Contesting Big and Small

Unlike some contesters of my acquaintance I am happy to contest in most any category. Most often the categories are relevant to power -- QRP, 100 watts and maximum legal limit -- but there are also categories for numbers of operators and simultaneous transmitters, wire antennas or reliance on skimmers and spotting networks. For CQ WW SSB my category was high power multi-two (HP M2). Then QRP (SO QRP) a week later for CW Sweepstakes. It's quite the contrast!

Soon after I got into contesting and DX as a teenager I was all for more and more power. As with fast cars, power was more than I could afford and there could be undesirable consequences. An example of the latter was irate neighbours during contest weekends. Even 100 watts caused problems with televisions, telephones and stereos in the 1970s. In response to a firm suggestion from my parents I stopped inviting over friends to multi-op with their amplifiers.

When I got a real job and saved up for a house up went the tower and antennas, and a Collins 30S-1 entered my ham life. That was a big beast with a 4CX1500B (replacing the original 4CX1000A) and Peter Dahl plate transformer. It was capable of putting out a lot of power.

This was the late 1980s and all the above problems with power returned. Some of the neighbourhood problems could be fixed with a few toroids, but not all, and I never broached the idea of opening up anyone's appliances to insert RF bypass components. So the contests I entered from my home station were in the 100 watts category. I wasn't happy about it. The amplifier only saw action when DXing or on the low bands where there were few RFI difficulties.

Older and more mature when I returned to the hobby in 2013 I decided to start small, with QRP, and see where that led. DXing and contesting with 5 watts were a lot more fun than I expected. When I bought a 100 watt rig two years later I continued to enter many contests in the QRP category. Part of it was worry about keeping the peace with the neighbours (who were mostly the same ones that experienced the woes of living next to a kilowatt 20 years earlier), and also because I was more competitive in the QRP category with my modest antennas.

CQ WW SSB

Which brings us to the last full weekend in October and the biggest international contest on the calendar: CQ Worldwide SSB. Over a chat about towers early this fall Vlad VE3JM invited me to operate from his contest station an hour's drive east of Ottawa. If you contest his big signal should be familiar. Vlad has several towers with stacked yagis on the high bands and gain antennas on the low bands.

This would be my first foray into high power for many years. I had some trepidation about whether I'd remember all the tricks of QRO contesting, which is very different from low power and QRP. You might think it gets easier. It doesn't. In fact it's far more intense and competitive, and in many respects more challenging. There are no excuses in QRO: you are competing against the best contesters and the best equipped stations around the world.

Team: I have to say this was perhaps the most laid back and easygoing multi-op team I've ever been part of. We followed no schedule and no grand strategy. Operating as Multi Two we kept both stations going the full 48 hours, except for a few hours the second night when there was just one operator. In addition to myself there was Chris VE3FU/VO2AC, Rich VE3KI and, of course, Vlad VE3JM, all of whom are experienced contesters.

We were so polite that on wandering into the shack one of the operators would inevitably lift his headset and ask if you wanted to operate, even when they were in the middle of a big run. Someone always seemed to be cooking or heating up food, or cleaning the accumulated dirty dishes. When you wanted to sleep or take a short break there was rarely a problem recruiting a relief operator.

Strategy: The strategy we followed was simple: run, run, run, but keep an eye out for multipliers. When you have a dominating signal running is really the best way to score high, including multipliers. Where we perhaps fell short was on multipliers since without one operator scouring the bands many can be missed because on SSB there is no skimmer, only human spots. But to do this properly we'd need a third station for listening and another operator.

It wasn't always possible to run. Even though we can work Americans for points there were long periods overnight when we had to S & P for DX and, where possible, multipliers. This is entirely due to being at the bottom of the solar cycle. For example, with the high bands closing early the QRM on 40 meters is intense and even a big signal like ours is difficult to hear in Europe. Then 40 fades on the productive European path and everyone migrates to 80 and, if they can, 160. SSB is a big challenge on the low bands due to the intense QRM and higher noise level.

Learning curve: I was the only member of the team that hadn't operated at the station so my learning curve was the steepest. Although I've been to Vlad's station before that is very different from sitting down and operating. For one, the logging software was new to me. Before the contest I downloaded a trial version and familiarized myself with it as much as possible. It was important to focus on a small set of critical features that would be regularly used. A list of common commands was taped to the computer display.

