CQ Worldwide VHF Contest - 2023
Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: EN41 IL
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 260 138
2: 109 54
-------------------
Total: 369 192 Total Score = 91,776
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
And you thought last year was painful. When I got up it looked like there was a
lot of 6M FT8 action going on so I went away to do stuff hoping that it would
finally be open, but when I got back to start the test the wide graph was empty!
This has been a really bad year for 6M Es and the regulars have been wailing
about it being the worst ever. The pundits say sunspots and Es have no
correlation but it seems that my experience must be an anomaly since I’ve seen
my best 6M contesting Es when the cycle is near its lows and worst near its
highs. There were absolutely no Es openings strong enough to sustain SSB for
more than a few minutes, at least not here in NE corner of EN41. The SW corner
of the same grid less than 80 miles away might have totally different Prop –
or maybe 65 miles from here in SW EN42 where AC0RA kicked (my) butt last year.
Twenty miles can make all the difference especially if the prop is spotlight and
short-lived like it seemed to be again this year. Turns out that Roxie the
Goddess of 6M prop can be an even crueler and more fickle mistress than she has
already been in over 35 years of being a 6M contesting and DXing masochist. The
beatings just continue, morale be damned.
Both days there were many short duration, mostly weak Es openings and
ionoscatter that could be exploited on FT8 if you were really watching it
closely and willing to work at it. I saw a lot of rapid QSB and played
whack-a-mole with a lot of multipliers that would ebb and flow, sometimes SSB
loud for a sequence then -20 the next sequence. But they went into the log with
persistence, sometimes returning to complete from where we left off a few
minutes earlier. For once I was glad that stations were on FT8 because analog
would have been even more maddening. For all that is said about it being slow
and frustrating it does exploit DX paths and prop that is so weak we never saw
it much before on analog. The weak skip zones kept moving around and fresh
mults popped up for short periods, never strong enough for a real analog run. I
heard a few lonely voices like W9RM in DM58 and N4SVC in EM80 on SSB when things
ebbed up but they weren’t strong or in there long. Attempts at a SSB run
failed miserably.
For the first couple hours Saturday and for a while Sunday morning there was a
lot of 2M activity, mostly FT8, but after that with flat conditions it fell way
off until the rovers were in new grids. But those flurries didn’t do me much
good since they were mostly all dupes. Thanks to AC0RA/R and KG9OV/R who I got
in all their grids; as well as W9YOY/R, K9JK/R, N7GP/R, AA5PR/R and N9GH/R who I
got in a few. SSB was a wasteland but I kept an ear on 50125 and 144200 (who
wants to listen to FT8 anyway?) for the occasional analog only station. With two
bands it doesn’t really make sense to try and QSY to analog to work the other
one and a lot of stations seem to catch on now that if they decode me on one
band to look or CQ the other. I’ve pretty much given up on trying to make
band run moves from FT8 to analog work anyway. Tropo conditions were mostly
flat at best and watching 2M FT8 for mults or even initials mostly went
unrewarded. Like in the old VHF tests a lot of guys just get on for a few
hours, especially on Sunday after NAQP RTTY, and an occasional directional CQ
would produce one or two that were silently watching the “call”, but it
would die off quickly.
FT4 wasn’t even a player. I saw very little FT4 activity and worked none
myself. FT4 seems to exist mostly in the twilight between weak Es and Es strong
enough for sustained analog. With reduced signal sensitivity many just seem to
stick with FT8 until (and even way after) strong Es saturates the bandwidth.
MSK was good at night and even better in the morning, still producing worthwhile
mults especially on 2M but not as good as it should have been. The Ms Rox were
flying well but the participation was thinner than usual probably reflecting the
frustrating conditions otherwise. When I’ve had very little sleep I find it
lot harder to concentrate and click (while remembering all the bullshit operator
and computer quirks I have to take into account), than it is to call CQ on SSB
and work good rate. By Sunday afternoon I was so out of it I was mindlessly
droning CQ on 6M FT8 with the worst of them, but at least I was still following
the popup pinpoint prop (such as it was) and putting Qs in the log.
OK time for a rant – stop here if you don’t wanna read it.
When you are tired it’s tough to watch for the WSJT-X program quirks like
sometimes not picking up the call you double click on and calling the previous
station all over again. Or reverting back to TX2 to restart rather than
continuing to send TX3 or TX4 to keep on where you left off when the station
gives up for a bit due to QSB, but then sends 73 to another station in between.
These “undocumented features” make me crazy, especially when I’m tired
and/or distracted and miss catching and correcting it before it gets into the
next TX sequence, so I wind up sending bad sequences and causing confusion on
the other end. Or wondering why only half the graph had signals and realizing
the program moved the base RX frequency plus or minus 500 or 1000Hz for some
unknown reason. Or the new quirk I found with it suddenly quitting TX for no
apparent reason before the QSO was over. At first I thought it was an OP error
but then it did that a few more times again randomly. I cursed so loud that
N2KMA came running to see if I’d hurt myself! The list of goofy software
stuff that happens for no apparent reason that really messes things up and makes
YOU look like a LID seems endless.
And don’t get me started about the real LIDs that call you, or CQ, that are
not in contest mode and use JTDX (which has no contest mode) so that they fail
open when they don’t get the funny numbers report they expect. WSJT-X works
seamlessly with either kind of reports and JTDX users can manually correct by
just going to RR73, but few ever seem to. This contest is really bad for that
since many seem unaware of it going on despite all the CQ TEST. Rather than
having to waste time changing over in settings to complete and then changing
back, I’ve taken to switching to TX4 RR73 from the RX3 R GRID report to let
their Auto Sequence take over again and just end the Q. But even worse I’ve
seen a few that apparently just keep sending number reports until the cows come
home, making me think that they must be aware of the incompatibility but won’t
even try to work around it. Seems like these LIDs just won’t be denied their
“special” report! Beats me why it’s so important that we bend over
backwards to conform to their expectations for the “normal” QSO flow. The
report numbers are pretty much meaningless anyway. When they call you with a
TX2 number report and no grid it’s just a wasted Q for us anyway that hangs up
the N1MM auto logging transfer until we manually clear it in both programs.
Speaking of QSO flow, a lot of folks don’t give me a 73 right after I send
RR73. I always do because I know some won’t even log the Q unless they get
it. Who needs a NIL? Especially for a new grid! With 6M QSB unless they go
right to CQ, immediately call another station or they are really consistently
decoding and just suddenly disappear altogether next sequence it’s hard to
know if they got it or I just auto logged a bad Q where the other guy didn’t
get my RR73. So I’ll send RR73 a couple more times to be sure and sometimes
get 73 back after a bit. Other times nothing, but it’s logged already so I
chance the NIL. This wastes time. Also sending RR73 over again puts a lot of
dupes in the log if your auto logging with N1MM. Others want a second 73 for
their 73 which is totally unnecessary (but I’ll do it for some that I know are
sensitive about it) which is why I almost never send RRR instead of RR73. That
wastes time too. Hate it when I’ve moved on already and I’m in the middle
of the next Q and then have to go back and give another 73 or RR73 back before
they fade or go away mad and I lose a Q and maybe a mult.
73 de Bob K2DRH
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