ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: K1LT
Operator(s): K1LT
Station: K1LT
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Ohio EM89ps
Operating Time (hrs): 29:20
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 1440 Sections = 79 Countries = 46 Total Score = 429,750
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
This posting is a little more rambling that usual, but I'm lazy today.
Preparation for the 2018 version of the ARRL 160 contest seemed to be
more about vanity rather than being technical (see bottom). For some
reason I ordered a K3S and a P3 in the middle of November so I could
have a new radio for CQ WW CW. While the radio arrived 6 hours before
that contest, there wasn't enough time to finish building it. But I
did finish building the P3 and the K3S by Tuesday evening, except that
the K3S has a problem.
In the K3, the receive signal from the main antenna connector passes
through the 100 watt power amplifier module which has a diode based
receive bypass circuit. In my new K3S, this circuit is defective.
Routing the transmit signal works correctly, so the radio produces
power. If one reduces the power output below 12 watts, then a
separate relay based circuit bypasses the 100 watt module completely,
and the receive path works. Command macros to the rescue until
Elecraft sends a fix.
For a 160 meter contest, I do all receiving on separate antennas and
never use the transmit antenna for reception. So I placed the broken
K3S in place of my original K3 and moved the original K3 in place of
the K3/10. So now both of my SO2R radios are essentially identical
with the same filter sets, same receiver complement, and the upgraded
synthesizers. Now, will that change anything?
I operate 160 contests in 'SO2V' mode. I use the second radio to
search for QSOs and manually transfer the frequency from the 2nd radio
first VFO to the main radio 2nd VFO. So far all attempts to automate
the frequency transfer have been ineffective. When in SO2V mode,
WriteLog is keying only 1 radio, so routing the CW keying via the SO2R
box is unnecessary and counter productive, since direct keying is more
elegant and responsive.
Since the K3S prefers USB instead of RS232 serial for the computer
interface, I can no longer have the computer generate the CW since CW
keying over the Windows USB driver stack is notoriously broken. No
problem! I'll just use the WinKey clone I built a couple or three
years ago that I normally use for SO2R operation. In order to retain
SO2R audio routing but defeat SO2R CW keying routing, I just moved
some cables around.
However, there is a catch. WriteLog 12 looks nicer and the window
docking stuff, such as it is, is much better than the older versions.
But something has changed in the interface to the WinKeyer. When
WriteLog starts up, the keyer emits several question marks and a '2'
in CW, at full power if I fail to take early evasive action. I have
not yet had a chance to track down what WriteLog is telling the keyer.
Furthermore, if one presses the escape key and then another message
key with just the wrong timing, the computer and keyer combination
enters death mode wherein no more CW can be transmitted, including via
the paddle plugged directly into the radio. This event occurred twice
during the contest, always during a run, always causing the operator
to enter a panic so that he cannot calmly observe all of the pertinent
information, like whether or not the radio is displaying an error
code. Restarting WriteLog fixes the problem, and the inopportune
question marks actually help keep perplexed other station around while
all of the cursed software settles and the operator recovers his cool.
Now that both radios are just about identical and both are equipped
with P3s, SO2R is much more pleasant. Using the transmitter-nulling
two-element end-fire array for the second radio, I can get to within
about 3 kHz of my transmitted signal with minimal interference. At
more than about 5 kHz, I can't even detect the transmitter. I have an
image capture of my transmitter as received by the 2nd radio. I'll
have to put that on the web somewhere and add a link to some future
version of this posting. Now I need to upgrade that transmitter
nulling antenna to something that has better directivity than a
cardiod.
The contest itself started with a great rush of activity. Two days
ago I was saying 'best ever' opening hour. But my rate charts from
2009 and 2010 show slightly better first hours. But those years were
the best ever for total score. The first European QSO was OH2XX at
2203Z. He gave me 'OH' and I gave him 'OH' for no net transfer of
OHs. What does 'OH' mean again? Oh!
