2004 ARRL International EME Competition
03/05/2005 |
W3SZ
Hello, All,
This is just a brief note to thank everyone who was active on 144 MHz for the 2004 ARRL EME contest, and to particularly thank those who worked me!
I very much enjoyed the contest this year. For me conditions were good both weekends. I worked only CW. I worked fewer stations the second weekend [11] than I did the first weekend [25] not because I heard fewer stations the second weekend, but because I had worked so many of the stations I heard the second weekend during the first weekend.
I worked 11 new initials, 6 during the first weekend and 5 during the second weekend.
This was the first year that I called CQ to any extent. The first weekend this netted me 6 contacts. The second weekend only one contact resulted from my calling CQ, even though I spent a lot more time calling CQ.
Using Leif SM5BSZ's Linrad Receiver it was possible to see on the waterfall ALL signals from 144.010 to 144.090+ MHz at all times. It was easy to see when someone new popped up on the band, and who was being successful with their CQ's and who wasn't. I didn't use the internet logger, and would have found it superfluous to use it, as Linrad showed me everyone that I could potentially work. It was easy to pounce on new stations as soon as they came on the air, as the Linrad waterfall immediately documented their appearance and I just had to click on their trace to begin copy. I have crossed yagis, and both receive polarities are fed into the Linrad receiver so I didn't need to worry about receive polarization angles.
I was able to work everyone who answered my CQ's [with Linrad there is no doubt about that], and as usual my biggest trouble was getting 'QRZ' back from stations that were easy copy here with Linrad, even though I was running maximum legal power. I spent a lot of time trying to convert such 'QRZ's into 'W3SZ's. Since I was using memory keying, I don't think it was my fist Right now my station is very unbalanced in that I am the opposite of an 'alligator'; I hear many more stations than can copy me. The solution to this is not obvious to me, but I prefer it to the reverse situation. Thank you Leif for Linrad, and Antennspecialisten and Leif for the companion receive hardware. Nothing else comes close to this combination as a receiver: not my Elecraft K2 or FT1000MP with or without external DSP, not other SDR's I've tried.
By the end of the contest I felt that all participants were 'old friends', as I had been staring at their signals on the waterfall for hours and knew who was whom by their position on the waterfall. I could even tell when people moved around to call CQ on different frequencies, as for example Roy G3ZIG, whose initial
downward drift always made a nice sort of 'comma-shaped' signature on the waterfall. So I found it easy to follow your QSY's, Roy ;)
For this contest I had hooked up some extra relays so that I could quickly switch from Linrad to my LT2S Mk II and FT1000MP for receive, and have receive polarity selection on the FT1000MP, and I was again impressed with how much better Linrad received than did the 'conventional' receiver. After again proving this to myself a few times I went back to using only Linrad as it was so much better for me here.
Most of my time was spent calling stations who answered 'QRZ', or calling CQ with no answer. I need to get a better sense of how long to persist under such circumstances. One doesn't want to give up too quickly and move from "QRZ" to "QRZ" never giving the other station a chance to figure out one's call, but on the
other hand after a certain point it seems pretty unlikely that the station will get the call under any circumstances. I didn't find any cases where the "QRZ" turned into "W3SZ" when it was "QRZ" for more than 30 minutes, even when I persisted longer. In a couple of cases I gave up and came back much later and was able to make the contact then, presumably because the receive polarity changed at the other end.
For those who are interested a listing of the stations I worked and heard is at:
http://www.qsl.net/w3sz/arrl2004emelog.txt
I didn't put it here as I already typed too long a message. I hope it is of some interest.
Thanks again to everyone! It was a pleasure to see all of you, and to hear you, as well.
73,
--
Roger Rehr
W3SZ
http://www.qsl.net/w3sz -- W3SZ
This is just a brief note to thank everyone who was active on 144 MHz for the 2004 ARRL EME contest, and to particularly thank those who worked me!
I very much enjoyed the contest this year. For me conditions were good both weekends. I worked only CW. I worked fewer stations the second weekend [11] than I did the first weekend [25] not because I heard fewer stations the second weekend, but because I had worked so many of the stations I heard the second weekend during the first weekend.
I worked 11 new initials, 6 during the first weekend and 5 during the second weekend.
This was the first year that I called CQ to any extent. The first weekend this netted me 6 contacts. The second weekend only one contact resulted from my calling CQ, even though I spent a lot more time calling CQ.
Using Leif SM5BSZ's Linrad Receiver it was possible to see on the waterfall ALL signals from 144.010 to 144.090+ MHz at all times. It was easy to see when someone new popped up on the band, and who was being successful with their CQ's and who wasn't. I didn't use the internet logger, and would have found it superfluous to use it, as Linrad showed me everyone that I could potentially work. It was easy to pounce on new stations as soon as they came on the air, as the Linrad waterfall immediately documented their appearance and I just had to click on their trace to begin copy. I have crossed yagis, and both receive polarities are fed into the Linrad receiver so I didn't need to worry about receive polarization angles.
I was able to work everyone who answered my CQ's [with Linrad there is no doubt about that], and as usual my biggest trouble was getting 'QRZ' back from stations that were easy copy here with Linrad, even though I was running maximum legal power. I spent a lot of time trying to convert such 'QRZ's into 'W3SZ's. Since I was using memory keying, I don't think it was my fist Right now my station is very unbalanced in that I am the opposite of an 'alligator'; I hear many more stations than can copy me. The solution to this is not obvious to me, but I prefer it to the reverse situation. Thank you Leif for Linrad, and Antennspecialisten and Leif for the companion receive hardware. Nothing else comes close to this combination as a receiver: not my Elecraft K2 or FT1000MP with or without external DSP, not other SDR's I've tried.
By the end of the contest I felt that all participants were 'old friends', as I had been staring at their signals on the waterfall for hours and knew who was whom by their position on the waterfall. I could even tell when people moved around to call CQ on different frequencies, as for example Roy G3ZIG, whose initial
downward drift always made a nice sort of 'comma-shaped' signature on the waterfall. So I found it easy to follow your QSY's, Roy ;)
For this contest I had hooked up some extra relays so that I could quickly switch from Linrad to my LT2S Mk II and FT1000MP for receive, and have receive polarity selection on the FT1000MP, and I was again impressed with how much better Linrad received than did the 'conventional' receiver. After again proving this to myself a few times I went back to using only Linrad as it was so much better for me here.
Most of my time was spent calling stations who answered 'QRZ', or calling CQ with no answer. I need to get a better sense of how long to persist under such circumstances. One doesn't want to give up too quickly and move from "QRZ" to "QRZ" never giving the other station a chance to figure out one's call, but on the
other hand after a certain point it seems pretty unlikely that the station will get the call under any circumstances. I didn't find any cases where the "QRZ" turned into "W3SZ" when it was "QRZ" for more than 30 minutes, even when I persisted longer. In a couple of cases I gave up and came back much later and was able to make the contact then, presumably because the receive polarity changed at the other end.
For those who are interested a listing of the stations I worked and heard is at:
http://www.qsl.net/w3sz/arrl2004emelog.txt
I didn't put it here as I already typed too long a message. I hope it is of some interest.
Thanks again to everyone! It was a pleasure to see all of you, and to hear you, as well.
73,
--
Roger Rehr
W3SZ
http://www.qsl.net/w3sz -- W3SZ
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