AA8IA

Amateur Radio

Posts Tagged N1MM

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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