Category Archives: Contesting

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2013 Contest University At The Dayton Hamvention

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Contest University Session

Contest University Session

One of our favorite things to do at the Dayton Hamvention is to attend Contest University.   Fred (AB1OC) and Anita (AB1QB) attended Contest University for the first time in 2012 and found this to be a great learning experience about Amateur Radio in general and Contesting specifically.  The instructors are the same people who consistently place highest in contests. They share their knowledge with the rest of us at Contest University.

Here are some of the sessions that I attended at Contest University 2013:

  • Radio Sport Contesting, It’s More Than Rules – K5GN – The message from this presentation is that with contesting, everyone is under the honor system – there is no referee in your shack making sure that you follow the rules.  Technology has brought even more innovative ways to cheat than in the past.  But the best contesters do not cheat – your time is better spent learning to improve your skills.
  • Tips on Being a Better Single Operator – K5ZD – Randy Thompson is the director of the CQ WW contest and is an excellent speaker.  In this presentation, he shares many tips on improving your contesting skills based on his experience contesting and analyzing logs.  I would highly recommend this presentation, which can be viewed from Icom’s YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/IcomAmericaInc. Some items that I learned are:
    1. Automate as much as you can – band changes from your software, rotator control, PTT output to the radios, etc.  It is possible to set up your station so that you can click on a spot and your rotor will turn your antenna, your radio will tune, and the entry window of your logger will open with the callsign filled in.
    2. Station layout is important – make it easy to reach the items you go to most and difficult to reach the ones that you should not (eg. don’t accidentally switch antennas while transmitting)
    3. Have a strategy – look at your past logs and the logs of your peers (Logs are public for some contests, like the CQ WW contest).
    4. Understand the rules and use this information to determine when to change bands, when to run, when to hunt for multipliers
    5. Get your station ready 1 week before the contest and get a good night’s sleep the night before.
    6. There is a real-time score reporting website – cqcontest.ru – See below for an example showing AB1OC’s score midway through the CQ WPX CW contest.
    7. Don’t give up if it’s not going well – keep pushing – the next QSO could make the difference.
AB1OC CQ WPX CW Real Time Score Display

AB1OC CQ WPX CW Real Time Score Display

  • Setting Up for RTTY Contesting/Operating a RTTY Contest – W0YK – The presenter, Ed Muns, operates as P49X from Aruba in the major RTTY contests and consistently has stop scores.  I attended this talk last year, but with some RTTY contests under my belt, I was able to get much more out of the presentation this year.  He provides alot of good technical information about how RTTY works, how to set up RTTY, comparisons of hardware and software for RTTY, and what the various program options do.  Some learnings:
    1. Using multiple decoders for a given signal helps to get a good copy on at least one.  The new 2Tone decoder from G3YYD can decode signals under some conditions where other decoders (MMTTY, etc.) cannot.  This avoids asking for repeats and increases your QSO rate.
    2. Using Super Check Partial, a database of active contester callsigns, can also help to accurately  pick out call signs
    3. Callsign stacking  – waiting for 2-3 callsigns after calling CQ and then working them in sequence can speed up your QSO rate.
    4. RTTY is easier than other modes, since the callsign is already decoded for you on your screen.  Take advantage of this to multi-task to increase your rate.  Use Single Operator Two VFO (SO2V) to find stations via search and pounce while running.  Or do search and pounce on one VFO and while you are waiting for your chance to respond to a CQ, look for another station on the other VFO.  If you have 2 radios, and are good at multi-tasking – use SO2R to increase your QSO rate even more.  This is how the best RTTY contesters win.
  • Post-Contest Log Analyzers – K6MM – As mentioned by K5ZD in his talk, analyzing your contest log (or your peers’ logs) is a good way to improve your score in the next contest.  This presentation was about several software packages that can help you to do this.  The most full featured of these is SH5 , which provides 50 different reports on your log.  Some of the reports include QSO rates per hour, number of hours operated, QSO break down by band, and number of countries worked.  It even provides a Google map plot of the QSOs that you worked!  I ran SH5 on my log from the 2013 BARTG HF RTTY contest and a couple of reports are shown below.
AB1QB QSOs from 2012 BARTG HF RTTY Contest

