AA8IA

Amateur Radio

Posts Tagged contesting

RSGB IOTA 2010 – my take

Jul 25

Posted by Mike in Contesting | No Comments

I was hoping for one or more contests to work before the Ohio QSO Party. I had looked at the WA7BNM Contest Calendar and saw the IOTA contest. For some reason or another I dismissed this as a “limited audience” contest and thus did not plan for it. I had other obligations this weekend.

Yesterday, out of curiosity, I actually went and read the rules of this contest and realized that it is open to everyone and that you get points for ANY station, island or not, that you can work — with actual registered IOTA-registered islands providing increased points and acting as multipliers. I was kicking myself. I knew I couldn’t operate 24 hours or even 12 hours, but I decided I was going to get on.

I’m glad I did. I worked about 4.7 hours of this contest off and on, on 15/20/40 with 100w and the 40-10m wire. Mostly 20m activity with a smattering of 15m and some 40m. Worked a handful or two of new DXCC entities (if they happen to decide to confirm via LOTW).

If I had read the rules and realized that the IOTA contest would have been as active as it was, I may have planned to spend more time. It’ll be on my list of contests to work next year. Definitely a fun time and worth the planning.

IOTA Contest 2010

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

Class: SO(A)12Mixed LP
QTH: Toronto OH
Operating Time (hrs): 4.7

Summary:
Band CW Qs CW Mults Ph Qs Ph Mults
—————————————-
80:
40: 23 12
20: 41 14 20 10
15: 2 1
10:
—————————————-
Total: 66 27 20 10 Total Score = 29,082

Club: Mad River Radio Club

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DL-DX RTTY Contest 2010

Jul 4

Posted by Mike in Contesting | No Comments

It wasn’t until after half of the contest was over that I realized it was going on. It was then that I decided I’d give it a try. Wanted to use N1MM (my favorite logger) but was used to using HRD for RTTY. Ended up downloading, installing and figuring out the config for MTTY so that it works in conjunction with N1MM. Integration seemed pretty good, but the RTTY decoding in MTTY leaves a lot to be desired compared to HRD (HRD seems to decode much better).

I really am bummed that I didn’t work 24 hours of this contest. Instead I worked 6 hours. I only made a few contacts on 80m, and the rest on 40m and 20m. I really would have liked to work some RTTY on other bands, and more of it to Europe. Hopefully next year I’ll be on top of things, will be prepared, and will be able to operate all 24 hours.

This RTTY contest was extremely fun, with a lot of activity. Id’ encourage others to give it a try next year.

I’ll say thanks to the sponsors and to the stations that worked me. I really enjoyed it.

Below is my summary:


DL-DX RTTY Contest

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

Class: SOAB-6-Dipole LP
QTH: Toronto OH
Operating Time (hrs): 6

Summary:
Band QSOs Pts Mults
------------------------
80: 4 20 1
40: 27 220 3
20: 28 255 9
15:
10:
------------------------
Total: 59 495 13 Total Score = 14,850

Club: Mad River Radio Club

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CQ WW WPX (CW)

May 30

Posted by Mike in Contesting | 1 Comment

Just in the nick of time, and with the help of the family, I got the shack table, equipment, computer, etc. set up.

So far I’ve been able to tune up and work stations on 80m, 40m, 20m, 15m and 10m. The Alpha-Delta DX-EE is performing far better than any previous wire I had, even on 80m. And, remember that the DX-EE is a 42-foot parallel dipole. On 40m it has coils and it shortened.

The first hundred contacts were made using a paddle and copying exclusively by ear. On Saturday I built a CW keying interface that runs off the parallel port. I also snagged CWGET, which is a great code copier. I set up N1MM to use the CW keyer interface and it worked flawlessly, although I am not too familiar with using N1MM just yet….been a few years. CWGet is only used to verify what I’ve already heard. I do not need to rely upon it to copy CW, but it certainly helps to have it available.

I was not using any DX Cluster spotting. It would be very useful, but I am not submitting my logs in the assisted category and thus cannot use a cluster.

As of now, I’ve made about 206 contacts. I wonder how many will be invalid. Hopefully not too many.

Station setup currently is:

Yeasu FT-100 (running 100w)
LDG AT100Pro tuner
Alpha Delta DX-EE 40-10m parallel dipole
Computer
Signalink USB interface
Parallel port CW keying interface
CAT control cable
N1MM logger for contest logging (making use of CAT control and CW keying interface)
CWGet (making use of Signalink USB for sound input)
HRD+DM780 (for digital modes and casual logging)

I have no complaints. Everything came together at the last minute and I’ve had a great time working the WPX. Not sure if I’ll fire up the station for any more contacts today. It is family day, so I probably won’t.

I worked a handful of stations on 3 bands and I think one station on 4 bands (not sure about that without looking at the logs).

i definitely enjoy working CW contests more than SSB/digital. The WPX sure was fun.

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Manchester Mineira All Americas Contest

May 16

Posted by Mike in Contesting | No Comments

I was bored, a lot of people were in Dayton, and this weekend was a good weekend to play in a contest.

The MMAA is a CW-only contest on 80m / 40m / 20m / 15m /10m. It is a 32-hour contest, of which I worked 5 hours off and on. Participants are those living in South America and North America. I worked a few stations on 15m, most on 20m, and 2 on 40m.

It was fun and relaxing. I worked 18 stations, two of them on two different bands. Score was somehere around 370. Yeah I know, pretty damned weak. A real contester would do 300K+ in this contest. So I guess I’m about 1/100th of what a real contester is.

Next year I should make many more contacts since I’ll have a better antenna system. And, supposedly the MMAA will turn into a 5-continent contest starting next year.

It was nice to brush up on my CW. I’ll do more CW contests since it’ll always be my favorite mode. No matter how you slice it, it all comes down to Morse Code. If you haven’t learned CW, you’re losing out. No doubt about it.

Thanks to the CWJF Group for putting on this nice contest. It was a pleasure working many new SA stations.

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Volta RTTY Contest over

May 9

Posted by Mike in Contesting | No Comments

Decided to try my hand at some RTTY contesting. This weekend was the Alessandro Volta RTTY Contest. In this day and age, and with the Signalink USB it was a no brainer to make RTTY contacts. On the antenna front I was severely lacking. I had put a coax choke inline to try and get some RF out of the shack. It was semi successful. However, I can no longer tune up on 6m, 10m and 15m, all of which I were able to tune before the coax choke. For those wondering, Google “ugly balun”.

I worked predominantly 20m with a smattering of 40m. There were a lot of stations. I had no stamina, and I had only worked the contest in a relaxing way. 25 contacts, claimed 72,000 points. Before you think that 72,000 points sounds like a lot, these RTTY contests appear to be judged differently and there are stations that get 10s of millions of points and even a couple multi-multi that had gotten billions of points in the past.

At any rate, It’s a fun mode. I particularly like the brief contest exchanges. I’m not a ragchewer. I just want contacts. So anybody who is willing to keep it short has my vote. The RTTY ops seem to be a pretty cool bunch. I’m sure many of them take contesting very very seriously, but they were all tolerant and patient with this new RTTY operator. With this being Mothers’ Day weekend, I really didn’t want to spend all my time operating an amateur radio contest. I suspect that i probably could have achieved 100 contacts had i operated throughout the 24 hour period and worked on more bands, even with the crappy antenna setup.

The Signalink USB works like a charm in conjunction with Ham Radio Deluxe. Probably not the best contest RTTY software, but it was already installed and I’m already somewhat used to it and it did the job well.

Thanks to those who put on the Volta RTTY Contest and the operators with whom I had the pleasure to make a contact!

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