Station Automation Part 1 – microHAM SO2R And System Design

March 12, 2014 by fkemmerer

One Of Two SO2R Operating Positions In Our Shack (AB1OC)

As some of our readers probably know, it has been part of our plan from the beginning to setup our station for multi-SO2R operation . We took the first step in this direction some time back with the installation of a microHAM MK2R+ SO2R Controller (the box one top of the left radio in the picture above) at one of our two operating positions. The MK2R+ is a full-featured and powerful SO2R controller. It provides many capabilities across the two radios at its operating position. Some of its capabilities include:

Sharing a single microphone, set of CW paddles, speakers and headset between two radios
A built-in sound card interface for both radios
Integrated voice and CW keyer capability
Dual-foot pedal control for keying each radio in the SO2R setup
Sharing of SteppIR antenna control between two radios

MK2R+ Audio Routing

One of the most powerful capabilities of the MK2R+ is its sophisticated audio routing capabilities which are configurable via microHAM’s USB Device Router. The picture above shows the audio routing configuration options for the MK2R+. The operator can do things like listen to a mix of 4 VFOs from two radios at the same time. Hear one radio’s audio in one ear and the other radio’s audio in the other ear. The routing of audio can be automatically changed based upon which radio is selected for transmit, foot pedal presses, etc. These capabilities are very useful when operating in an SO2R configuration during contests.

MK2R+ Control Ports

The microHAM USB Router software runs on the PC controlling the associated SO2R operating position/MK2R+ and provides a unified set of interfaces to both radios in the SO2R setup via a set of virtual COM ports. The picture above shows how this is configured for my operating position. In addition to a full set of ports to control each radio, there are common interfaces for the integrated WinKey CW Keyer and for controlling the MK2R+ itself. Loggers like N1MM know the microHAM control protocol and can automatically switch audio, sound cards, the radio which has focus for Tx, etc. based upon what the operator does inside N1MM. Again, this is very useful when operating SO2R or SO2V in a contest.

Current Antenna Control Stack

The MK2R+ alone works great for a shack with a single SO2R position but it leaves the operator to manually control antenna switching, rotators, and other antenna-related functions. Up to now, we have managed our antennas via the stack of antenna and rotator control boxes shown above. Manual operation of this type is fine for DX’ing or for one person operating alone in a contest.

Current Manual Antenna Switching System

The problem of switching and controlling antennas becomes more complex in a multi-operator station like ours (we have two separate SO2R positions in our shack with a total of 4 radios). We currently use the custom-built manual antenna switching system shown above to assign our available transmit antennas to one of our 4 radios and to select which antenna a given radio is connected to. We must manually handle control of antenna rotators as well as manually setting the operating frequency of our three SteppIR antennas when they are not connected to the first of our two SO2R operating positions. This sort of manual operation works OK for DX’ing and casual operating with one person in the shack at a time. It is highly error prone with two operators working at once so we decided to expand our microHAM system to fully automate the control of our antennas and associated equipment.

microHAM Station Master Deluxe Antenna Controller

We are using microHAM’s Station Master Deluxe (SMD) antenna controllers to automate the control of our antenna systems. We are installing an SMD with each of our 4 radios in the shack. The SMD provides a number of antenna control automation capabilities including:

Band and frequency specific selection and configuration of available antennas
Routing of frequency and other control data to our two SteppIR DB36 Yagis and our SteppIR BigIR Vertical based upon which radio has selected these antennas
Control and routing of our two rotators on our tower based upon the radio which has an associated antenna selected. For example, if one position selects our upper DB36 Yagi and another selects the lower DB36 Yagi on our tower, each SMD will independently control the rotator associated with its selected antenna. If one radio has both antennas selected as a stack, then that radio’s SMD will control both rotators together.
Sharing and control of our 8-Circle Directional Receive Array including creating a “virtual rotator” for it which allows its direction to be set via the SMD’s rotary encoder or via a COM port by an external rotator control program or logger. We have also created a “scan” feature for this antenna which switches its direction clockwise by 45 degrees every few seconds. This is useful when one hears a weak station and needs to determine where to point the receive array for best reception.
Automatic transmit/receive antenna switching for each of the four radios in the setup. For example, a radio can transmit on one antenna and receive on a different one. When the associated radio is keyed, the controlling SMD automatically switches the radio between the selected transmit and receive antennas.
Automatic control of the four Switchable Bandpass Filters associated with our radios. These are essential for operating multiple transmitters in the station on different bands at the same time.
Automatic control of our power amplifiers
Automatic same band lockout between the radios in our shack.
Enforcement and sequencing of antennas to avoid simultaneous Tx/Rx on closely spaced antennas from different radios.