AB1QB QSOs from 2012 BARTG HF RTTY Contest – from SH5 generated KML file

AB1QB QSOs per Hour 2013 BARTG HF RTTY Contest - from SH5

AB1QB QSOs Per Hour 2013 BARTG HF RTTY Contest – From SH5

Some other topics presented at Contest University included Contest Antennas and Coaxial Cables, Propagation Trends, RFI and Ham Radio, VHF Contesting, Design and Maintenance of Antennas, Towers and Rotators.  There is so much good information, I wish I could have attended multiple sessions at once!

We also attended the RTTY contesting forum at the Dayton Hamvention where we learned about the Reverse Beacon Network and CW Skimmer . These tools are beginning to be available for RTTY.  The CW Skimmer works with participating stations running software that decodes and collects information from received CW traffic.  That data is collected by the Reverse Beacon Network website and displayed like spots from a spotting network.

AB1OC Spots on Reverse Beacon Network (CW Skimmer)

AB1OC Spots On Reverse Beacon Network (CW Skimmer)

Next year, Contest University will be held around the ARRL Centennial which will be held July 17-20, 2014 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.   Contest University has also been held in Germany, Italy, and Australia.

Several of the contest university sessions were recorded and can be found on Icom’s YouTube Site:  http://www.youtube.com/IcomAmericaInc.  The Hamvention RTTY Contesting Slides and Videos can be found at W0YK’s website.

There is also some good contesting information at http://www.rttycontesting.com and the CQ-Contest and RTTY email mailing lists at contesting.com.

– Anita (AB1QB)

AB1QB Enters The 2013 ARRL Rookie Roundup SSB

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AB1QB In 2013 ARRL Rookie Roundup SSB

AB1QB In 2013 ARRL Rookie Roundup SSB

Three times a year, the ARRL hosts the Rookie Roundup, in April for SSB, in August for RTTY, and in December for CW. These 6 hour contests are a great opportunity for new operators to get started in contesting. In addition to Rookies, experienced operators are encouraged to be “Elmers” and host new operators, or they can help by just making contacts with the Rookies. A rookie is any operator who was first licensed in the past 3 years.

I have operated seriously in several RTTY contests this year, but have been a little nervous about a serious SSB contest attempt because I don’t have much experience with SSB contacts, except for casually working DXpeditions, and working a pileup or two in Bora Bora with lots of help from Elmer AB1OC.

I thought the Rookie Roundup, on April 21, would be a great introduction to SSB contesting. I started out in search and pounce mode, trying to find rookies and multipliers on the band. In this contest, multipliers are US States and Canadian Provinces, and if you are a rookie, you get 2 points for working other rookies and 1 point for any other contest. The exchange had 4 pieces of information – Callsign, Name, State, and Year Licensed. With N1MM in a RTTY contest. to get the exchange in the log, all you need to do is click on the words/numbers. But for SSB, you need to listen, understand, and type in everything – while giving out your own exchange. This took some getting used to, but by the end of the contest, it became second nature.

I started out on 15m but soon moved to 20m. After determining that search and pounce was not helping my score, I found a frequency and started to run. After a few minutes, I started to get a constant flow of callers, which soon became a pileup! After some initial adjustment, I started to relax and enjoy myself and was able to manage the pileup. The operators in this contest were very friendly and encouraging. I continued to work the pileup for the rest of the contest – almost 6 hours and had a great time!

This has given me the confidence to operate SSB as K2K for the 13 Colonies Event the week of July 4th – I can’t wait!!

