CQ WW CW SO(A)SB40

Of the many types of articles on this blog, the statistics tell me that contest reports are among the least popular. Well, too bad, because this is another one. I decide on articles based on my personal interests in the hobby and while it's great when the reader's interests coincide with mine that is not why I choose a topic. 

Many will skip this article and that's okay. I write them to reflect on these events in written form because it helps me to understand what happened and what I might or might not do differently in the future. If you're still with me, let's dive in.

Picking a category

After my burnout in last year's contest I was not enthusiastic about doing an intense all band 48 hour contest. It's hard on the body and mind. The impact increases with bigger stations (and rare call signs) because the pile ups are intense and they go on for hours. To be truly competitive you must use SO2R and 2BSIQ. As they say, it isn't my cup of tea. These and more lessons are in the article I linked to immediately above.

The alternatives are the Classic 24-hour no frills category or a single band. I wanted to be active throughout the contest period so a single band entry made sense to me. But what band?

I did 15 meters for the SSB contest and the low solar flux did not bode well for 10 meters. Reports by friends that entered as single band 10 meters suggest that I made the right choice.

20 meters is really tough due to the sustained high density of stations and the long openings. There are enough 160 DX contests to scratch that itch and 80 meters can be a painful noise filled slog. I am reasonably competitive on 80 with my vertical yagi but it is inferior to many of the big guns.

Which brings us to 40 meters. Propagation on 40 is quite fascinating since it is open day and night -- though far better at night -- and globe circling short and long path openings are surprisingly common. A middling solar flux is ideal on 40 because the high traffic paths, especially the one to Europe, can last all night long. Peculiar and surprising propagation entices me in much the same way as 6 meters. But outside of contests those openings are not well exploited and the band can seem dead most nights.

It was also my first opportunity to try the new 3-element yagi in CQ WW since it went up last December, a few weeks after the contest. The antenna is very competitive and I thought it would be a lot of fun to see what it could do for me in this premier event. Combined with the XM240 at half the height the antennas offer good performance and operational flexibility. 

So that's what I chose: 40 meters. I opted to make use of spots to maximize the potential for multipliers and reduce the tedium of constant tuning and finding mostly dupes. That's expected for a single band contest or single band entry in multi-band contests.

Sticking with SO1R

SO2R is very difficult to do in a single band entry. Getting antennas far enough apart to prevent receiver damage is rarely practical. The alternative of wiring the transmit antenna through a receive port to the second station limits listening to when the primary station is also receiving. Hunting on the second receiver is constantly interrupted and the operator can't escape having to listen to both receivers while hunting.

I still wanted to try it. One stumbling block is N1MM Logger's lack of support for two keyboards in SO2V operation. In this style of operating the sub-receiver (or SDR slice) in rigs like my FTdx5000 has its own entry window. With one keyboard the operator uses keyboard shortcuts to manage use of the two VFOs. That can be difficult and is why I do SO2R with two keyboard. When the challenges already mentioned are included, SO2V was a step too far.

I stuck with SO1R and manually tuned and switched the VFOs. I've done this before with a K3S and it works well if you are careful. Being assisted helps because you really only have to click on spots. The trick is in timing the VFO switching so that you hold the run frequency and send your call and exchange in sync with both the running VFO and the hunted station's transmissions. 

It did it numerous times when the run rate was low. Doing it when the rate is high is well beyond my ability. A second operator to hunt is better but you still can't listen full time unless you design some way for the sub-receiver to withstand the kilowatt transmitter only a few kilohertz away.

Propagation and antennas

Despite less than quiet geomagnetic conditions the band was very good. There was no noticable attenuation on paths that skirt or cross the auroral zone. That's often a problem for those of us located at a high geomagnetic latitude. In fact, signal levels were very strong at times. 

Many QRP stations made it into my log, including JA6GCE. It is no surprise that a big signal attracts the smaller stations. I did the same when I regularly contested with 5 watts and low wires. I am happy to swap roles to put more contacts in their contest logs.

Relative performance of the high and low yagis made apparent the daily cycle of propagation on 40 meters. You can work the European big guns during full daylight but not the smaller stations due to D-lay absorption. That isn't necessary since they'll still be there when sunset approaches. Getting a few hours of sleep is more important. 

We can easily work Americans throughout the day, if only they were active. Daytime contest activity is high within Europe but not here. There's little point for the Americans in CQ WW when they only have a handful of Canadians to work. They do far better to stick with the high bands. The situation is very different for domestic contests like Sweepstakes and NAQP with high 40 meter daylight activity.