SMD Rotator Control Ports

The Antenna Rotator management capabilities of the SMD are very useful for switching and sharing antennas on rotators. Each SMD has a pair of Virtual COM Ports which are automatically associated with the active rotator for the currently selected Transmit and Receive antennas. This allows loggers and other software running on the host PC to control the direction of the current selected antennas no matter which antennas are in use. The SMDs can also create a COM port for the “Virtual Rotator” from devices that are steered via switches such as transmit and receive vertical arrays. These devices behave just like they had a conventional rotator when they are selected and can be controlled by software running on the host PC via the Rotator COM Ports for the controlling SMD.

Our HF-6m Antennas

The first step in this upgrade was to layout a complete design for the RF and control elements of our station. The picture above shows the Antenna switching and control elements of our design. The tan boxes are switches and other RF elements such as Low-Noise pre-Amplifiers (LNAs) that are part of our antenna system. The grey boxes are microHAM control boxes which provide relay or serial data interfaces to shared equipment in our station.

microHAM Control Boxes And Hub

The microHAM control boxes are all part of a shared serial bus (microHAM’s uLink bus) that interconnects all of the control boxes to the four SMDs in our shack. The picture above shows the uLink Hub where the four SMDs connect to the uLink bus (lower right), the serial control boxes (uLink DATA – upper row) which control our SteppIR antennas and Green Heron Rotator Controllers, and several uLink Relay control boxes (uLink RELAY 10 & RELAY 6 – lower row on the left side) which provide relay closures to control antenna switches, stack controllers and other equipment.

SteppIR DB36 w/80m Dipole and Stack Switching Design

The microHAM SMD system is quite flexible and one can control just about any RF device or antenna system that you can dream up. We have two challenging configuration situations our station. The first is a SteppIR DB36 Yagi antenna with the 80m Rotatable Dipole Option installed parallel to the boom. The Rotatable Dipole uses the same SteppIR SDA100 Controller as the associated DB36 Yagi but must be pointed with a 90 degree offset when its selected. I was able to configure this easily using a virtual switch and antenna combination that made the Dipole appear as an independent antenna which shares the SDA100 controller with its associated DB36 Yagi.

The second configuration challenge was related to my custom Stack Switch and Phasing System. I built this element around the DX Engineering ProStack PS-2B Stack Switch and added a custom-built Feedline Breakout Switch to allow us to pull the lower SteppIR DB36 Yagi out of the stack so it can be used independently by a second radio. This allows one operator to use one of the two SteppIR Yagis on one band while the other operator uses the other one on a different band. Again, the flexibility of the microHAM SMD system allowed me to control the combination of the DXE Switch and the Custom Breakout Switch as a Single Two into Two Stack switch with Both Out of Phase (BOP) capability.

Automated Antenna Switching Matrix

The next stage of the antenna switching system is a 10 x 4 antenna RF switching matrix which allows any of 10 antennas to be connected to any of the four radios in our shack. This part of the design is being executed using microHAM’s Ten Switches and 4+4 Switches as shown above. The 4 SMDs in the system all have access to this antenna switching matrix via the uLink bus and the associated uLink RELAY 10 control boxes so they can connect antennas to their radios. This matrix also provides switching between independent transmit and receive antennas for the 4 radios in our shack.

