Another CQ WW CW contest is behind us. It was quite the weekend. On a positive note my single op score is the best it's ever been. This is the result of all the antenna and tower work I and many of my friends have done over the past 4 years. I have only entered a contest with better antennas as part of a multi-op team at someone else's station.
The raw numbers are as follows, obviously before log checking and several incorrect multipliers tagged by the software:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
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160: 334 12 34
80: 740 16 54
40: 673 24 65
20: 1204 33 83
15: 567 20 64
10: 115 18 35
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Total: 3633 123 335 Total Score = 4,220,012
Despite my success and some impressive looking numbers looked at in isolation my effort was far from competitive in the single op, high power, unassisted category. It could have gone better. At best I'll be ~30th overall and top 5 in Canada. The winners will have much greater scores. There were several reasons for placing:
- One amplifier, and it is not quite in the same league as others in the high power category. Therefore any attempt to do SO2R was with low power on the second radio.
- No BPF (band pass filters) made SO2R very difficult except for a small number of frequency and antenna combinations. Most of the time the kilowatt made operating on the second radio impossible.
- I could not get full use of the antennas because the control systems are missing. Everything works pretty well and with improvisation not practical while operating most of the features are there.
- My skills need improvement. Despite first operating contests 45 years ago and now perhaps more active in contests than ever, I do not have the requisite experience to get the most out of my station. Another way of putting it is that the station is better than the operator. For my previous less developed stations and power level my skills were the equal of or better than the station.
Of these the first 3 are easy to remedy with the investment of time and money. They will get done. The last is the most difficult. I have to decide how much of my time to invest in skills improvement. It won't be easy. For example, concurrent running on two bands with unruly pile ups on both.
I know I don't have the talent to be work my way up to the top tier of contesters, yet quite a lot of the gap can be closed with a serious effort to improve. That is my objective. Beyond that my focus will be open my station to multi-ops once the pandemic is over.
Let's put all that aside and focus on the antennas since that will be of more interest to you. I learned a lot this weekend about how the antennas played on the big stage. There were positive and negative revelations. I will use this experience to refine my antenna plans for 2021 and beyond.
160
Band conditions were poor and I suffered along with everyone else. Although there was some improvement as the weekend progressed it was still awful. I expected up to twice the country count. The new antenna works well and the amplifier was adequate, and I did get through to some of the weak DX that others didn't.
The Beverages continued to work well. The only difficulties were that I don't have enough of them and the current mechanical controller is tedious. After most CQs I have to run through 3 of the 4 available directions -- NE, SW, S -- to listen for replies. While that process is unavoidable it can be made easier. This is already on my list of winter projects.
The 160 mode of the 80 meter vertical array was not used, nor did I intend to use it. When the superior winter antenna is up it is only needed as a backup.
The coming 160 meter contests -- ARRL this weekend and CQ in January -- will be better tests for the antennas.
80
Like 160, 80 meters was poor the first night. The improvement the second night was striking. While darkness lasted in Europe my rate continued to be good. The big difference this year was that all the Europeans disappeared when the sun rose. With improved high band conditions they didn't stick around, which is smart on their part, despite continuation of the opening for another hour or so.
Since the antenna is the same as last year there is nothing noteworthy to report on its performance. It works but it could be better. I have previously discussed planned improvements and those were not looked at this year because of more important projects.
My typical strategy was to point the antenna northeast when the European rate was good. Other times I set it to omni-directional to attract callers from anywhere and I used the Beverages to pick out the weaker stations. Other directions were selected when calling specific stations in the Caribbean, Pacific and elsewhere.
I suspect that I will eventually have to complement the Beverages with another receive array for more effective SO2R and multi-op contests. Receive antennas are mandatory on 160, useful on 80 and occasionally needed on 40. Splitting the feed from the Beverage controller does not provide the needed flexibility and independence of use.
40
My most frustrating experience in this contest was 40 meters. The high dipole works great but is hopeless on its own during the contest. With a kilowatt the antenna attracts too many callers that cannot be heard. I was constantly switching in the Beverages, or the XM240, and hunting in all directions. It was not dissimilar to standard operating procedure on 160 meters. In fact it was worse because the Beverages have sharp main lobes on 40 meters and too many stations are not received well by any of the (currently 4) Beverage directions.
On example was a weak signal while I was running Europe. I expected it to be a European and I didn't hunt it out on the Beverages. It turned out to be a VK6 on the long path, probably from the southeast. Previously I would often point the XM240 east in the late afternoon to catch these opening while also working the start of the Europe opening.