Some history of K1LT raw scores:
Year DX K/VE Total K/VE DX Total First QSOs QSOs QSOs Mult Mult
Score Eu DX 2007 101 1452 1553 78 48 429534 2008 119 1350
1469 77 42 392105 2207Z 2009 238 1447 1685 78 51 526836
2201Z 2010 185 1419 1604 77 51 481664 2207Z 2011 65 1288
1353 77 30 310407 2323Z 2012 87 1388 1475 81 36 375687 2213Z
2013 117 1378 1495 82 32 380874 2221Z 2014 67 1359 1417 79
23 309570 2223Z 2015 94 1394 1488 80 33 368154 2214Z 2016 93
1435 1528 83 44 423545 2206Z 2017 141 1323 1464 81 41 408822
2210Z 2018 186 1254 1440 79 46 429750 2203Z
2018 results seems to resemble 2010 results less QSOs lost to static.
Since 2010 was coming down from the particularly good year 2009 and we
are not currently coming down from any good year, maybe we are
climbing up towards a good year. One can hope.
2018 beats 2017 by less than 100 QSO points and by 3 multipliers.
Really the results are almost equal. I bet that the expectation of
good propagation generates more activity which gives the appearance of
good propagation. However, signals were definitely stronger this
year.
I was going to suggest that the time of the first Eu QSO has some
bearing on propagation, but looking at past logs does not support that
idea. It looks like the time of fist DX QSO is remarkably consistent.
I noticed that the 2009 log looked different in that there were
numerous DX QSOs in the first few minutes. When that happens again,
then we'll have a good year.
Unfortunately, the terrific first couple of hours was marred by a
persistent NNJ station with a heavy, broad, key-click problem who set
up shop adjacent to my 250 Hz channel. Furthermore, from time to time
he would shift up closer to my frequency. For a while I could creep
up the band to get away from him, but on the last occasion he plopped
directly on my frequency and acted as though he could not hear my
strident 'QRL' bleats. Although the emotional side of me wants to
insist this guy was malevolent, he was probably using ancient
equipment and probably could not hear very well. There is a reason
why spark transmitters were banned.
After being run off my opening frequency of 1828 kHz after 2.5 hours,
I moved way up the very full band (as viewed on 4 spectrum displays)
to 1851 kHz and ran for 4 hours. At 0127Z I made a few test SO2V
contacts to see how the stuff was playing. That's when I found my
automated frequency transfer process was not going to work. I am
guessing that WriteLog keeps the radio's computer interface 'busier'
than in the past which upsets my crude frequency poking software.
Everyone has noted the QRN. The evening started very quiet and
generally remained quiet to the east from here. To the west, the QRN
became intense as the terminator moved west. After European sunrise
the western QRN began to diminish. By local sunrise it was almost
gone.
The local buzzing noises stayed away except for a couple of hours
Saturday night. I have always assumed the buzzing was related to
heaters, but it was warm then. Also, this instance of buzzing seemed
to be on a 45 degree heading rather than the usual 60 degree heading.
The UAs and URs were relatively loud while many but not all LYs were
weaker. The DLs had a variety of signal strengths. The well known
Eus were generally louder than the lesser known Eus but I could be
biased towards calls I recognize. There were lots of Gs the first
night and very few the second night.
The surprise multiplier was TF3SG who was the first caller just after
I reinstalled myself higher in the band Saturday night.
I stayed up all night Friday night. I did that by using the comfy
recliner after Eu sunrise. The cat under my head kept me from dozing
too much. The Gs and other western Eus kept calling well past their
sunrise, so it was a little harder to get drowsy. Saturday night I
took at 3 hour nap for the 09, 10 and 11Z hours. I could probably
have done better by taking only 2 hours or less, but that is much
harder.
This table shows how many DX worked in each hour including dupes.
Apparently I had 5 dupe DX contacts.