Operating Position Design (AB1OC)

The final element of the design is the two SO2R operating positions. The picture above shows my operating position. As you can see, the MK2R+ provides the interface to the two radios and exchanges radio frequency, PTT, inhibit and other information with the two SMDs associated with each to the radios at this position. The SMDs provide direct control of the Band-Pass Filters (BPFs) and amplifiers for their associated radios. They both interface to the uLink bus via the uLink Hub so that they can control all of the antennas and switches which are shared across the station as well as coordinate the utilization of shared resources between the four radios in the setup.

The microHAM system has tremendous flexibility and my early work with it has gone well. There is a learning curve involved but microHAM’s documentation is excellent and Jozef, OM7ZZ and Joe, W4TV at microHAM have been great about answering my questions and helping me to configure my system. There is also a microHAM Yahoo! group which has been quite helpful. Many stations will not have the complexity to warrant the installation of a full microHAM system such as ours. For simpler stations, the microHAM Keyers, USB Interfaces or an MK2R or MK2R+ can provide simplified sharing and control of equipment across two radios.

As you can probably tell, the construction of the antenna automation portion of our station is a significant project. I will cover the rest of the project and more about the configuration of the system in a series of future posts. Right now I have our uLink bus built and all of the control boxes installed and configured. Two of our four SMDs are installed and operating. The planned next steps include adding a second MK2R+ and a second pair of SMDs to integrate Anita’s operating position into the system, building the antenna switching matrix and beginning to cut over some of our antennas to the new system. You can read the other articles our series on station automation here:

– Fred (AB1OC)

2014 ARRL DX Phone Contest

March 11, 2014 by fkemmerer

AB1OC Operating in the 2014 ARRL DX SSB Contest

AB1OC Operating In The 2014 ARRL DX Phone Contest

I had the opportunity to operate in the ARRL DX Phone Contest again this year. The object of this contest is for W/VE stations to work DX stations and vice-versa. I competed in the Single Op High-Power Assisted category again this year. In spite of my limited operating time (about 25 of the available 48 hours), I was able to pretty much duplicate my score from last year’s 40+ hour effort.

DXCCs Worked In The Contest

I worked a total of 109 DXCC Entities (97 in the first 24 hours) and 31 of the 40 CQ zones during the contest.

QSO Rates During The Contest

As you can see from the picture above, I had some great runs on 10m, 15m and 20m. The 20m opening on Sunday was one of the best that I have ever experienced. I had multiple QRP (5 watt) stations in the Middle East and Europe come into our station at RST’s of 59+! I also had several VK’s and ZL’s call me long path during this opening while I was running into Europe.

Final Claimed Score

I was pleased with my final score of a little over 2M given my limited operating time. I was able to complete just under 2,000 contacts during the contest with 10m, 20m and 15m being my best bands in that order. The contest was great fun and a good warm up for the upcoming 2014 CQ WW WPX Phone Contest.

– Fred (AB1OC)

AB1QB Contest Results

February 27, 2014 by fkemmerer

AB1QB 2013 ARRL RTTY Certificate

Anita (AB1QB) has continued to work on improving her contesting skills. She has attended Contest University at the Dayton Hamvention for the past 2 years, and she has been working on applying what she has learned as well as gaining experience by participating in some major contests. Her work is beginning to bear fruit. She placed 1st in New Hampshire in the 2013 ARRL RTTY Roundup with a final score of almost 80,000 points.

AB1QB 2013 BARTG RTTY Certificate

She is also starting to place well in some major international RTTY contests. Her certificate from the 2013 BARTG RTTY Contest is shown above, where she placed 5th in the world! Anita is using N1MM and multiple decoders (she uses a combination of MTTY, 2Tone, and the Hardware RTTY decoders in our Icom IC-7800), and she has begun to operate in S02V mode in some recent contests. She is looking forward to the upcoming 2014 BARTG RTTY Contest, March 15-17, 2014.

