A Contest of My Own

This past weekend was the annual running of the ARRL DX SSB contest. As contests go this is no longer one of my favourites. Also, I don't really enjoy phone contests as much as I once did. It is a DX contest, which I find attractive, but the experience is different for most outside of the US and Canada. For them it's more of a QSO party in which everyone within a limited area work those outside and vice versa. For example, if you're in far away Australia or south Asia the possibilities in this contest are terribly limited. Few bother, and I don't blame them. I would do the same in their position.

I had concerns aside from being busy and wanting to limit my operating time, while still make a good showing. Two of my headsets failed immediately before the contest. That was a difficulty I overcame with an uncomfortable workaround. Another problem was that I wanted to enter a category that the contest sponsor does not support. 

For those reasons and since I had no illusions about winning anything I decided to do it my way. The alternatives -- conforming my operating to categories set by the sponsor, or to sit it out entirely -- were not to my liking. I invented a category that is common in many contests, but not this one. I would not be competitive in the formal categories, and that was okay. 

Contest within a contest

You have an amateur radio license. Provided you operate in accordance with that license your on air activity is yours to determine. When there is a contest underway you choose whether to participate and how to participate and who you work. You are under no obligation to participate in a manner that complies with the requirements of the sponsor's entry categories.

There are interesting examples that are more common than you might realize. For example, to only make contacts with unique multipliers. At the end of a contest your QSO and multiplier totals are equal. There are DXers who enjoy doing this since in global contests like CQ WW there are many contest DXpeditions and widespread interest that brings a lot of DX onto the bands. They have fun and don't care about their score in the actual contest.

Similarly, you might want to work as many stations as possible in just one country, or with call signs that end in the letter "D". Why? Why not! You can do whatever you like. Some clubs or groups of friends agree to a common set of rules and only compete against each other. They have fun and other contest participants benefit from the increased activity. The contest sponsor is uninvolved. It's perfectly legitimate fun.

I chose to enter the 20 meter single band, high power unlimited category -- SO20HP (A) -- in the ARRL DX SSB contest. However, the single band categories are all unassisted. Assistance forces you into the all band category. My reasons for doing it this way included:

• Time: By restricting myself to almost entirely daylight hours I could sleep normally and have time for other activities. At this point in the solar cycle, 20 meters opens around sunrise and closes about 2 hours after sunset. It worked for me since I find that SSB contests are less interesting than CW contests. SSB contests have unique challenges , some of which are listed below.
  
• Limited prospects on 10 and 15 meters: Again, for reasons of propagation, few DX contacts are possible on these bands. After chasing the available multipliers, at a painfully slow rate, there is little left to work.
• 40 meters is a morass: Almost all US activity is squeezed into 75 kHz from 7.125 to 7.200 MHz. There are a few ITU Region 2 stations operating above 7.2 MHz, but nothing in Region 1 or 2. Although Canadians can operate below 7.125 MHz most DX stations focus on that narrow 75 kHz window with the bulk potential contacts. The QRM is overwhelming and QSO potential is low. Some DX stations operate split to compensate. 
• Noise on 80 and 160 meters: SSB modulation has a wide bandwidth and thus a poor SNR. Except under exceptional propagation the rate of DX contacts is slow compared to CW. Staying up all night on the low bands hardly seemed worthwhile when I had no interest in being competitive.
• Station exercise: My best band at the moment is 20 meters. With all the challenges on the other bands I preferred to see what my antennas can do on 20. Despite a few problems with my antennas and antenna flexibility and a vintage amplifier that is not competitive, I believed I could do well. This was an opportunity to find out for sure.
  
• Practice being assisted: My preference is to operate unassisted in most contests. I need more practice being agile when new multipliers are spotted. For example, when during a high rate run of Europeans a needed multiplier in South America or Africa appears it is necessary to move quickly to avoid the inevitable pile up while not compromising the run or losing the run frequency by being absent too long. Just 20 to 30 seconds can be too long.

Those are my reasons and you will have your own to consider before a contest. The point is you can do what you want without feeling constrained by the categories offered by the contest sponsor. Of course if you do intend to be competitive you must fit yourself into a category and maximize your score for that chosen category. The decision is yours and yours alone.

How it went

To be competitive in my invented category I have to compare myself to the single band unassisted participants and to the 20 meter results on the all bands assisted participants. In those comparisons I am still a loser though not by a lot. I'm pretty happy with how I did. There is certainly room for improvement in my skills and the station. 

Propagation was one important factor. I am too far east and north in North America to place highly. A distance of a few hundred kilometers is enough to escape attenuation through the auroral zone. Stations in W2 and W3 had more success working Europe and further afield to Asia and the Pacific. VE1 and W1 have more daylight in common with Europe so that the opening lasts up to 1 hour longer. 