Hour QSOs DX 2200 134 15 2300 108 19 0000 85 11 0100 92 4 0200 87
3 0300 83 2 0400 47 3 0500 52 4 0600 43 8 0700 37 11 0800 37 9
0900 23 0 1000 36 2 1100 46 1 1200 40 1 1300 9 0 1400 0 0 1500 0 0
1600 0 0 1700 0 0 1800 0 0 1900 0 0 2000 21 0 2100 33 0 2200 38 3
2300 42 7 0000 53 2 0100 47 3 0200 16 2 0300 39 5 0400 48 27 0500
41 21 0600 37 19 0700 17 6 0800 18 2 0900 2 0 1000 0 0 1100 0 0
1200 11 1 1300 18 0 1400 0 0 1500 0 0 1600 0 0
One might hypothesize that conditions were better near our sunset and
Eu sunrise, but I suspect that the Europeans get on the air for our
sunset and their sunrise and that conditions were relatively constant.
Since conditions were generally better than in a while, copying Eu
calls was easier. Nevertheless, sometimes a few callers are
particularly difficult to decode. I might be tempted to say that some
callers are just weak, but it seems like there might be other factors.
Sometimes a slight radio QSB or 'brain QSB' makes a couple of letters
stand out like 'DL' or 'ZZ'. It took a long time to decode LY4ZZ's
call. I got the 'ZZ' fairly quickly, and 'LY' seemed likely after a
short time, but getting the number and being sure of the order took
many retries. Why? Some calls seem to 'lock in' quicker than others.
I bet really good operators 'lock in' calls consistently quickly.
Saturday morning I went low in the band and pointed the receive arrays
at 240 and 330 degrees in hopes of ZLs, VKs, and JAs. I got VK3HJ
which is a new call for me. He has not strong but straight forward
copy.
Sunday morning I squashed myself into the narrow JA window to again
hope for good fortune, which indeed came my way. There was one
instance of 'I am sure there is a signal but I can't get any letters'.
A few minutes later it sounded like 'JN2' something, and then JH2FXK
popped out. It took three attempts to be sure he heard my reply. It
would be nice if we could convince the JA government to give their
hams a normal 160 meter band. Anyone know why JA is special? Do any
other Asian countries have similar limits?
DX worked: 9A (3), C6 (2), CT3, DL (30), E7, EA (4), EA8, EI, F (8),
FS, G (15), GM (2), HA (7), HB (4), I (8), JA, LA, LX, LY (7), LZ (3),
OE, OH (6), OK (13), OM (2), ON (2), OZ, PA (6), PJ2, PJ4, PY, S5 (4),
SM (8), SP (5), TF, UA (12), UA2 (2), UR (7), VK, VP2M, VP9, XE (2),
YL, YO (3), YU, YV, and ZF for a total of 46 entities. I worked a
total of 186 5-point QSOs.
I missed WY, AK, NL, and NT. I worked only 1 KH6. I heard a second
KP4 but we didn't connect. I called KV4FZ just as he left the
frequency. I always miss a couple of Caribbeans that everyone else
works. This year it was P4 and CO.
Equipment: K3S, P3, Alpha 8410 loafing at 1000 watts. K3 and P3
second receiver. 2x4 BS-EF phased array and receiver contraption and
another 2x3 BS-EF contraption. 6 2-wire Beverages, some of which even
work. I use the 150 degree Beverage to watch for signals on the P3
from the south that the phased arrays often miss.
Blowing the dust out of the Alpha seems to have cured the arcing for
now. Also, the blower behaved perfectly. Reduced power might have
helped but somehow the dust must play a part. Note that I have dusted
the Alpha before, especially when I had to disassemble the RF deck to
change one of the band switch wafers. I don't recall any blower noise
benefit from that activity.
I bought a new K3s because the old one has been exhibiting a few flaky
problems which have been hard to pin down. One of the problems is
inconsistent power output. Also I want the second radio to have 100
watts and 2 receivers. Upgrading the K3/10 looked almost as costly as
just buying a new radio. Building a kit is fun. Somewhere I read
that there are a couple of K3S benefits that cannot be had by
upgrading. One of them might have been less voltage loss going to the
final which translates to more consistent power output.
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