By the end of the contest, I had 246 contacts for a score of 11736. Preliminary results are available and I had the top score in Area 1 and the 3rd single op participant overall! I had the most QSOs of any operator – but not as many multipliers. I could have improved my score by moving to 40m toward the end of the contest and trying to work the closer in states in Areas 1, 2, and 3. Those states are difficult to work on the higher bands and represent quite a few multipliers.  The other lesson learned is to use the voice recording capabilities of N1MM for my next SSB contest – after 6 hours of repeating my exchange, I had nearly lost my voice!

All in all this was a great contest and I would recommend it to any new operator.

– Anita (AB1QB)

AB1OC Enters Yet Another Contest – 2013 CQ WPX SSB

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N1MM and Related Software

N1MM and Related Software

I am continuing to work the major HF contests to both improve my skills and to work towards a variety of operating awards. My latest effort here was to participate in the recent CQ WPX SSB contest. My schedule did not permit operation during the full contest period but the results were still pretty good. I again used the N1MM logger including its voice keyer features and this was a great aid during contest operations.

Countries Worked During CQ WPX SSB

Countries Worked During 2013 CQ WPX SSB

I was active on all bands 160m – 10m in this contest and was able to work 106 countries – again working a DXCC. The scoring system in CQ WPX SSB favors the lower bands (160m – 40m) so I tried to concentrate there when I could.

AB1OC Claimed Score

AB1OC Claimed Score

My best band overall was 15m where I was able to run during several of the active daytime periods. I am still considered a “rookie” by the rules of this contest, having been licensed for less than three years at this point. Based upon the claimed scores on the 3830scores site, It looks like I may be one of the top “rookies” in my category and will perhaps place in the top 15 in my category overall. The contest also contributed some new prefixes towards the CQ WPX awards that I am working on. Lots of fun as usual.

– Fred (AB1OC)

The 2013 BARTG RTTY Contest – AB1QB Gets Serious

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AB1QB Operating In The BARTG RTTY Contest

AB1QB Operating In The BARTG RTTY Contest

This past weekend, I operated in the 2013 BARTG HF RTTY Contest.  I had previously learned some things during our multi-single operation in the 2013 CQ WPX RTTY contest and made some enhancements to our contesting setup. As a result of this experience, I set a goal of making a serious effort in a RTTY contest.  The 2013 BARTG HF RTTY contest ran from 0200z Saturday March 16 – 0200z on Monday March 18.  I operated in the Single Operator All Band category, which allowed me to operate for 30 hours out of the total contest period of 48 hours (each break had to be at least 3 hours).

N1MM Setup - Left Monitor

N1MM Setup – Left Monitor

I used the N1MM logger again in the SO2V configuration with our Icom IC-7800 transceiver.  We added the 2Tone decoder, which, when used along with MMTTY, made a huge difference in being able to pick the call signs and exchange information out of the sometimes garbled exchanges.  I kept a window up with each decoder, which gave me two different interpretations of the RTTY signals.  When I couldn’t make sense of what I saw in one window, I could almost always pick out a call sign or exchange from the other.  This improved my QSO rate as I did not have to ask the station to repeat the exchange.  As conditions deteriorated on Sunday due to a Solar Flare, using 2 decoders made a big difference.

The N1MM screenshot above shows the SO2V configuration I used with 2 decoders associated with each VFO.  SO2V was helpful in speeding up the search and pounce.  You can tune one signal in on one VFO, and while waiting for your chance to call, you can find the next signal in the other VFO.  Each VFO has its own call sign entry window on the left, then 2 digital interface windows (with the decoded RTTY text) and 2 tuning windows per VFO – one with 2Tone and one with MMTTY.  The upper left window has the spotting network, which was useful, but in a RTTY contest, I can find far more stations in search and pounce mode by manually tuning through the band.   I also used the Check window, which looks up call signs in the Super Check Partial database. This was also a big help in determining whether I got a call sign correct – if it cannot find a match, it suggests other similar call signs, speeding up my QSO rate.

The lower right-hand window shows my QSO rate – if this gets too low, it could indicate that it’s time to change bands.  Also, it has a band timer – there is a rule for my category that I must stay on a band for at least 5 minutes – the timer tells me when I can change bands again.

