CQ WW SSB 160m Contest 2011

I was looking forward to this contest not only because I like 160m and a single band contests but I was also anticipating the results of My new inverted "L" and FT-950. All was a go until Friday evening when I came down with the "crud". I managed to work a few contacts Friday night but was in bed sleeping very early. The bands seemed to be in great shape and I even heard CR2X from Azores at a very loud S9. Too bad He didn't hear me!
Saturday I was feeling well enough for a short ,part-time participation in the contest . Surprisingly I was able to increase My score and number of QSO's even with less time spent than previous years - 70 Qso's, 33 mults for a score of 5313. I did notice My inverted "L" seemed to preform much better than My dipole and the FT-950 with its Rx BW filtering made it so much easier to pick out signals. Many times I went to the narrow width setting and was able to almost completely attenuate out neighbors and only hear the signal I wanted. That sure makes it fun! Several guys were CQing and lonely when I was able to pick them out!
This was an S & P operation because of the many breaks I took to rest. Maybe next year I'll be 100% - I know My setup and some good propagation will make an improvement !
Next weekend is ARRL International DX SSB contest!
73---Tim

DX Analyzer

Well in the old beginning days of My Ham Radio career, Dx was any contact outside of the normal area. Since most were on 6m, that meant outside of My state! After My license upgrades and HF privledges, that increased for Me to include Canada and the occasional ,fantastic North Caribbean Contact.Eventually with My contest participation ,usually 20m offered Me some actual "DX". What a thrill to finally have literally world-wide coverage. Depending on Propagation and sunspots which seem to be finally coming to life!
Last Year adding My Vertical ground mounted HF6V antenna really opened the DX door and now this year I have the inverted "L" for 160m and up to help also. Finally , using a mode like RTTY has also helped the DX count. When I only had a dipole and little vertical for 10/12m, I remember watching a Dx pedition the whole time they operated for a chance to work them on voice. DX count doesn't increase very fast that way,but I always enjoyed the chase!! Means alot with a puny signal!
After My last conquest of TJ9PF, I started wondering about where I stand with DXCC. LOTW shows only 39 confirmed entities but what is My unconfirmed total? With some recent issues with HRD, I've been really going thru this program and I stumbled upon the logbook analyzer. Yes,I'm probably the only HRD user not to realize this wonderful part of the logging program exsists, but now that I've found it, I want to say how great it is!! With some tweaking it appears My mixed amount of DXCC entities is 70. Not alot for people with aluminum in the air but not bad for Me!
Some of the more memorable ones are Ducie island,VP6DX, I remember chasing them for awhile- even snagged them on 12m voice with an old CB vertical on My pole building. Also Desecheo Island, K5D, Voice on 20m and Isle of Mann on 20m voice.Two RTTY contacts are TJ9PF and My longest at 9,149 miles of South Africa. No "JA's" yet but I'm hopeful with the ARRL DX SSB coming up in March.
Remember the CQ 160M SSB contest this weekend!!
73---Tim

PS-- It appears I only need the state of Wyoming for WAS Mixed! How could I have missed them??? Any Wyoming out there for a sched on Voice or Digital ?? :)
PSS-- Just rechecked logs--I've worked Wyoming but no LOTW confirmation.Always hope!

TJ9PF on 30m

I've thought about chasing DX on PSK31 or RTTY but until recently had not attempted any. Two events happened recently to start Me towards this evenings contact. First was the recent success with the CQ WW RTTY contest and second was playing with Ham Radio Delux which started Me thinking about DXCC entities I still need.
I also happened to receive the latest DX news from the ARRL and noticed several DXexpeditions now QRV! One of them was TJ9PF operating from Cameroon just north of Equatorial Guinea. Checking the Dx cluster tonight I seen them on 30m RTTY. Here was My chance but- oh,oh! They are operating split- never done split on this FT-950 although I operated split many times with the Kenwood Ts-850.
I have actually, hard as it is to believe, studied the manual to operate split so all I needed to do was remember how. Turns out using split on this radio is relatively easy. Using RTTY split is not much different than voice. TJ9PF was CQing, seemed lonely! Once I realized My TX split was transmitting to My dummy load, I corrected that and received a "QRZ?" I sent My call again and TJ9PF was in the log!! I 'm thinking this RTTY mode might be just the ticket to snag some more DXCC!!
73---Tim

