doing something wrong there. There were RTTY contests going on, and 40m CW was a hard place to operate. I heard some CW mixed in with the RTTY, but in the cases where I did I tried to avoid making a contact. I wanted to be friendly to the RTTY contesting guys. Too bad there was a RTTY contest on the same day as the OhQP though. This did affect things.

20m was alright. On only operated CW on 20m. Not sure why I didn’t bother to seek out SSB contacts.

I made 1 QSO on 15m. 15m/10m were pretty much deader than a doornail.

  1. There were a ton of Ohio stations on the air. Kenny [K2KW] did an excellent job with PR for this event.
  2. Weather was beautiful in all of Ohio for the contest
  3. QRN was at a minimum [at least for me] in Ohio

    I did a lot of CQing. It was effective. The problem is that I obviously didn’t know when to quit. Well, I knew there were many times when I should quit, but I didn’t. At those times I either should have checked other bands or SSB, or I should have QSY’d to a fresh frequency. Failing to adjust when rates were really low was a fatal flaw for me.

    Another fatal flaw of mine was that I didn’t choose the right band for the right time in order to maximize my Qs on all the workable bands.

    I also failed to look for the mobiles until the very end. This meant that I didn’t get a chance to work any of the mobiles/rovers when they were moving around East Ohio. The exception is K8RYU — Ralph did a fantastic job and I was able to work 3 counties on 80m with him. The mobile ops are all fantastic. They can copy fast/slow, without the need for repeats. In the end I was able to pick up a couple of county mults from the mobiles. If I had been on the ball, I’d probably have been able to snag K8MR and KC8YJJ on one or more bands/modes while they were in BELM / CARR / HARR / COLU / TUSC.

    Lastly, I failed to think ahead regarding the significant amount of SSB activity that would be occurring. This is probably because I usually run CW-only and because I usually have a piss poor setup for SSB. As it turns out though, low power aside, I actually have a good SSB setup now. I definitely need to get the 80m Vee to work on 80m SSB.

    In the end, I’m a bit disappointed with myself. Failure to pay attention caused me to not get any Qs for most of Eastern Ohio. I heard COSH and TUSC, but they weren’t CQing when I heard them and I never managed to catch up with them when they were CQing. Not even sure if they did CQ.

    I had a great time this year. I’m sure it is my best ever OhQP score. But even before the contest was over I new I made too many fatal mistakes and that had I given proper forethought to things I could have increased my score a bit and gotten the close counties. I also know there were some errors in my logs. I guarantine it won’t be a prisitine log, which is going to hurt my score.

    I saw the 3830 reports of quite a few out-of-state stations that did a phenomenal job, including working various OH mobiles 10-15 times.

    Thanks to all of the Ohio and out-of-state stations that worked me.

    My Results


    Ohio QSO Party

    Call: AA8IA
    Operator(s): AA8IA
    Station: AA8IA

    Class: Single Op LP
    QTH: Toronto OH
    Operating Time (hrs): 12

    Summary:
    Band CW Qs Ph Qs
    --------------------
    80: 160 39
    40: 47 0
    20: 39 0
    15: 1 0
    10: 0 0
    --------------------
    Total: 247 39 CW Mults = 86 Ph Mults = 32 Total Score = 62,894

    What counties I did not work: ALLE , ASHT , BELM , BROW , CARR , COSH , DEFI , GREE , HARD , HARR , HIGH , HOCK , JACK , LAWR , MAHO , MARI , MIAM , MONR , MORG , MUSK , NOBL , PAUL , PERR , PIKE , PORT , STAR , TUSC , WYAN . 28 counties not worked! What the hell? Now, think about how many of those had mobile operations that I missed. I heard a station in BELM (probably mobile) but they were gone before I had a chance to throw out my call and find out their call. I heard [but did not work] COSH and MUSK.

    K9TM reports having not worked 8 counties. And out of those 8 counties he did not work, I worked 3 of them and heard 2 of them. That means that at the very least, there were operations in 85 of the 88 counties. So I missed at least 25 counties that I could have worked but didn’t.

    I worked 35 or 36 states. K9TM worked 47 states. So I wasn’t too far off. I didn’t do much on 40m or 20m. Had I put in more effort on CW/SSB on those bands, I probably could have picked up a few more states.

    I worked a few DX stations including IK2, G3, four DLs, HP9, OK2, and SP5.