– Fred (AB1OC)

2013 Amateur Radio Highlights

February 9, 2014 by fkemmerer

DXCCs Worked in 2013

Anita and I were quite active on the bands in 2013. Together we made 20,650+ contacts from a combination of our home and mobile stations and we worked a combined 259 DXCC Entities.

Combined 2013 QSOs By Band

We were active on all of the Amateur Bands available in the USA from 160m through 70cm except for the 60m and 1.25m bands. The picture above shows the distribution of our QSOs across the bands in 2013. Both of us participated in quite a few contests in 2013 and this resulted in the 5 major contest bands dominating our operating activity. I did quite a lot of work on the 160m band this year and I participated in several 160m contests to gain experience and to begin working towards a DXCC on this band. We worked a total of 50 DXCC Entities on 160m in 2013. Our 6m, 2m, and 440 MHz (70cm) contacts were made mostly during VHF/UHF contests that I participated in.

Combined 2013 QSOs By Mode

We like to operate using many different modes. Anita (AB1QB) does quite a bit of RTTY contesting and she accounted for the bulk of the activity in the digital modes from our station in 2013. I made it a point to become active using the CW mode this year and I made 1,550+ contacts using CW in 2013 including participation in several CW contests. Operations in SSB Phone mode dominated our activity this year mostly due to our operations in SSB Phone contests and as one of the New Hampshire Stations in the 2013 Colonies Special Event this year where we made a combined total of 6,200+ contacts.

QSL Cards Ready To Mail

We really enjoy sending and receiving QSL cards. We sent 5,800+ QSL cards this year, averaging approximately 110 cards sent each week. We also QSL’ed via eQSL and Logbook Of The World. I am often asked what percentage of our QSL requests are confirmed. For 2013, we received confirmations for 67% of our direct/bureau cards, 31% of the QSOs uploaded to eQSL, and 37% of the QSOs upload to LoTW. These numbers will undoubtedly rise a time goes by.

AB1OC Operating Awards

All of this operating allowed us to complete a number of operating awards this year. Fred completed his DXCC Challenge, 8-Band DXCC, and CQ WPX Award of Excellence Awards as well as a DXCC Awards in CW mode and a DXCC QRP (5 watts).

AB1QB Japan Century Cities Award

Anita has held a DXCC for some time and has been focusing on a number of JARL Awards. She completed her Japan Century Cities Award for confirming contacts with 100 cities in Japan in 2013.

AB1QB Operating In The BARTG RTTY Contest

Contesting was a big part of the operations from our station this year. I was active in several major SSB and CW contests this year and Anita was active in quite a few major RTTY and phone contests as well. We are both licensed for less that 3 years and have been competing in the Rookie or Novice categories in most contests and we have been doing quite well. Anita took 5th place in the world in the 2013 BARTG RTTY Contest and she has placed 1st in our call area in several of the 2013 ARRL Rookie Roundups in both SSB Phone and RTTY.

2013 CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Certificate

I placed 1st in North America/2nd in the World in the 2013 CQ WPX SSB Contest (Rookie High Power) and 1st in North America/2nd in the World in the 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest (Rookie High Power). Contests have provided us a great deal of operating experience and have contributed greatly to our completion of several operating awards.

Mobile Installation In Ford F-150

Station Building was a big part of our Amateur Radio experience again in 2013. We installed a mobile HF setup in our truck and did quite a bit of mobile HF operating. We made 165 contacts from our mobile station in 2013 and worked 41 DXCC entities.

WSJT EME QSO – Waterfall

I also made my first Earth-Moon-Earth Contacts on 2m in 2013. I made 30 contacts on 2m using the moon as a reflector, working a total of 16 DXCC Entities this way.

AB1QB Operating The Flex-3000 Software Defined Radio

We added a Flex-3000 Software Defined Radio (SDR) to our station in 2013 and have been using it to learn about this new technology. The performance and operating capabilities of SDR are making SDR a big part of the future of Amateur Radio in our opinion.