N1MM Setup - Right Monitor

N1MM Setup – Right Monitor

Here is the N1MM setup on my right monitor.  The multiplier window shows which multipliers I worked on for each band.  For this contest, the multipliers were DXCC countries and W, VE, VK, and JA call areas.  The two windows on the left are the band map windows – one for each VFO.  It shows spots and stations where I have worked. If I click on one, it tunes the VFO right to the station – useful in search and pounce mode.  The right monitor also has my QSO log, the spotting cluster access window, and the score window.  Below are the graphical statistics showing my progress during the contest, provided via an analysis program called Athena.   You can see that once the Solar Flare hit during the day on Sunday, 20m was practically the only band with steady traffic.  15m and even 10m opened up again later in the afternoon.

Performance Statistics

Performance Statistics

Since this was a European-hosted contest, I started out on Friday at 10pm Eastern Time on 40m, pointing our two SteppIRs toward Europe, which was very productive.  I spent some time on 80m, but the traffic slowed down by 3am Eastern Time, so I took a break to sleep.  I started up again Saturday morning around 9 AM and was able to run on 20m for some time.  The SteppIR beams have a Bi-directional mode which is very useful. This configuration of the SteppIRs worked really well since most of the stations in the contest were either in Europe or the US, and I could point the SteppIRs in both of these directions at the same time using the bi-directional mode.  By afternoon, 15m had opened up, and I had good runs on both 20m and 15m.  I was able to make some calls on 10m as well, but that band was not as productive.    After dark, I worked 40m toward Europe but took my break at midnight since I learned on Friday that the late hours are not so productive.  Before going to bed, I checked my email and saw a message from my local PART club that a Solar Flare was heading toward Earth and would hit by Sunday.

Sure enough, when I woke up Sunday morning, the solar storm had hit, the K-Index was 6, and all the bands were rated as poor.  I was going to give up… but AB1OC convinced me to go down to the shack and keep operating as I could still reach the closer US stations.  Surprisingly, when I turned on the IC-7800, I was hearing stations from Europe on 20m.  So I did some search and pounce until I found a run frequency.  QSOs were not coming as quickly as they did on Saturday, but I was still making them at a good pace.  20m was the only band open for most of the day. Later in the day, I turned toward the southwest and received many calls from the US and, surprisingly quite a few from Japan and New Zealand.  The SteppIRs are amazing antennas!!

DXCC Multipliers

DXCC Multipliers

My goal was a score of 1 Million, and I probably would have hit it if not for the Solar Storm.  Even so, I came pretty close, as you can see in my score data below.  I worked close to 60 countries, all US areas on most bands, many VE areas, and even a few JA areas.

Claimed Final Score

Claimed Final Score

I posted my score to the 3830 website, and as of this morning’s report, my claimed score ranked at the top of my category – I am hoping that this will hold up.   Each time I operate, I learn more about N1MM, and I’m looking forward to the next contest to learn even more about its capabilities and to be able to better take advantage of SO2V.

Anita, AB1QB

The 2013 ARRL DX Phone Contest – Occasionally, Everything New Works Out

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ARRL DX Phone Contest Ops

AB1OC Operating In The ARRL DX Phone Contest

I participated in the 2013 ARRL DX Phone Contest from our recently completed New Hampshire, USA shack. This was my first serious effort in a Phone contest, and I participated in the Single-Operator, High Power Assisted category within the W/VE segment of the contest.