    To sum it all up, I should have worked more 40m CW and I should have worked 40m SSB and 80m SSB. I should have made sure the Vee tuned on 80m SSB before the contest started and should have rectified that problem if it didn’t. I should have paid attention to the mobile routes / timelines so as to be able to catch some more mobiles in the “rare” counties.

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80m Inverted V ready for the OHQP

Aug 27

Posted by Mike in Antennas, Contesting, QSO Parties | No Comments

Raised the 80m inverted V today. 38′ apex and ends just inches from the ground, 12 feet away from the back of a two-story house doesn’t sound optimum does it? Well, it does if you consider the alternative for 80/40m operation. The only other antenna I have is a Alpha Delta DX-EE (a 40-10m parallel dipole which is shortened on 40m, total length 42 feet).

The DX-EE would tune up and both 40m and 80m, and it hears just as well as the V on 40m. But on 80m it doesn’t hear worth a damned, nor is it efficient. No surprise there.

This V is fed with 40-something feet of ladderline into a DXE current balun, and then 8 feet of RG-213 into the house to the tuner. (I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of getting ladderline into the house)

The 80m inverted-V is magnitudes better on 80 for reception, and all signs tell me it is magnitudes better for transmit as well. It has been up for two other contests.

The previous times I had it up, I could only get the tuner to tune it on 80m, and I expected better given that it was fed with mostly ladderline. I took special care today to get the ladderline a foot away from the fiberglass mast, the back deck, and the bush at the bottom where it comes under the porch. I also moved all the rolls of wires and tools that were setting an inch away from the balun. Something I did has now allowed it to tune on every band I’ve tried (not 160m, didn’t even bother to try that). So, as it stands now it tunes up pretty easily on 80m-10m including 12m. I will check out 17m/30m later.

During the OHQP I certainly want to make as many Qs as possible, but I particularly want to be able to snag as much action I can in-state from the different counties. Without a decent 40/80m antenna that just wasn’t going to possible.

I think everything is ready to go. I want to make some changes when Fall arrives. I have been thinking long and hard about ways to get the inverted V up a little higher, including ways to get the ends up off the ground 8 feet or more. Currently this is a portable/temporary setup — The ends are inches [or less] from the ground. I want to move the fiberglass mast another 20 feet out away from the house. Without forking out cash for a new mast I likely won’t be able to go any higher than a 38 foot apex. But certainly raising the ends up off the ground makes it much safer for people out on the lawn as well as lessens the chance that deer will get tangled up in it and pull the whole contraption down. The other [more important] benefit is that doing all of this would provide me with better tuning and quite possibly some increased performance.

Yes, I realize everyone and their mother has at least one tower, at least one beam, at least one amp, and a half dozen talls trees in their yard to facilitate stringing up antennae. This guy doesn’t. Truly a modest station. I’m not alone, but if you’d hear every ham tell it they have the best station on earth. I just don’t make any bones about the fact that I’m running strictly with wires and am trying to improve upon a wire-only antenna system as much as possible.

Ohio QSO Party – only two days away

Aug 26

Posted by Mike in Contesting, QSO Parties | No Comments

The Ohio QSO Party is almost here. Looks like Ohio stations have all counties covered. So if you’re a county hunter, you should be checking out 80-10m (minus WARC bands, and mostly on 80/40/20m) from noon til midnight (ET) on Saturday.

I haven’t done anything with the antennas. I just haven’t been able to. Fortunately the weather will be nice and I’ll be able to push up the 38-foot fiberglass mast that supports my 100+ foot inverted V that I’ll use on 80m. It’s not ideal… it’s not full length on 80m, and it’ll be 38′ at the apex with the ends extremely close to the ground. I was doing some modeling in EZNEC and can see how much better it would perform if I could get the Apex at 50′ and the ends at 38′ and 22′ (which is what I’ve figured would be the best I could possibly ever do at this location).

Fortunately, the OhQP activity is mostly on 80/40m for us Ohio stations, although those Ohio stations with good 20m ants do manage a significant number of Qs. Based upon some of last years results, it looks like Ohio stations made an almost equal number of QSOs on 80m and 40m with about half as many on 20m.

I’ll get the 80m antenna up in the air tomorrow, and I’ll also update N1MM, configure the macros, and test things out to make sure it is all working. Then, assuming I manage to go to sleep early enough and get 8 hours, I should be feeling pretty good for Saturday. I can’t even recall my scores from the few previous OhQPs I’ve worked, but I’m anticipating a significant improvement in my performance this year versus any previous year.

There are a significant number of Ohio stations working mobile this year, coveraging an amazing number of counties combined. But, there is also a large number of fixed stations as well.