Antennas and antenna sharing/switching are unique to every station. We went through it all on Friday afternoon and practiced. Tri-banders were shared, with their own custom switching software between stations. Rotators controlled yagis for multiple bands so you need to be aware of what the other operator was doing even when they weren't using the tower when you wanted to turn your antenna. Communication among operators was key to making this work. There were gain antennas on all bands, 160 through 10 meters. Directional receive antennas are shared by both operators.

For the most part we successfully navigated the software and hardware controls, though mistakes were occasionally made. It was necessary to learn the stacked yagi configuration that worked best on every path. Some of this was complicated by precipitation static (snow!) that affects the top antennas the most. On the low bands you have to flip through the directions quite a lot to cover the compass or to better copy weak callers.

Weak signals: Perhaps the most challenging aspect of operating a station with a big signal is that you are regularly called by much weaker signals. Many callers, and most on the low bands, are difficult to copy. It's a struggle, and one I had to relearn after being out of the kilowatt game for so many years. They hear you easily but you must play with antennas and filters and ask for repeats and fills to put them into the log. It can be mentally fatiguing but necessary to scoring well. All callers are appreciated despite how much work it can entail. At times I had to encourage callers to keep trying.

On the other hand, no matter how weak the DX station you find when doing S & P you can call them and expect to work them. That aspect of weak signal copying can be a real joy. All those years of "the one that got away" are forgotten. You hear them, you call them and they're in the log. Pile ups on the rare ones are quickly dealt with. You work them and move on to the next.

Problems: It is a rare contest where everything goes right. Our weekend included noise of unknown origin, loose rotator clamp, receive antennas among other problems. Certainly our score was impacted though not greatly. We were able to find workarounds for most by being smarter about using what we had and avoiding, if only temporarily, certain bands or antennas. That is perhaps one measure of a good team: that we found ways to do well despite the problems.

Not the biggest signal: Several times during the contest I was complimented on the dominance of our signal on the bands. We did indeed have a great station and it showed in our score. Yet it was not the best. As with anything, it seems no matter how much you've done there's always someone, or many someones, whose stations are bigger.

Many times we were beat in the multiplier pile ups by well known call signs of super-stations and had to wait our turn. On paths and bands with marginal conditions we missed out on multipliers that would have given our score a big boost. No matter how big your station there will be the ones that get away.

Despite everything we had fun and made a competitive score. The weekend was a success.

CW Sweepstakes

Operating QRP in Sweepstakes was quite different. My trusty (and much neglected these days) KX3 was dusted off and patched into the computer, antennas and other accessories. This is my only good option for QRP because my main rig, the FTdx5000, has a minimum power output of 10 watts and I don't have a 3 db outboard attenuator.

QRP gave me a relaxed way to enjoy the contest. QSO rates would be modest and stretched out over more hours. With higher power Sunday can be a real drag once all the most active hundreds of stations have been worked. Recall that in this contest you work each station just once, regardless of band.

Being in the eastern region of the continent in a solar minimum I knew that the low bands would deliver most of the contacts, and that is just how it happened. Despite running 5 watts my most productive band was 80 meters. I had no trouble running on Saturday evening. The 3-element vertical yagi fixed to the southwest delivered many west coast QSOs, some of whom answered my CQ. That was fun.

I sometimes joke with friends that the less power you run the bigger your antennas need to be, and that's why I am putting up big towers and antennas. There is indeed some truth to the antennas compensating for low power, though not as much as might be thought. It takes a lot of antenna to bridge the 23 db gulf between 5 watts and 1,000 watts!

Not only could I run it was also possible to crack a few pile ups on multipliers and the fresh meat (participants who only show up briefly late in the contest) on Sunday. A few stations seemed to doubt that my class was really 'Q' since my signal was S9+. That, too, was fun.

Overall this was a low intensity operation. I relaxed, ran when I wanted and hunted when I wanted, and I kept to regular mealtimes. Despite operating 3 and a half hours shy of the full 24 hours allowed I placed well in my category, at least with regard to self reported scores on 3830 and in advance of log checking. I know of a couple of QRP entrants with high scores that are not reported on 3830.

How I'll ultimately place I don't know or care. It is entirely possible I would have won had I stuck it out for the full 24 hours. I achieved my objective of having fun and seeing what QRP would do with my current crop of antenna. This is a very different sort of fun compared to CQ WW SSB a week earlier.

I know contesters who always operate QRO or QRP, and who are always serious or casual. For me any approach to contesting can be fun. In the future I will continue to mix it up from contest to contest. That's what works for me.