8-Circle Receive Array System Diagram

Antenna projects were also a part of our station building work in 2013. We installed an 8-Circle Receive Array System for 160m – 40m and this new antenna system helped us a great deal with DX’ing and contesting on 160m and 80m. We also began the reinstallation of our BigIR Vertical Antenna but the onset of winter here in New Hampshire caused us to delay the completion of this project until spring. Finally, we made the switch to the excellent DXLab logging and DX’ing software suite. DXLab helped us a great deal with QSL’ing and tracking our progress toward operating awards.

2013 Field Day CW Station Operations

We were part of the 2013 Field Day team at our local radio Club (PART in Westford, MA). We provided and managed the digital station as well as the setup of a portion of the antenna systems for our club’s field day operations.

ARRL At Dayton 2013

Anita and I attended the Dayton Hamvention again in 2013. The Dayton event is always a great opportunity to see the latest in Amateur Radio equipment. We attended the 2013 Contest University which was held as part of the Dayton Event and used the information that we learned there to continue to improve our contesting skills.

Fred Lloyd AA7BQ, Founder Of QRZ.com

The internet was a big part of our Amateur Radio experience again in 2013. We met Fred Lloyd, AA7BQ who visited us to do an article on QRZ.com on our station. We learned a great deal from Fred during the time that we spent with him as part of this project. We published 47 new articles here on our blog in 2013 and have received over 45,000 views from our readers in 152 countries around the world. We really appreciate the interest from the HAM community and we will continue to publish new articles here in 2014.

As you can tell from this article, 2013 has been a very active year for Anita and I. I’ve created the video above to give you some idea of the contacts that we have been fortunate enough to make around the world in 2013. We hope you enjoy it and we want to thank everyone who has taken the time to work us, to end us a QSL card or to read the articles that we have written here.

– Fred (AB1OC)

What We Sound Like To A DX Station

December 13, 2013 by fkemmerer

I recently came across this video on YouTube which captured a QSO that I had with Andy, EC1CZL during the ARRL DX Phone Content in March of 2013. It’s interesting to hear what we sound like to a DX station in Europe. Looks like we were about 59 + 10dB in Spain that day.

– Fred (AB1OC)

AB1QB/AB1OC Enter The 2013 CQ WW RTTY Contest

October 10, 2013 by fkemmerer

AB1QB Hard At Work During The 2013 CQ WW RTTY Contest

Anita, AB1QB, and I AB1OC, recently participated in the 2013 CQ WW RTTY Contest. Band conditions were fairly good, and we had some fun experiences in this contest. We entered the contest in the Multi-Operator, Single-Transmitter (Multi-Single) High Power category with a goal of finishing in the top 10 in North America.

Our Claimed Score for 2013 CQ WW RTTY

One of us was on the air for almost the entire 48-hour contest period, and we managed a final claimed score of a little over 2.7M, hopefully allowing us to achieve our goal for this contest. We were active on all 5 contest bands with the best results in terms of both QSO counts and multipliers on 40m, 20m, and 15m.

N1MM Setup For 2013 CQ WW RTTY

We again used the excellent N1MM logger along with both the MMTTY and 2Tone decoders. Using multiple decoders really helps get callsigns and exchange information correctly. Using multiple decoders to process the received transmissions (plus the built-in decoder on our Icom IC-7800 Transceiver) gives a 3-way vote on decoded QSO information.

A Notable Spot – AB1QB Booming Into Cyprus!

We focused on working into Europe and Asia/Oceania in this contest as these regions provided the maximum QSO point value and were both very active. As you can see from the above spot, we had a very strong signal into Europe and Western Asia which helped generate many QSOs while running. During the contest, we also worked quite a few contacts in Japan, with 120+ QSOs with operators in Japan.

We both had great fun during this contest and were very happy to post our best score yet in a contest of this type. We’ll anxiously await the final results when they are available.