This is a 12-hour contest, and the hours are easily doable for anybody in the states. I am hoping to hear a lot of people on working the contest.

Of course, the Kansas QSO Party is also this same weekend. That may make it more of a pain in the rear end for those who want to work both contests, especially when it comes to log tracking and submitting logs. Hopefully that will not deter anyone.

I plan on doing a signfiicant amount of CQing, as I think this will be very effective for me. However, during my S&P operations I most certainly will be listening for KQP operators and attempting to work them as I am able. I’ll just keep a separate log for that.

If you hear me on, please call — and be prepared to provide a sequential serial number and your state, and expect to receive a sequential serial number and JEFF (my county) from me.

If you hear me and you’re a Kansas station working the Kansas QSO Party, call me too — Indicate to me that you’re working the Kansas QSO Party (send KQP to me in CW) and I’ll send you back a 599 OH and will log you separately in a log that I’ll submit specifically for the KQP.

Hope to hear you and work you!

NAQP SSB 2010 – the summary

Aug 22

Posted by Mike in Contesting, QSO Parties | No Comments

At about T-2.5 hours til the end of the contest I got back on the air. 80m was all QRN. Very unpleasant. Of course, without an actual efficient antenna on 80m I just wasn’t being heard over the QRN. Every contact was a struggle. Between 11:30 PM and 12:05 AM I managed 4 Qs on 20m and 7 Qs on 80m. On 40m there were only two stations to be found that I hadn’t contacted previously.

At 12:06 AM I shut it down, with nearly two hours of contest left. I simply felt that I exhausted any possibility of useful contacts. I don’t know where the ops were – Was I just not hearing them? Or did everyone give up early?

My Results


North American QSO Party, SSB - August

Call: AA8IA
Operator(s): AA8IA
Station: AA8IA

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: Toronto, OH
Operating Time (hrs): 4.2

Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 0 0
80: 7 5
40: 37 23
20: 44 13
15: 0 0
10: 0 0
-------------------
Total: 88 41 Total Score = 3,608

Club: Mad River Radio Club

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NAQP SSB – a few hours left to operate

Aug 21

Posted by Mike in Contesting, QSO Parties | No Comments

I’ve operated on and off throughout the day. Nothing heard on 10/15m. 20m is where most of my action has been, with the remainder on 40m. There are still about 2.5 hours left to operate.

  • No 80m antenna. My 42′ Alpha Delta will tune it, but nobody hears me.
  • No 160m capabilities.
  • I’m having a lot of [back] pain.
  • Storm QRN plus had to disconnect a few times for passing storms.
  • SSB ops are less patient, sometimes rude; also lazier. Heaven forbid being asked for a repeat.

I wanted to make a concerted effort to participate in the SSB contest, but I’m definitely glad I know CW. Bright side, I probably got a state or two on 20m that I need… they probably don’t do LOTW though.

No, I’m not sour. My expectations weren’t very high to begin with. Since this is a 100w-or-less contest, at least in the pileups I stood a better chance. I wanted tried not using the speech processor – I thought I sounded much cleaner. However, as soon as I turned it off people were hearing 2′s and other numbers in my call instead of an 8. Turn the speech processor back on and magically that problem goes away. Odd.

Hard to get motivated to operate anymore tonight knowing that there will be people on 160/80m that I effectively cannot work. So I’ll hope for some new 40m Qs and possibly a handful of Qs left on 20m.

Ohio QSO Party 2010

Aug 19

Posted by Mike in Contesting, QSO Parties | No Comments

The Ohio QSO Party (OHQP) is the last Saturday in August — this year Aug 28th and 29th. That’s less than two weeks away! Take this remaining time to check your antennas and other gear, and be sure to participate! The OHQP is one of the premier QSO Parties, with a lot of activity. Hopefully all 88 counties will be active during this event.

If you’re looking for a confirmation for a specific Ohio county, this is the best time to get on the air.

Details: Ohio QSO Party Website – sponsored by the Mad River Radio Club

  • 1600z, Aug 28 to 0400z, Aug 29 (12 PM Eastern, Saturday to Midnight)
  • 80m – 10m (no WARC bands)
  • SSB and CW

NOTE: http://www.ohqp.org is the official website for the Ohio QSO Party. There is no other valid website for the OHQP, regardless of what your favorite search engine tells you. The OHQP is not on Twitter, not on Facebook, and not on Myspace. The only place to find the Ohio QSO Party is at http://www.ohqp.org

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