CQ Worldwide VHF Contest - 2020
Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: EN41vr
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 245 132
2: 114 55
-------------------
Total: 359 187 Total Score = 88,451
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
The main tower is fixed now with a new motor and gearbox. The station was
flakey with lots of sudden unexplained failure to TX or TX distortion problems
that required one piece of software be rebooted or another (isn’t everything
software anymore?) but nothing really hard failed except a relay that I use to
switch 2M antennas that accidentally got hot switched in the middle of an FT8
transmission cycle – smoke and fire! Change out the relay and all was well
again. Sunday afternoon my 2M kept cutting out and I could never figure out why
until I found an intermittent transverter keying line after the contest that has
been in place for well over 10 years and up until now was working just fine!
My struggles to make N1MM work well on VHF still makes me crazy and the current
update version suddenly doesn’t want to switch the Flex from one Panadapter
VFO/band to another with a simple keystroke combo anymore and requires multiple
mouse clicks to change both the TX and RX focus again. Auto logging on digital
is a lot simpler now, but switching from digital auto log to the more manual
SSB/CW logging on the fly to pick up the rare analog signal had a few surprises.
Like the interface with WSJT wiping out whatever you just typed or suddenly
adding to what you try to type in to force back whatever was showing in the
WSJT-X program as the last QSO worked into the entry windows unless you were
very quick to type and hit enter. And of course it logged it as the wrong mode.
From what I could gather the last FT8 QSO that was already long logged was
being constantly forced into the entry window unless you shut down the WSJT
Decode List thereby killing the WSJT visible dupe function. That’s pretty
inconvenient since you suddenly lose the visual cues that point out dupes and
new mults while you are working analog so you can make a decision to stop,
switch modes and snipe a mult. It wasn’t much better if you cleared it out in
the WSJT window either. Might be better to have a totally separate computer
just for the WSJT logging and another for the analog logging since they seem to
fight with each other. All stuff you really don’t find out unless you’re
actually real time logging!
Most of the wonderful tropo on 2M and above to the Atlantic coast for the three
days before the contest dried up with only a few QSOs beyond normal range. Es
for me was poor to non-existent for the whole contest and it looked like it was
a lot better 100-200 miles to my south or so. The first hour was some locals on
SSB and a few scattered DM grids, mostly on FT8 with a little spurt of FT4 but a
very low QSO rate. Unfortunately it never got much better the rest of contest.
Analog quickly dried up and pretty much everyone went to digital. Any fast QSB
Es bubbles that I can normally take advantage of with my antennas on analog were
wasted on broken partial QSOs in FT8.
It shifted to the NE after a while but nothing ever got strong enough to run any
rate. It’s pretty telling that my best hour of the whole contest was less
than 40 QSOs and most were more like 20. After getting blown out of Sept by
family issues, January by a half inch of radial ice on the antennas, June by
rotor and equipment issues that reduced what should have been a 300K plus outing
to 200K, it was totally disheartening to have probably the worst prop on 6M
I’ve experienced in a CQWW VHF in 20 years. 2M was maybe slightly above
average, but the depth that used to be there even 10 years ago is gone.
Generally all the FT8 QSOs had sequences below the arbitrary +0 report line with
lots of bursts above that but few entire QSOs n the plus range. Experiments
show that CW is possible for signals above +0. So a lot of those partials could
have been complete QSOs on CW or even SSB. FT4 is faster but happened in spurts
when the signals got stronger. But CQing there usually resulted in a fast
flurry of 2 to 4 QSOs then nothing. Pretty disappointing. CQing on 6 or 2 FT8
usually resulted in lots of locals I could easily work on SSB, and most of the
distant mults I saw didn’t call me, so I had to call and work for them.
It’s very disconcerting to know I am loud running high power, but rather than
overcoming the competition and working the station quickly on analog, with FT8 I
have to wait while the other station arbitrarily choses (due to Call First or
whatever) to work sometimes several others before me that may take several
repeats and often blow out the small windows that exist to complete a QSO.
I’m often amazed to see how some stations persist with an obviously lost cause
way beyond what is reasonable. I’m also amazed at how many station I call 4
or 5 times then give up on because they don’t respond, only to have them call
back sometimes several minutes later, usually when I’m in the middle of
another QSO.
The meteor scatter burns were really pretty good when I switched over after
0400Z, but after an initial flurry there were damn few stations taking advantage
of them. The stations I did work went quickly but a lot of my CQs went
unanswered, especially to the west. Few stations were really announcing Ms CQs
as is allowed by the rules. It’s a bit harder than ARRL since we can’t
really set up any skeds during the contest (and hardly anyone set any up before
anymore) but a couple years ago there were a LOT more stations on Ms at night
(and still are in the ARRL tests) so I’m not sure what to make of that.
Sunday morning was an even worse nightmare than Saturday. Overnight three major
thunderstorms moved in locally and bracketed me to the SW, SW and NE.
Precipitation static was as high as S9 or better. This makes any morning Ms
almost impossible and while FT8 can reach 20 db or so below the noise, if the
noise level rises by 20 dB or more it becomes a lot less effective. After the
thunderstorms dissipated and noise quieted down somewhat around 1400Z or so, we
did have a very unusual early morning weak opening to the PNW and the SW that
put some mults in the log, but it was also open from them to the east coast and
they generally tend to ignore Mr-In-Between in IL to work the farther distances
since it so rare for that to happen. Around 1600 some Texas came through for
the first time all test but it was weak and didn’t last long. About that time
I also finally stated to hear some SSB stations on 144200, all pretty desperate
to work SOMEBODY and had some small flurries. Worked a few rovers like K9JK/R
and W9YOY/R that way.
This contest really was a drag. I know we have to adapt and conquer to keep our
game up and I will say that FT8 probably made it somewhat better since
conditions were so bad, but it really is a boring mode to work, as well as often
very frustrating. It’s pretty robotic like RTTY and I never was really very
excited about contesting with that either. I’m not currently set up to work 6
and 2m independently either since they have always been on the same radio, and
while it’s now legal in the ARRL I’m uncertain it’s legal to do both
simultaneously in CQWW since as a single OP you would have two signals being
transmitted at the same time unless you were very careful to always alternate
sequences. Perhaps a revamping of the rules more in line with ARRL may be in
order to accommodate the changing landscape of VHF contesting.
73 de Bob2
Band Mode QSOs Pts Grd Pt/Q
50 FT4 12 12 6 1.0
50 FT8 131 131 85 1.0
50 MSK1 13 13 7 1.0
50 USB 89 89 34 1.0
144 FT8 55 110 30 2.0
144 MSK1 5 10 4 2.0
144 USB 54 108 21 2.0
Total Both 359 473 187 1.3
Score: 88,451
1 Mult = 1.9 Q's
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