We have been enhancing our station’s contesting hardware and software recently. These enhancements included the addition of a microHAM MK2R+ SO2R interface the week before the contest.

microHAM MK2R+ SO2R Interface

microHAM MK2R+ SO2R Interface (Courtesy microHAM)

The MK2R+ provides a single interface to the two radios (an Icom IC-7800 and an Icom IC-9100) at my operating position. It allows one microphone, one set of headphones/speakers, one set of paddles, both radios’ FSK interfaces, and the MK2R+’s built-in sound cards to be used with both radios flexibly. I used the MK2R+ along with our logger’s voice keyer as part of the contest. I only operated using a single radio, the Icom IC-7800, in Single Operator 2 VFO (SO2V) mode in this contest as I wanted to prove in the MK2R+ in a relatively simple configuration during the first contest that we used it in. The MK2R+ also controls and shares our SteppIR DB-36 antennas between the two radios at my position.

The other major station enhancement for this contest was my first use of the N1MM Logger. N1MM is a very sophisticated contest logger that provides many features to enable a more competitive contest effort.

N1MM Screen Layout (Left Monitor)

N1MM Screen Layout (Left Monitor)

Anita (AB1QB) used N1MM as part of the 2013 CQ WPX RTTY Contest a few weeks back, so we had some experience with it prior to this contest. N1MM presents a lot of information, and I configured it to display various information on two monitors. The picture above shows the N1MM on my left monitor during the contest. This screen is the primary one that I used to operate. It contains the logging and control windows for both VFOs on my Icom IC-7800 (lower left), the spotting cluster data and band maps for the same (upper left and center tall vertical windows), and the Super Check Partial call sign checking window and my contest score window  (to the right of the two logging windows). The final two windows on this monitor are the control window for our rotators (Ham Radio Deluxe, upper right) and N1MM’s cluster telnet window (lower right).

N1MM Screen Layout (Right Monitor)

N1MM Screen Layout (Right Monitor)

The N1MM setup on my right monitor displays statistics and results for my contest operations. The windows here include my contest QSO rates (upper left), map of multipliers (countries) worked by Band (upper right), the logged calls during the contest (lower right), and my QSO rate and score statistics throughout the contest shown graphically (lower right). The graphical contest statistics are provided by a program called Athena.

Contest QSO Statistics

Contest QSO Statistics

As you can see from the picture above, Athena provides a great deal of information about my performance by Band in real-time during the contest. It is also an excellent tool for analyzing your performance after the contest is completed.

So how did the contest go? I operated for about 40 of the 48 hours of the available contest time. The following shows my final “claimed” score for the contest.

AB1OC's Claimed Score

AB1OC’s Claimed Score

Analyzing these results against other scores posted in my category on the 3830 website was very useful. When I compare the scores posted to these stats, I am pretty satisfied with the performance of my station on all bands but 160m. My 160m performance was a little weaker than the top stations in my category in this contest. My planned addition of a DX Engineering  8-Circle Receive Antenna System, which will cover 160m, plus some longer radials for my 160m Inverted-L antenna, should help.

I made extensive use of N1MM’s cluster data and band map features plus N1MM’s voice keyer to operate in Search and Pounce Mode at QSO rates which exceeded 150 QSOs per hour at times. These rates were far better than I have ever been able to achieve. N1MM’s voice keyer, coupled with some focus on improving my operating technique while running, allowed me to approach QSO rates of 200 per hour at times while running. This, coupled with decent coverage of the available multipliers, resulted in a good overall score – by far my best.

Multipliers Worked In Contest

Multipliers Worked In Contest

One of my goals in every contest is to work as many DX stations as I can towards various DX awards. This contest was also my best effort to date in this area. The picture above shows the final set of multipliers (these are DXCC entities, think of these mostly as countries) during the contest. At the 24-hour point, I worked 100 DXCC entities, earning a Phone DXCC Award in 24 hours. My final count for the contest was 120 DXCC entities.

I learned a lot about how to select which bands to operate at various times during the contest as well as how to use some of the best capabilities of N1MM. I was also able to improve my operating skills as the contest progressed. I am looking forward to the next major Phone contest so that I can apply all that I learned and hopefully perform better. I hope to finish in the top 20 within my category for this contest, which fulfills one of our major goals when we set out to construct our new station.