On the positive side the dipole serves to work Europe and the US at the same time. A similar case is early morning opposite paths to Asia and the Caribbean. The dipole is temporary, an experiment to test its durability, to be replaced by a 3-element yagi based on the dipole's design. If that project doesn't happen as planned in 2021 I'll need to put another small yagi up at 46 meters just like when the tower first went up.
The XM240 at 21 meters continues to perform well. My mistake was to eschew its use and depend too much on the high dipole. The small yagi was typically pointed south or southwest to work the Caribbean, South America and the US. Perhaps I should have swapped their roles. To compensate for a slightly weaker signal reception would have improved, leading to improved results, more time spent on 40 and prevented listening fatigue.
20
I am behind with articles describing the state of work on the 15 and 20 meter stacks. The phasing harnesses, stack switches and control lines were completed only a few hours before the start of the contest. All that tower work in the two days leading up to the contest left me fatigued and far from my best for most of the contest. The work was worthwhile since they boosted my results.
The stack to Europe works very well indeed. I spent most of my time working Europe on 20 meters because the stack worked so well and the opening to Europe was longer and deeper than on 15 meters. While running I had callers from south Asia and long path from VK. That may have happened anyway with the TH7 at 43 meters, but it's impossible to know.
The 20 meter stack is a minimum 1 S-unit improvement over the TH7 and often 2 to 3 S-units. Unfortunately these numbers are not easy to convert to decibels and I won't try other than to estimate that the improvement was never more than 10 db. Of course that's a lot: the equivalent of using 1000 watts versus 100 watts.
Combined with a kilowatt you can imagine how intense the pile ups were. Pulling out calls was difficult and too many wouldn't stop calling when I sent partial calls. I need to get better at this or the improved antenna could hurt rather than improve my score!
Back scatter to the eastern US is greatly enhanced by the antenna gain and high power. I had lots of American callers while using the stack to Europe. There were also many off the back of the stack into W5/8/9/0. The F/B is good but that's relatively to the forward gain. On an absolute scale the stack's rearward performance is also improved over the other yagis.
15
The difference between the stack and the TH7 was actually better on 15 than on 20 meters. Although I knew it would be good I wasn't fully prepared for the reality. Signals in the noise with the TH7 would come up to S4 or S5 on the stack. S9 signals would often jump up to +10 db or better. I had no difficulty attracting attention.
I could have doubled my QSOs on 15 had I been equipped to do SO2R properly and had I not overslept Sunday morning. The latter is part of the price I paid for pushing to complete the tower work right before the contest. Short daylight hours this time of year account for the abbreviated 15 meter openings on the northern paths. The lower depth of the opening garnered fewer multipliers than on 20 where the opening extended deeper into Russia and beyond on the productive northeast path.
Ideally I would split the stack to have the lower yagi pointed to Europe or other shorter paths and the upper yagi on the longer paths to Asia, the Pacific and for long path. It isn't critical yet. As cycle 25 progresses the stack's flexibility will deliver dividends. That time isn't far off.
10
Better antennas for 10 meters are in my 2021 plan. For now all I have are the TH7 at 43 meters and the TH6 fixed south at 22 meters. For the limited though very welcome openings they were good enough.
The fixed tri-bander pointing south was the more productive of the two. With marginal openings it is the north-south path that is most reliable. It is handy to have an antenna always pointing that direction. Of course that was no accident. To work the small number of European and African stations that could be heard the TH7 was adequate though not spectacular. Those multipliers were a gift.
Next year I must have better antennas for 10 meters. A year from now 10 meters is certain to be much more productive and I need to become more competitive. The TH7 will be taken down and will most likely be side mounted on the same tower and pointed west. The new yagis will be higher up and stacked.
Winter works
Over the winter my antenna work will mostly be done on the computer. Control systems for the operating desk will be designed and built. Both are ideal activities in our cold climate and the isolation needed while the pandemic runs its course. The control systems will be a mix of hardware and firmware. Long term I expect to transition to software with selections on a touch screen, and the only hardware being relays on the control lines.
By late winter I expect to gather material and begin construction of antennas. For the next CQ WW the station should be fully operational with pretty well all the important antenna work done. That is not to say that the station will remain static! There will always be new and interesting project to pursue. For example, I have no antennas for 30, 17 and 12 meters, and then there's VHF to pursue.
It is a certainty that there will be blogging material for a long time to come.
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