– Anita, AB1QB, and Fred, AB1OC

AB1OC Results For 2013 CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Contest

September 17, 2013 by fkemmerer

2013 CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Certificate

I recently received my final results for the 2013 CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Contest and was presently surprised. With a final score of 1,883,448, I won the Rookie overlay category in North America and Finished #2 in the World in this category. I was also #2 in the Single Operator High Power Assisted category in the United States Call Area 1.

AB1OC In Our Shack

I do not have much experience as a contest operator. The 2013 CQ Worldwide WPX SSB Contest was one of my first serious efforts in a major contest and I am very pleased with the results of my efforts. I used a good bit of recently added equipment and software in this contest (see related post on this blog) and the investments in these areas seemed to pay off nicely. I am very much looking forward to being part of this contest again in 2014.

– Fred (AB1OC)

AB1OC’s First VHF Contest – 2013 ARRL June VHF

June 10, 2013 by fkemmerer

AB1OC Operating In The 2013 ARRL VHF Contest

When we built our new station last year, I decided to include antennas and equipment for 6m, 2m, and 70cm weak signal work. I have not had much chance to operate on these bands yet beyond some 2m EME work and a few contacts on 6m and 70cm. When the 2013 ARRL VHF Contest rolled around this past weekend, I was anxious to participate and get some experience with weak signal work on these bands. I spent some time on 6m the week before the contest to get a feel for this band and to check out my equipment. There was a good 6m opening to my east during this time, and I was able to work CU1EZ on the Azores; EA8DBM, EA8/G8BCG, and EA8CK on the Canary Islands; and J69MV in Saint Lucia. The longest of these contacts was over 3,100 mi. I’ve read a bit about propagation on 6m – 70m, including how short some openings can be. I certainly experienced this during the 6m DX opening before the contests – it did not last for more than an hour.

Logging And SO2R Control

My goal in the ARRL VHF Contest was to work out a good operating configuration and to get some experience with the VHF/UHF bands, and I did not plan to compete for a top score this time. To keep the software side simple, I decided to use my DX’ing logger, DXLab, which is already configured to work with our Icom IC-7800 (6m radio) and Icom IC-9100 (2m and 70cm) radio. I also used our MicroHAM MK2R+ as an SO2R controller to share headphones and a microphone between the two radios. This worked out OK, as the QSO rates during this contest were not extremely high even when I was running.

Rotator Control

I used two programs for controlling the rotator associated with the 6m SteppIR (6 elements) and the 2m (18 elements) and 70cm (21 elements) M2 Antenna Systems beams. The main program that I used here was Ham Radio Deluxe rotator. I chose it because it had the best grid square overlay map. This was useful for getting the antennas pointed at specific grid squares to work stations on 2m and 70cm after an initial contact on 6m. I also had DXLab’s DXView available to look up the specific coordinates for stations, but I did not use it very much during the contest.

I operated most of the day on Saturday and for a few hours on Sunday as preparations for the upcoming ARRL Field Day exercise required me to be away from my shack during parts of the contest period. I had good results running on 6m and used this band and mode of operation to make most of my QSOs. I also was able to run for some short periods on 2m as well. I have amplifiers that make about 1 Kw available on both bands, which greatly helped my ability to run effectively on 6 m and 2m. Most of my contacts on 70cm were a result of stations that I contacted on 6m or 2m, suggesting a contact on that band as well. I have about 100w available on 70cm, which proved adequate for contacts on 70cm as I got my antennas pointed accurately before moving up there to make contact with a station that was just worked on 6m or 2m.

I really enjoyed this contest a lot. The pace was a little more relaxed than most of the other HF contests I’ve participated in, and using two radios in SO2R mode was a new operating experience for me which was technically challenging at first. The following is a summary of my contacts during the contest.

Band	QSOs	Grids Worked
6 m	120	15
2 m	46	14
70 cm	19	6
Totals	185	35

There was a brief opening on 6m to Florida, USA, on Sunday morning, and I could work several stations there from my shack in NH, USA – a distance of about 1,200 mi. I also made contacts to the midwest and to several of the US eastern-central coastal states during the contest. All in all, the ARRL VHF Contest was a lot of fun, and participating in it helped me to gain confidence in my setup on the VHF bands. The only change in my VHF/UHF setup that I plan to make for the next VHF Contest is to use the N1MM Logger to take advantage of its ability to more effectively automate control of my SO2R setup.