HRD and QRZ

I've used Ham Radio Delux for several years as My general logging program.All contest log are imported to this program and I do regular saves. I also use QRZ.com and have a simple biography with My call sign. Its interesting to see the different information other Hams add to QRZ. HRD has always updated from QRZ .com if specified and a little over a year ago a update was needed because QRZ.com changed its layout.
All was good until about six months ago when I noticed most of My logged entries was not updating from QRZ.com and not even when I tried to manually force it. This weekend after importing the recent RTTY contest I was having the same problem. Wanting to look up a few callsigns from the contest , I logged into QRZ.com and looked these up. I soon noticed these now had all the info I normally have from QRZ to HRD but only for those callsigns. I tried an edit on a different callsign and there it was! All info except the "location Grid" . What?!?!. It appears I need to be logged into QRZ.com for HRD to receive all the info-- I didn't know that!! Maybe you did- :)))
73---Tim
Update-- 2/7/2012  Future post explains how QRZ now requires a paid subscription to fill in the blanks!!

CQ WW WPX RTTY 2011

This contest started Friday at 6:00pm CST for Me and I thought I'd play a bit and try to figure out My PC-Radio issues. A RTTY contest is the best time to guarantee finding RTTY signals to contact. I really wanted to have My Yaesu FT-950 working so I could take advantage of the excellant Rx filtering and noise cancelling this rig has to offer.
Tuning across 40m showed lots of signals but the level still didn't seem as high on the MTTY program as it should--hmmm. I had already turned up the Menu function 051 " data level out" from its default of 50 to about 80. I decided to turn it up all the way to "100" and that certainly did the trick. I do remember from troubleshooting with the scope the level at default was lower than the level out of the Ft-857. The Ft-950 level seemed more suited for a Microphone input . Maybe the span actually is wide enough to accomedate mic- or line input! Whatever the case it now was decoding very well. I tried the various "width" adjustments all the way down to 200hz-- wow! Like threading the needle! What a difference from 2400 hz that I used on the Ft-857 with no optional filters installed. Too many neighbors?? Adjust the width to eliminate them. This also kept them from interfering and messing up the decode. Eventually I'd realize how many "AGN?" exchanges it would save.
Next was to figure out the TX problems. I have only used AFSK and had added circuity for FSK to the radio, but no matter what I tried, it just would not "diddle". I decided to try instead the AFSK mode- this required several changes to the MTTY program and eventually if using N1MM it also required a minor change to that program too. I first tried RTTY into a dummy load so I could adjust the level. It seemed to sound best with the gain adjust not too high. I also have the power out backed off from 100w to 50w since this is a full duty cycle mode. Next if I wanted to log this contest I needed N1MM running and using the MTTY RTTY engine . I won't explain exactly how to do this but its not too complicated. Again it takes some configuration changes to the program.
Lets-contest!! Sounds easy and -Yes it is . First try I had an answer back and I was contesting.It appears My uninstalling the webcam did the trick !Now the fun began.What a difference a radio makes!! This Ft-950 is superb in filtering and noise abatement. Nearby signals-no problem! Adjust the bandwidth down,down down. I found 800hz good for most S&P and if nearby signals bothering-- 500hz was usually narrow enough although several times I did drop down to 400hz,but 200-300 seemed most time to be too much. I don't know if its frequency stability from the other end or just propagation but 500 and up was best.
Amazing what 50w and a simple dipole or ground mounted vertical can do! Was I beat out? Absolutely but many times I beat others too. Fun!! I ended up over the course of the weekend contacting Cape Verde,Canary Islands, lots of South America and Europe. I did hear some 'JA's" towards the end of the contest on 40m but the pileups were ridiculous so I passed them by. One regret was hearing Saudi Arabia and because of the pile up and wanting to increase My score I bypassed them too. I reasoned I would run across them again-but of course I didn't!
The bands seemed very good all weekend except for a short time on both Saturday and sunday. I operated as much as My schedule would allow- needed time for chores,family and precious sleep! Total time was around 8 hours or less but I ended up very happy with My score. I should have done some frequency "running" but I was having such a good time just meandering around the bands I just never did.
here's the numbers-
218 QSOs, 133 WPX's for a total of 58,254. Not too bad for a contest to "troubleshoot" My RTTY setup. Never intended to run this contest!- I had fun and glad I participated!
73---Tim