South is also a challenge. W2 and even those further southwest in VE3 often had a better shot to multipliers in the Caribbean and South America. I would get through, eventually, after those with more favourable propagation. I usually do better to the south on 15 meters under poor conditions since closer to the MUF the longer path to my latitude is favoured over those to the south. That isn't the case on 20.

Power is a problem. My vintage amplifier is well below our legal limit, which on SSB is 2250 watts PEP, or triple the 750 watt limit for constant carrier modes like CW. That puts me at a disadvantage that I keenly felt in the fiercer pile ups. I have a new amplifier on order that will fill that deficit.

The TH6 and TH7 tri-band yagis I rely on for most directions on 20 meters do not have the gain of long boom mono-band yagis. The 150' height of the TH7 is wonderful except when competing against those with bigger antenna farms. Due to in-shack control problems I am not able to easily rotate the upper 5-element 15 and 20 meter yagis of my stacks. Until that is properly dealt with they are usually left pointing at Europe.

There are always a maximum number of multipliers available on any band in a contest. Being assisted makes it possible to work all but a few of them. I worked 110 DXCC countries and the biggest guns did perhaps 10% better. In most cases I could not get through the pile ups due to the aforementioned reasons, or I was shy a few decibels to rise above the DX stations local noise.

Working multipliers is not always a hunt. By running on a clear frequency with a big signal most multipliers will find you. You will never work those stations by S & P (search and pounce). At times I was astonished by who called me. One rare multiplier in Africa called me on Sunday after I fruitlessly sat in their pile up the previous day. 

Another time I was startled when I starting being called by stations in southeast Asia with quite strong signals. In the midst of a European run I'd forgotten the band often opens briefly in that direction mid-morning. They weren't running so there was nothing seen on the spotting networks. It was delightful for a DXer like me to have that happen.

Other observations

After the CW version of the ARRL DX contest I used a text editor to extract all the contacts with QRP stations. This can be done easily because power is part of the exchange for non-W/VE. Accuracy is not high because some non-contesters instead send a serial number, their zone or whatever comes to mind. I filtered out those I could and came up with 2.3% of my 2400 contacts were with QRP stations. There were many more using 10 or 20 watts.

This interests me since I am a QRP enthusiast. That's how I returned to the hobby in 2013 and it has remained a passion. That I typically run much higher power nowadays does not diminish my interest in QRP. As a consequence I really enjoy being called by QRP stations in contests. With a big signal I know that I attract those with small antennas, low power or both.

You might expect that QRP would be less common in SSB contests due to the poorer SNR. This seems not to be the case. Although I didn't fully analyze my log the QRP percentage appears to be comparable. My furthest QRP contact was with Japan. That is not easy on 20 meters! I know because I've done only a few times myself when calling Japanese stations with just 5 watts.

Spotting networks are critical to success. Starting a run is slow because many stations click spots and don't tune with the VFO dial. I could monitor this in real time on the Telnet window. Within 30 seconds of seeing my call and frequency spotted the European pile up resumed. I once humourously referred to spots, human or CW skimmer, the QSO faerie.

The downside is that sometimes the spotted call is wrong. When I was spotted as VE2VN on Sunday, when everyone's rate had slowed considerably, I was deluged with dupe callers. For several minutes it was helpful to enunciate my call as Victor Echo 1-2-3 Victor Norway. Until spots aged out on most operators' software the dupe rates remained at 10% or so.

I used the contest to experiment with phonetics in my pre-recorded messages. While running I tried a shorter exchange: "five nine, oh en". This worked very well at first since regular contesters know that VE3 is Ontario (ON). Contest software will helpfully prefill the exchange accordingly. As the rate slowed and there were more casual contesters answering my CQ it caused problems. On Sunday I went back to using "five nine, oscar norway". Problem solved. 

My closing message was "thanks! victor echo three victor norway" and not the shorter "thanks! vee ee three victor norway". When I tried the latter in CQ WW SSB last fall it caused a surprising amount of confusion. This attempt to increase run rates didn't work out. I have always use full phonetics in the S & P message set.

Afterwards

My total operating time was under 17 hours. Had I operated long my score would have been higher. There was no point since my non-categorized entry would win nothing. I don't enjoy endlessly calling CQ or spinning the dial to hear nothing new. When that happens I take a break and find something else to do. I went so far as to take short breaks during the morning openings to Europe. To win it is necessary to practice BIC (butt in chair) and to keep the CQ machine going, no matter the propagation or the rate. Every QSO makes a difference.

There is a rumour that ARRL will expand the categories next year. That may not affect my behaviour since my focus on 20 meters this year might never be repeated. It's more likely that I'll do something completely different. Regardless, it'll be interesting to see what transpires.

I had fun in my own little contest, and that is what matters to me. I'd rather do these long contests as part of a multi-op, and I hope to be ready to do that later this year. It's not just the pandemic causing the delay since I have work to do to prepare the station for it. The work is ongoing. Indeed, that's why there's a long gap between the previous article and this one. I'm keeping busy and the whiff of spring antenna season is in the air.