Between the contest and my previous EME work, I have worked a total of 42 grid squares on 2m, and I am hoping to be able to complete an ARRL VUCC Award on that band some time in the near future.

– Fred (AB1OC)

AB1OC Enters The 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest

June 1, 2013 by fkemmerer

AB1OC Operating In The 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest

I have been working to improve my CW skills for some time now as well as working towards a number of operating awards including the CQ WPX Award of Excellence. The CQ WPX Award of Excellence requires quite a range of confirmed contacts with CQ recognized prefixes including 600 using the CW mode. I was able to move both of these goals forward by operating in the 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest recently.

N1MM Logger/FLdigi Setup For CW Mode

I again used the N1MM Logger along with FLdigi as a CW decoder in this contest. I am not yet proficient enough with CW to operate without a decoder but I did find that working a contest with the aid of a CW decoder like FLdigi helped me to improve my CW skills by practicing them. I found FLdigi to be a fairly effective CW decoder. I set up FLdigi as a Digital Interface Window in N1MM which allowed me to click on call signs and contest exchange information that it decoded to enter this information directly into the N1MM logging window. This saved time and reduced errors during contest operations.

MorseDec CW Decoder For iPhone

I also used the MorseDec CW Decoder on my iPhone as a second decoder and the FLdigi/ MorseDec combination was effective in this contest. In some cases, one would successfully decode the received CW when the other did not.

Online Contest Score Website

Another tool that I used for the first time in this contest was the Online Contest Server website. This tool allows one to post and compare your score in real-time during the contest to those of other operators. It was very easy to enable this capability using the N1MM Logger – all I had to do was to create an account on the Online Contest Server website and enable N1MM to post my scores which it did every few minutes. Anita (AB1QB) learned about this interesting tool during her participation in Contest University at the 2013 Dayton Hamvention. I found that being able to see how I was doing relative to some of the other operators was good motivation to keep going during the contest. This also gave me an indication of how others with scores close to mine were balancing adding to their score via more QSOs vs. searching for additional prefixes (i.e. multipliers). It also shows each operator’s statistics by band which is helpful for comparison purposes.

Contest Band Conditions

Unfortunately, band conditions were less than ideal during this contest. A series of solar storms started on Friday evening just about the time the contest began and continued through the entire contest period. This made for some challenging operating conditions during most of the contest period.

Countries Worked In The 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest

In spite of my limited CW skills and the band conditions, I was pleased with the results that I was able to obtain working the contest. I probably worked about 60% of the available operating period during this contest. I mostly operated in Search and Pounce mode due to my limited ability to decode CW by ear. I did run briefly on 160m and 40m late at night to get some experience with running in CW mode. As you can see from the above, I was able to work 86 DXCC entities during the contest – not quite a DXCC but I was very happy with these results given my limited CW abilities.

AB1OC Final Claimed Score

I was also able to make a little over 500 QSOs and worked 344 prefixes during the contest. This brought my total prefixes worked towards the CQ WPX Award of Excellence in CW mode to 550 of the 600 required. While all of these prefixes will probably not be confirmed, I am now within striking distance of completing this aspect of the award and I should be able to snag the final number of prefixes required to reach 600 confirmed via non-contest operating.

The 2013 CQ WPX CW Contest was a lot of fun and it helped me to improve and build confidence in my CW skills. I would encourage our readers to try CW if you do not currently use this mode. It is challenging to learn CW but there is a great deal of DX available via this mode and I believe that some of the finest operators in the world use CW as their preferred mode.

– Fred (AB1OC)

2013 Contest University At The Dayton Hamvention

May 26, 2013 by akemmerer1

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

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 – from SH5 generated KML file

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)

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)

Our HAM Station

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Tag Archives: Contesting

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