– Fred (AB1OC)

More Digital Contesting – The 2013 CQ WPX RTTY Contest

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AB1QB Op'ing CQ WPX RTTY

AB1QB Op’ing CQ WPX RTTY

Anita (AB1QB) and Fred (AB1OC) decided to enter the recent 2013 CQ WPX RTTY Contest in the Multi-op Single Transmitter, High Power category. We decided to move to the N1MM Logger and the MMTTY RTTY Decoder for this contest. This was our first use of this software, and we did some pre-contest setup and testing work using this combination to learn the new software and get it working with our radio. We used our Icom IC-7800 for this contest which has hardware FSK capability, Twin Peak Filtering, and a built-in RTTY decoder. MMTTY supports hardware FSK with this radio, which was also our first use of these capabilities in a contest. We operated for about 30 of the allowed 48 hours in the contest due to a major snow event and the associated cleanup at our QTH.

Our experiences with N1MM/MMTTY and the new radio setup were very good. We operated mostly on 40m and 20m, with some operation on 80m and 15m. We operated in Running Mode for most of the contest. The N1MM logger enabled our QSO rates to run as high as 130+ QSOs per hour. We made 1,562 QSOs, worked 609 prefixes, and worked 68 DXCC entities for a final claimed score of 2,981,664. If our placing associated with our claimed scores holds, we should finish in the top 10 entries in our North America category, making this our best contest effort to date.

The N1MM logger and associated setup made a major positive difference in our score! We recommend the N1MM/MMTTY combination to others interested in RTTY contesting. N1MM really speeds up the QSO process. We made heavy use of N1MM’s Enter Send Message (ESM) and Call Sign Stacking capabilities during the contest, and both of these features greatly improved our QSO rates. Enter Send Message allows the operator to hit the <enter> key to progress to the next stage of a QSO and automatically send the correct string. Call Sign Stacking allows the operator to grab 2-3 responding call signs after calling CQ and then respond to them without calling CQ again. The following shows a segment of an example QSO using Call Sign Stacking to respond to both KB1OIQ and NE1RD after they both respond to our CQ:

CQ CONTEST DE AB1QB
< KB1OIQ NE1RD …>
KB1OIQ UR 599 NH DE AB1QB
<TU UR 599 MA DE KB1OIQ>
TU KB1OIQ AND NOW NE1RD …

We also used the combination of MMTTY and the hardware decoder in our Icom IC-7800 to have two chances to decode received information during weak or noisy QSOs. In many cases, either MMTTY or the hardware decoder in our radio would decode key contest exchange information correctly when the other decoder did not.

We plan to add the 2Tone Decoder to our setup and enable SO2V operation for our next contest attempt. The 2Tone Decoder can do a better job decoding weak or noisy signals. SO2V operation allows us to use the second receiver in our Icom IC-7800 to tune a second QSO while completing another QSO in Search and Pounce mode. We still have much to do to improve our digital contesting skills, but we are progressing.

– Anita, AB1QB and Fred, AB1OC

Digital Contesting – AB1QB Enters The 2013 ARRL RTTY Roundup

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AB1QB Contesting

AB1QB Contesting

I worked the 2013 ARRL RTTY Roundup contest this weekend for the first time with the new station and the difference from last year was amazing! I also got to use my new Flex-3000 Software Defined Radio for the contest. Band conditions were very good (the sun spot numbers were high) and 10 meters was open. I entered the contest in the Single Operator High Power category, which did not allow me to use a spotting network.

Software Defined Radio

Flex-3000 Software Defined Radio

This was the first time I tried to “Run” during a contest. That is to find a spot in the digital sub-band that nobody is using and call CQ (as opposed to “Search and Pounce”, which is to tune across a sub-band looking for stations to work). “Running” allows you to work QSOs at a much higher rate. Using our two Yagi’s and 500 watts of power from our the amplifier,  I was never “lonely” – I always had a constant stream of callers answering my CQs and sometimes several at once.

