2012 CQ World Wide RTTY DX Contest

2012 CQ World Wide DX RTTY Contest

How about those high bands, huh?? It was another memorable weekend for contesting. This past weekend was the hugely popular RTTY DX contest of the year sponsored by CQ Magazine. I must say, seeing that 10 meters was beginning to open on a daily basis, it had me pretty excited about this past weekend. Knowing that propagation was going to be favorable for a heavy high band assault, my main focus was going to be not on my highest score I could achieve, but the most new countries (Entities) as possible for my 10 meter DXCC quest. I was hopeful that we would have some propagation into Europe on 10 meters along with a side order of everywhere else around the globe. I must say, I was not disappointed. 

I began hearing European stations on Friday night (local) but I was having a tough time getting any in my log. I was running low power as I have yet to have my amplifier repaired. Probably a good thing as I'm sure I would have thrown the power switch and went to high power for 10 meters, just to work more countries. So, I just had to simply work for each and every contact. I managed to work CQ Zones 18 (UA9YE) and 17 (UO1P) not long after the start of the contest. This gave me hope that it would not be long before I hear CQ Zones 14, 16, 20 & 21, where most of the 3 pointers would come from. I was on 10 meters until around 0218z and it became quiet enough for me to venture on to 15 & 20 meters.

I did not hear much going on 10 meters until around 0600z. My first CQ Zone 15 QSO was with HG7T, not long after the top of the hour. I was able to work a few more European stations before I could not work any others. I threw in the towel to get an early start as I was hoping that my European path would be much better in the early hours of the morning. I was back on shortly after 1040z, and I found working into Europe a bit easier. 

RTTY activity  on 10 Meters as heard (seen) in Alaska

I'm not going to bore you with a play by play of my weekend, but I found myself bouncing back and forth between 10 & 15 meters. When 10 meters would quiet down, I would venture on to 15. Both bands really produced and were very exciting to operate. Even though I had MANY stations CQ'n in my face all weekend with my low power effort, it was very rewarding, not to mention exciting, each and every time I would see a station come back with my callsign from abroad. At one point on 10 meters, it was like playing a propagational slot machine and winning, hearing and seeing those contacts falling right into the contest log! Cha-ching! 

The 10 meter excitement did not stop there! Great openings right here to the lower 48 states, Central & South Americas, Pacific, Asia, well...you get the picture. It was a crazy weekend and there was sure no lack of 3 point contacts. It was not necessary to open a case of "Butt Glue" in order to remain in the chair for hours at a time. The high bands yielding almost endless excitement all hours of the day and night. It was another contest weekend I will remember for years to come.

STATS 

By the time the dust cleared, I had worked all but two states, missing only NE & SD on 10 meters! I'm pretty happy with that. Since I spent the majority of my time on 10 meters, I left a few open state multipliers on 15 meters. The only station I tried in vain to work with no luck (I tried working many but I tried really hard for was) 7Z1SJ. I was unable to break the pile-up and get that new country in my log. But, the contest season is just getting started so hopefully there will be plenty of opportunity for that one and more. 

Score Summary for ARS KL8DX

My score summary is listed to the left showing my effort in this past weekends contest. According to N1MM, I operated a total of 33 hours and 27 minutes. My goal was to beat my last years effort (submitted SOSB 10) and I accomplished that. I also wanted to work over 1,000 QSO's and I was tickled when N4NW called in for number 1,000 on Sunday afternoon.  But the weekend was not entirely a DXfest as the double CME made things extremely challenging for me Sunday afternoon. The bands went from crowded to almost empty in a short amount of time. So much so that I started to do a few loads of laundry and a few other household chores before the bands finally started to show signs of life again. The high bands did not fully recover before the end of the contest as many signals had AU associated with them and callsigns did not totally decode correctly leading to more than normal repeats. But they came back, yielding a bit of excitement before the clock struck midnight.

A more detailed breakout of my log is below. I was very impressed with only 2 dupes, (yes two) all weekend!!!! I did more from a parked and calling position than search and pounce, so I was tickled to have only a couple. Not bad with over 1,100 QSO's in my humble opinion. I was a bit windy on my S&P macro and for that, I do apologize. I was reading through the 3830 score postings, which I try to read each and every one. K7IA did an outstanding job outlining macros and RTTY operating during this (and any) contest in his comment area.  Look Dan up on QRZ where he mentions RTTY contesting. Of course Don, AA5AU has some outstanding detailed information available as well on his site. I'm sure there is more out there but it did make me realize my S&P macros needed a bit of refinement. Contesting is about learning and you learn by doing. I've made many mistakes over the nearly 25 years I have been playing radio and I'm sure I'll make more. We are human, just be gentle when bringing it up or complaining as with this contest (and many others) there were several newbies getting their feet wet. We want them to come back!

I took a few minutes out of my weekend schedule to give John, WD1V an Alaskan QSO on CW. We tried 20 meters but John was not hearing my weak 100 watts. Turned out we made it on 10 meters a few hours later. I saw John post on Twitter that he was looking for a contact with AK. Another successful venture and it was a fun break from the weekend diddle to work a bit of CW handing out a new one to someone. 