About 2 hours before sunset it becomes possible to run all European stations. At that time the best antenna is the low yagi. It outperforms the high yagi by 1 to 4 S-units. During daylight the ionosphere's D-layer preferentially attenuates low elevation angle radiation since the traversal path is longer than at high angles. A similar effect dims and reddens the sun when it is low to the horizon.

Around 30 minutes before sunset the relative performance of the yagis undergoes a rapid transition. The two antennas become equally effective and then the high antenna easily does the best. That continues until sunrise. The EZNEC elevation plot is of a typical 3-element yagi at heights of ½λ and 1λ. Notice the null in the pattern of the high yagi. It doesn't do well at elevation angles around 30°. 

Of course this is why many contesters stack yagis. You can choose the antenna that does best and combining them for extra gain. My yagis are not stacked so I pick the one that performs best at any given time. When I turned an antenna to work a multiplier I could keep running on the other, even if it was not the best. A kilowatt can overcome much of the deficit. Indeed, many times it hardly mattered where the antennas were pointed: everyone called me and I could work anyone I called.

Activity level and patterns

In single band contests, and Sweepstakes, you can run out of stations to work. Although CQ WW is a 6-band contest the concern still applies to single band entries like mine. Conditions and contest popularity are critical to sustain rate for the duration of the contest.

I am happy to say that I never really ran out of stations to work. However, there is a rhythm to any contest that relates to time zones and personalities. Understanding these factors can improve your score.

Committed contesters are active for most or all of the contest. Most are active on all bands, but they show up on 40 meters often and they are easy to work. If the opening is brief you hope they are aiming for eastern NA at the best times. This is especially true for those in distant zones and rare countries.

Casual operators are the majority and they tend to be active according to their personal schedules and not the propagation or necessarily in a fashion to maximize their scores. Hams, like all people, can be broadly classed as morning people and nighthawks. I am among the latter. That doesn't matter in a contest since I put in the time regardless of my preferences. To contact the casual operators I take account of their operating patterns.

Let's take Europe as an example since it's a rich vein of contacts and multipliers and relatively easy to reach on 40 meters. Most hams are free in the evening to operate and so they do. That's late afternoon for us, which is perfect for the early sunsets this time of year. The rates are high. As midnight comes and goes in Europe only the nighthawks remain among the casual operators. Conditions may remain good but the rate declines.

Sunrise sweeps across Europe starting at about 2 AM in eastern NA. That's when the morning people in Europe appear. The rate picks up and holds until the high bands draw them away or the day is too far advanced and conditions deteriorate.

The lesson for score conscious contesters is that you must be there at the appropriate times to work both groups of casual operators. Their preferences should guide your activity more than your own.

Amplifier

I used the Acom A1500 exclusively in the contest. It is a manually tuned tube amp. Settings for the Load and Tune controls is determined by the output impedance and frequency. The impedance is never the same for two antennas unless the SWR is exactly 1. The CW spectrum commonly used in a busy contest like CQ WW is from 7000 to 7080 kHz. Amplifier adjustments are typically needed for a QSY of about 30 kHZ for optimum performance.

Optimum performance is desirable but not strictly necessary. If you don't adjust the amp, the most common outcomes include reduced power, lower efficiency (higher heat dissipation) and excess screen and control grid current. For my 40 meter antennas and the frequency range it was not absolutely necessary to adjust the tuning after every change. A drop of 200 watts is not that much and it rarely affects my ability to snag a multiplier or work a station in a different direction.

I regularly monitored the screen current and temperature and I never had a problem. I grew comfortable only adjusting the tuning when I changed my antenna preference to target or QSY'd more than about 30 kHz. Exhaust air temperature was never uncomfortably high under worst case conditions, which was CQ'ing for several minutes without a reply.

Perfection has expensive taste. Don't let it seduce you. Good enough is good enough.

Running vs chasing multipliers

A multi-band SO2R operator can very effectively run on one band and hunt multipliers on another. All you must do is time your transmissions to smoothly interlace the QSOs. It is far more difficult for the single band operator since you will have great difficulty receiving on one frequency when transmitting on another. Unless you're an extreme case you cannot receive while transmitting. 

That makes multiplier hunting far more difficult. It is more difficult for unassisted operators. That is why, although I prefer unassisted operation, that I have only one band to work with.