Multipliers for this contest were individual US States, Canadian Provinces, and DX Countries. To calculate your score, you multiply the total multipliers by the number of QSOs that you made. I had 111 multipliers for the contest and 759 QSOs. My total score before log checking is 84,249 (the final scores for the contest will be posted here in the near future). Below are some statistics for the QSOs that I made during the contest by area of the world and by band.

RTTY Contest Stats

AB1QB Contest QSO Statistics

Most of the US and Canadian multipliers were easy to get, but it is usually the closest (or most remote) states that are the most difficult – and I did not get Vermont or North Dakota. Saturday evening, I pointed the Yagis toward Europe and worked stations from many different European countries on 40 meters. Sunday toward the end of the contest, I was running on 20 meters with the antennas pointed West working W6s and W7s and I started seeing JA stations calling me. Before we upgraded our station, the only QSOs with JA’s in my log were made during our DXpedition to Bora Bora Island. I moved the antennas around toward Japan and worked approximately 20 Japanese stations and started completing calls with other DX stations in Asia including South Korea, Indonesia, and New Zealand.
RTTY QSO In Contest

RTTY QSO During The Contest

All in all this was a very enjoyable experience. Planned improvements for the next contest (CQ WPX RTTY) will be to work more hours (this time I took time off to sleep, working about 20.5 hours of the 30 hour contest period) and include trying to search out more DX stations. Also, we will be trying contest oriented logging software (we are considering WriteLog and the N1MM Logger). I have been using Ham Radio Deluxe because its well suited for Digital Operating and chasing awards. But logging software designed specifically for contesting will do a better job of keeping track of multipliers and duplicate contacts as the contest progresses. (Generally multiple QSOs with the same station on the same band do not count – and  also wastes precious time for you as well as the other station).

If you work contests, please complete our poll and tell us what logging software you use. This will help me to choose which contest logging software to try for the next contest.

– Anita (AB1QB)

Site of the Day – K9CT Contest Station

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One of our readers Craig, K9CT has built a very nice Contest Station. The above video is an overview of his station’s antenna farm – well worth watching! Craig also makes use of Stacked SteppIR antennas in his setup and his station features an 80m yagi as well as a 160m vertical array. I think many of our readers might enjoy taking a look at the K9CT contest station website. Check it out via K9CT Contest Station.

– Fred, AB1OC

AB1OC Learns CW, Enters The 2012 CQ WW CW Contest QRP

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CW Paddles

Bencher CW Paddles

The past few weeks have been good ones in terms of progress on some of my operating goals. An important one since the very beginning of my involvement in Amateur Radio has been to learn morse code and to operate CW. Many folks have made good suggestions on how to go about learning the code and I used a combination of these suggestions to get to the point where I am now. The first tool that I used was Code Quick to learn the alphabet and get some initial practice. This course is a good one because it uses the Farnsworth Method to teach the sounds of the letters and discourages thinking in terms of “dots” and “dashes” which severely limits one’s ability to copy code at speed. The second tool that I used was Gordon West’s Morse Code CDs to get some practice copying sentences and words. The final tool that I used was W1AW’s Practice Code Files to get some additional training on copying sentences and words.

The Thanksgiving Holiday here in the U.S. afforded me some time to really practice hard for several straight days and I finally got to the point where I was able to make a few QSO’s on the air. My first was CW QSO was with K4JYS, Bill in North Carolina on 160m. Bill must be one very patient Op as a combination of nerves and very limited CW skills made my first QSO pretty difficult. I did a few more QSOs over the next few days after some more practice, I improved my skills a bit more (I also completed about 30 QSOs with my dummy load to practice my sending skills. I am awaiting QSL cards from these QSOs to complete my WADL – Worded All Dummy Loads – Hi Hi).