My very detailed breakout is below. October is lining up to be a very busy month for me but I'm looking forward to the contest season. As normal, I did not get much of my external work done but I did accomplish some!!! I will make do but at the end of the day, a bad day on the radio is always better than a good day at work. I think that saying goes for fishing as well, replacing radio with fishing. Thanks for the contacts and I'm looking forward to reading the results overview in CQ magazine next year. Diddle on my friends, it appears to be shaping up to be another record breaking year for contesting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Cabrillo Statistics           (Version 10g)           by K5KA & N6TV
http://bit.ly/cabstat

CALLSIGN: KL8DX
CONTEST: CQ-WW-RTTY
CATEGORY: SINGLE-OP ALL LOW
OPERATORS: KL8DX

-------------- Q S O   R a t e   S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour     160     80     40     20     15     10    Rate Total    Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
0000       0      0       0       0       0      0      0      0        0.0
0100       0      0       0       0       0      0      0      0        0.0
0200       0      0       0       0      50     19    69     69       6.1
0300       0      0       0      25      35     0     60    129     11.4
0400       0      0       0      72       0      0     72    201     17.7
0500       0      0       0      22       4      0     26    227     20.0
0600       0      0       0       0       3       1      4    231     20.3
0700       0      0       0       0       0      0       0    231     20.3
0800       0      0       0       0       0      0       0    231     20.3
0900       0      0      0        0       0      0       0    231     20.3
1000       0      0      0        0       0      6       6    237     20.9
1100       0      0      0        0       9      9      18   255     22.4
1200       0      0      0        0      21      1     22   277     24.4
1300       0      0      0        0       6      6      12   289     25.4
1400       0      0      0        2     10      1      13   302     26.6
1500       0      0      0        0      2       0      2    304     26.8
1600       0      0      0        0      0       0      0    304     26.8
1700       0      0      0        0      3       7     10    314     27.6
1800       0      0      0        0      1      33     34   348     30.6
1900       0      0      0        0      0      64     64   412     36.3
2000       0      0      0        0      0      80     80   492     43.3
2100       0      0      0        0      0      35     35   527     46.4
2200       0      0      0        0      0      51     51   578     50.9
2300       0      0      0        0      0      33     33   611     53.8
0000       0      0      0        0     30     12     42   653     57.5
0100       0      0      0        0     95      0      95   748     65.8
0200       0      0      0        0     40      0      40   788     69.4
0300       0      0      0       31      0      0      31   819     72.1
0400       0      0      0       35      0      0      35   854     75.2
0500       0      0      0       14      3      0      17   871     76.7
0600       0      0      0        0      7       1      8    879     77.4
0700       0      0      0        0      0       0      0    879     77.4
0800       0      0      0        0      0       0      0    879     77.4
0900       0      0      0        0      0       0      0    879     77.4
1000       0      0      0        0      0       0      0    879     77.4
1100       0      0      0        0      0       0      0    879     77.4
1200       0      0      0       15      4      1     20    899     79.1
1300       0      0      6        6      5       0     17    916     80.6
1400       0      0      0        6      1       2      9    925     81.4
1500       0      0      0        0      0      28     28   953     83.9
1600       0      0      0        0      3      11     14   967     85.1
1700       0      0      0        1      5       2      8    975     85.8
1800       0      0      0        0      3       0      3    978     86.1
1900       0      0      0        0      7      13     20   998     87.9
2000       0      0      0        0      0      40     40   1038   91.4
2100       0      0      0        0      0      36     36   1074   94.5
2200       0      0      0        0      0      30     30   1104   97.2
2300       0      0      0        0     23      9     32    1136  100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total      0      0      6       229   370   531   1136

Gross QSOs=1138        Dupes=2        Net QSOs=1136

Unique callsigns worked = 905

The best 60 minute rate was 97/hour from 0048 to 0147
The best 30 minute rate was 104/hour from 0120 to 0149
The best 10 minute rate was 114/hour from 0350 to 0359

The best 1 minute rates were:
 3 QSOs/minute    3 times.
 2 QSOs/minute  224 times.
 1 QSOs/minute  679 times.

There were 40 bandchanges and 6 (0.5%) probable 2nd radio QSOs.

----------------- C o n t i n e n t   S u m m a r y -----------------
                 160     80     40     20     15     10    Total    Pct
---------------------------------------------------------------------
North A       0        0        2     161    197   384    744    65.5
South A       0        0        0       7     19      20      46     4.0
Europe        0        0        0      46     79      77    202    17.8
Asia           0         0        3      12     71      47    133    11.7
Africa         0         0        0       2      3        2       7       0.6
Oceania      0         0        1       1      1       1        4       0.4
--------------------------------------------------------------
Total              0      0      6    229    370    531    1136

Number of letters in callsigns
Letters  # worked
-----------------
   3         4
   4       486
   5       368
   6       272
   7         2
   8         1
   9         2
  10         1