Soundcard and Webcam conflict

I experienced problems with My soundcard interface both before and after the ARRL RTTY RU in January. I was fortunate to have two radios setup and one ,an FT 857 using AFSK RTTY worked enough to participate in the contest. My other Radio ,a FT-950 wouldn't work enough for any Soundcard interfacing.
After the contest was over I tried even simple modes like PSK31 and neither radio would work.This week I finally had some time to continue to troubleshoot the problem and actually hooked up a scope to look at the line in to the PC. At first I had nothing showing until I switched the scope leads around and then a definate modulated signal was present. Ah, polarity sensitive !
Why wasn't I seeing much level on the PSK31 program? Tried adjusting level up and then started looking at not only the program configuration but also the PC's. The issue seemed to be soundcard input was switching from line input but also to a Webcam and at times a non-exsistant soundcard type. Could the Webcam be a conflict? Hmmm, I seem to remember installing it after the last RTTY contest.
I decided to do a total uninstall of the webcam and associated programs. After a restart I re-configured the PSK31 program and -voila! Now it seemed to work ,both TX and RX although no reply for TX so testing not complete. More to come-- now to check out another problem-- water heater malfunction!! d***
73--Tim

Minnesota QSO Party 2011

This contest is sponsored by The club I'm a member of-- The Minnesota Wireless Association and I believe its one of the better QSO parties! Course there is a little favoritism on My part-LOL!!
This contest runs from 8:00AM CST to 6:00 PM CST on February 5th.
Minnesota stations try for Counties,States and provinces and add points for each DX contact. All others try for Minnesota Counties. I'm in St. Louis County in northern Minnesota and operated "SOLP Phone only". I also operated as a fixed station from the comfort of My basement. It's fun to hear the "war" stories from the many mobiles operating and realize how easy I have it! No plans for mobile operation yet ,maybe in the future. I have been offered a co-pilot seat but that would mean a definate full time committment which I'm not able at this time to do. Fact is I only operated about 4 hours this time even though I'd planned on a mostly full time operation from home!
I started at 8:15 CST on 80m and quickly got a run going. Contacts were coming slow but steady and I thought- boy this easy!!- grin,grin! If it had kept on like that My score would have climbed to unheard of heights--at least for ME! Too bad it did dry up- seemed like 80m had a bad case of the doldrums,so I switched to 40m and tried to get a run going! I thought I might be successful, but after just a short time this too dried up. Next was 20m and right away I knew this little station was in trouble! Vertical or wires just could not hold a frequency with louder neighbors pushing Me out so now it was strictly S & P .
I also checked 15m and 10m but little or no activity. I did manage on several bands to add some contacts with S & P but I knew without a big opening My hope of a better score,two or three times higher than last years was not to be. It also was time to handle some chores around here and with chores ,lunch, family time and such I was not able to do more in the contest except occasional checking of the bands for improvement and occasional contacts.
Towards the end of the contest I was finally able to devote some more time and tried for runs on several bands with only limited success. My most time spent ended up again to be 80m and the old trusty 260' dipole. I really need a tri-bander to make a dent on 20m and help improve My 15 and 10m arsenal.
Several fun contacts were with mobiles- who really make or break these State QSO parties unless the state is heavily populated. One mobile I actually was able to copy His callsign (i think) but not name or county with heavy QRM. We tried and tried--bummer. Several other mobiles I had good SSB contacts with, one even gave Me counties within a short time- only had to drive several hundred feet-cool!
One mobile I contacted between several bands and counties towards the end. I eventually was switching to 160m knowing this usually was the final band before the end and expected to start CQing but when i asked if the frequency was in use-- My "elmer" came back and said Hi!! Just about fell off My chair-- I haven't talked to Roger on voice in ages! Finding him on 160m was really great! Fun contest- wish bands had been better and I had more time .
Less Q's than last year, more multipliers so a little better score--6624
73---Tim

Spelling Bee and QSO Party

Good News!! My Daughter Kathy won the District Spelling Bee! She will be participating in the Regional Bee on February 17th. It took 16 rounds to determine a winner so all the Kids were very good spellers.

This Saturday is the Minnesota QSO Party starting at 8:00 CST. Hope to hear You on the bands!

73---Tim