Anita (AB1QB), my XYL after observing all of this, suggested that I enter the CQ WW CW Contest. At first, I thought that this was not practical given my limited CW skills. Later that evening, I was reading through the manual for my Elecraft KX3 Transceiver and noticed that it had a built-in CW decoder. I headed to the shack to try this out and found the KX3’s CW decoder to be excellent. After a little thought, I decided to enter the contest with the assistance of the KX3’s decoder to get some more practice copying CW on the air. After some thought, I settled on entering the contest in the single band 10m QRP category unassisted. I chose this category for several reasons. First, 10m only operation was positive in two respects – if the band was open it would make my 5 watts QRP go much further than 5 watts on the lower frequency bands and second 10m would be out at night which would give me a chance to take a break from my crash course in CW and get some sleep. I choose the unassisted category because I wanted to learn to tune through the band looking for CW signals and I choose QRP in the hopes that the contest would help me towards my goal of working a DXCC Award QRP.

CQ Zones (Courtesy CQWW website)

CQ Zones (Courtesy CQWW website)

The CW WW CW Contest score is a combination of points from QSOs worked, Countries worked, and CQ Zones worked. My final count for the contest  (all on 10m using 5 watts) was 125 QSOs, 49 Countries and 20 CQ Zones worked. This brought my total DXCC QRP Count to 83 Countries worked – within striking distance of the award. I worked 24 new Countries’ QRP that I did not have before the contest, with several being all-time new ones!

The best part of working the contest was the practice I got listening to higher-speed CW. Most contest operators work at about 25 words per minute or higher speeds and it was a real challenge to copy code this fast in the beginning so I had to rely on the KX3’s decoder. After a while, I learned to “hear” the sound of commonly used words in the QSOs like “CQ”, “5NN”, “TU”, and my call sign. I think the practice from the contest really helped my ability to copy CW at more realistic speeds. While it probably seems like diving into the deep end of the pool, I can recommend working a CW contest with the aid of a decoder as a good tool to help learn CW. There is nothing like running a lot of QSOs to help improve operating skills and I doubt that I would have 150+ CW QSOs under my belt at this point without participating in the contest.

I am continuing to practice CW and complete QSOs on the air. While I am a long way from where I want to be as a CW Op, I am very happy to have gotten to this point. Interested in some history of Morse Code? Check out this article that Nicole, a student in Wyoming has created.

– Fred (AB1OC).

Contesting QRP Style – The 2012 ARRL Phone Sweepstakes

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KX3 Using Guest Position

KX3 QRP Rig

One of my goals has been to complete a Worked All States Award (WAS) QRP. We added an Elecraft KX3 Transceiver to our station recently to facilitate achieving this goal and to equip ourselves with a lightweight portable “travel” radio. When the 2012 ARRL Phone Sweepstakes came around a week or so back, I decided to use the combination of the KX3 and our new antenna system to try to achieve a WAS award QRP and to have a little contesting fun in the process.

I did a bit of on-air testing before the contest and got some pretty interesting results. As an example, I worked a QSO with KC0W, Tom in Minnesota, USA (about 1,550 miles from my QTH) using 5 watts peak power and got a signal report of 59 + 10 dB. After letting Tom know I was QRP he asked me to drop my power to 1 watt. I did so and received a signal report of 59. At this point, Tom was pretty amazed and asked me to drop my power again so I went as low as the KX3 would go which was 100 mW. Tom then gave me a 57 signal report and we proceeded to have a nice rag chew. These results gave me some encouragement to work the contest QRP.

2012 ARRL Phone Sweepstakes Results for AB1OC

2012 ARRL Phone Sweepstakes Results for AB1OC

I was not able to work the entire contest period due to other commitments. As you can see from my multiplier tracking sheet above, we came pretty close to our goal of completing a QRP WAS during the contest – 42 of the 50 states worked and most of the contest multipliers snagged. I made 130+ QSOs during the limited time that I had to operate. I have since worked a few additional states QRP and now only need 4 to complete a WAS QRP – Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Utah. The first two are the difficult ones that remain and I should be able to get there with a little more work on the air.

If any of our readers living in one of the states that remain to complete a WAS QRP and could help me complete a QSO, please drop me an email at ab1oc@arrl.net

– Fred (AB1OC)