------------------ C o u n t r y   S u m m a r y ------------------

Country        160     80     40     20     15     10  Total  Pct

-------------------------------------------------------------------

5B               0         0      0       0       1      0      1    0.1

9A               0         0      0       1       3      2      6    0.5

CE               0         0      0       1       1      1      3    0.3

CM               0        0      0       2       4      1      7    0.6

CT3              0        0      0       1       2      1      4    0.4

CU               0        0      0       1       0      0      1    0.1

DL               0        0      0       7      13     13     33    2.9

EA               0        0      0      0        2      7      9    0.8

EA8              0       0      0       1        1      1      3    0.3

EI               0        0      0       0        1      1      2    0.2

ER               0        0      0      0        1      1      2    0.2

ES               0        0      0      2        2      1      5    0.4

F                0        0      0      0         1      4      5    0.4

FM               0       0      0      0         0      2      2    0.2

G                0        0      0      0        2      3      5    0.4

GI               0       0      0      0         1      1      2    0.2

GW               0      0      0      0        0      1      1    0.1

HA               0      0      0      2         2      3      7    0.6

HB               0      0      0      1         0      0      1    0.1

HI               0      0      0       0        1      0      1    0.1

HK               0      0      0      1        2      1      4    0.4

HL               0      0      0      0         1      0      1    0.1

I                0      0      0        1        5      6     12    1.1

*IT9             0      0      0      1       1      1       3    0.3

J3               0      0      0       0       0      1       1    0.1

JA               0      0      3       2     62     44    111    9.8

K                0      0      2     142    168    360    672   59.2

KH2              0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.1

KH6              0      0      0      1      1      0      2    0.2

KL               0      0       0      1      1      1      3    0.3

KP4              0      0      0      1      1      0      2    0.2

LA               0      0      0       2      2      0      4    0.4

LU               0      0      0       1      5      8     14    1.2

LX               0      0      0       0      1      1      2    0.2

LZ               0      0      0       1      1      1      3    0.3

OE               0      0      0      0      2      2      4    0.4

OH               0      0      0      3      6      2     11    1.0

OH0              0      0      0      1      1      1      3    0.3

OK               0      0      0      0      5      5     10    0.9

OM               0      0      0      1      2      2      5    0.4

ON               0      0      0      0      0      2      2    0.2

OZ               0      0      0      1      0      1      2    0.2

P4               0      0      0      1      1      2      4    0.4

PA               0      0      0      0      2      2      4    0.4

PJ2              0      0      0      0      0      1      1    0.1

PY               0      0      0      3      9      5     17    1.5

S5               0      0      0      4      3      4     11    1.0

SM               0      0      0      0      0      1      1    0.1

SP               0      0      0      1      7      3     11    1.0

SV               0      0      0      0      1      0      1    0.1

UA               0      0      0      6      7      0     13    1.1

UA9              0      0      0      8      6      2     16    1.4

UN               0      0      0      2      1      1      4    0.4

UR               0      0      0      5      2      4     11    1.0

VE               0      0      0      15     22     15     52    4.6

VP9              0      0      0      0      0      1      1    0.1

XE               0      0      0      0      0      3      3    0.3

YL               0      0      0      2      1      0      3    0.3

YO               0      0      0      1      0      1      2    0.2

YU               0      0      0      1      1      1      3    0.3

YV               0      0      0      0      1      0      1    0.1

Z3               0      0      0      1      1      0      2    0.2

ZL               0      0      0      0      0      1      1    0.1

ZP               0      0      0      0      0      2      2    0.2

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Total            0      0      6    229    370    531   1136

------------ M u l t i p l i e r   S u m m a r y ------------
Mult     160     80     40     20     15     10  Total      Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------
04         0      0      0        60     77    136    273     24.0
05         0      0      0        42     43    158    243     21.4
03         0      0      2        55     70     82    209     18.4
25         0      0      3         2     63     44    112       9.9
15         0      0      0        21     42     33     96       8.5
14         0      0      0        12     25     37     74       6.5
16         0      0      0        11     10      5     26       2.3
11         0      0      0         3      9      7     19         1.7
13         0      0      0         1      5      8     14         1.2
08         0      0      0         3      6      4     13         1.1
09         0      0      0         2      4      4     10         0.9
17         0      0      0         5      3      1      9         0.8
33         0      0      0         2      3      2      7         0.6
20         0      0      0         2      3      2      7         0.6
18         0      0      0         4      1      1      6         0.5
19         0      0      0         1      3      1      5         0.4
06         0      0      0         0      0      3      3         0.3
12         0      0      0         1      1      1      3         0.3
01         0      0      0         1      1      1      3         0.3
31         0      0      0         1      1      0      2         0.2
27         0      0      1         0      0      0      1         0.1
32         0      0      0         0      0      1      1         0.1
------------------------------------------------------
Total      0      0      6       229    370    531   1136

Multi-band QSOs
---------------
1 bands     707
2 bands     166
3 bands      31
4 bands       1
5 bands       0
6 bands       0

------- S i n g l e   B a n d   Q S O s ------
Band    160     80     40     20     15     10
----------------------------------------------
QSOs      0      0      2    111    223    371