Using the SO2V feature of N1MM can help. The second receiver or slice has its own window. Since the feature doesn't support two keyboards you have to use keyboard commands to switch windows/VFOs for entering data and sending messages, while paying close attention to coloured dots that tell you which VFO is doing what. That's a problem for me and is why I use two keyboards for SO2R.

I did it manually by manually activating the sub-receiver of my FTdx5000 and used the 'A⇨B' and 'A⟺B' buttons to sync and swap the VFOs, respectively, so that I always transmit with the main VFO. There are AF Gain knobs for each receiver. I set the level of the sub-receiver lower to avoid copy errors on the run frequency, which is more important to me. It's awkward and I made many mistakes, such as punching the wrong button or losing the run frequency. Perhaps practice will improve my success, but I don't know how much importance to attach to this skill.

Most logging software will helpfully tell you the marginal value of a multiplier. For example, if you have 100 QSOs in the log at 2 points each the total QSO points is 200. If you also have 30 multipliers the calculated score is 6000. A new multiplier is worth 200 points in addition to the 2 points for the QSO. The marginal value of an ordinary QSO worth 2 points is 60 (30 × 2). Therefore the marginal value of a multiplier is approximately 3.3 QSOs.

If your run rate is 1.5 per minute the implication is that you should not dally with the multiplier if it costs you more than 2 or 3 QSOs on the run frequency. The chase tends to cost more on a single band than with SO2R on two bands due to the challenges described earlier. You have to decide what to do based on your abilities and the trade off of cost and benefit.

However that is not the whole story. The marginal value of the multiplier is not the value of the multiplier for the full contest. The multiplier continues to apply to all future contacts. A multiplier's marginal of value of 200 when you have 100 QSOs in the logs grows to a value of 1000 if you expect to make 500 contacts in the contest. In that light the multiplier is really worth 16 QSOs, not 3.3. If you pay attention to this statistic you'll notice that it increases as the contest progresses.

On the other hand if it is indeed early in the contest you can hope to work the multiplier later and focus on running at present. Of course that is a risk. I often took the risk because of the difficulty of single band hunting while the runs were good. Sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn't. Those desired multipliers don't always reappear.

There were many times that I had to abandon chasing a multiplier to return to rate production. One example is 4U1UN. They are close enough to me that at night all I had for propagation was watery back scatter. I could not get through the massive pile up, and I could not afford more time since it was prime time for Europe.

For a final observation, be aware that CW spots have two sources: human and skimmer. I notice a dearth of human spots from outside of Canada and the US, inside and outside of contests. Most operators now appear to rely on skimmers and no longer bother posting spots. SSB is different but this is a CW contest. The pile up starts seconds after I see the skimmers broadcast my CQs. That typically takes 15 seconds or 2 to 3 CQ's. 

I have mostly relied on human spots and I disable most data coming from the RBN (reverse beacon network). That is a mistake. I plan to change my cluster settings to pull in more skimmer data.

Trouble with dits

Over the years I've become far more proficient distinguishing 'S' and 'H' and other characters with strings of dits at high speeds. Others are less proficient. It is also a frequent problem with skimmer decoding. Few have difficulty understanding 'VE3' since it's common and expected. The 'V' in my suffix is a source of trouble when I send CW at high speed in a contest.

A bad skimmer spot or human spot can cause grief. My call is regularly miscopied as VE3UN. It is so frequent that the call appears in the master database that most contesters use for the SCP feature (super-check partial). Worse, it appears in the list above my true call. So when mistakes occur that's what they pick.

The bad spot draws assisted operators by the droves late in the contest when there are few stations left to work. Working dupes during my run improves no one's score, and it drives away good contacts that, understandably, won't wait in the queue. Telling everyone 'B4' wastes even more time. I have a function key that sends my call with 'VN' at reduced speed, but even with that many operators pay no attention and keep calling. I could try changing my call by battling the federal bureaucracy but I like what I have.

Experienced contesters know that it is better to accept the inevitable and QSY. Don't become stubbornly attached to a run frequency. The minute or two it takes to find another is well worth the effort.

Fatigue and time management

They award no prizes for good time management in CQ WW. Whether I operate 48 hours or 15 hours, all that matters is the final score. There is a Classic category where the time limit is 24 hours, which did not interest me. Only then do you need to pay close attention to off time rules and schedule your time accordingly.

I don't know my official participation time since I didn't look and I don't care. When I needed a break and the time was opportune I stepped out of the shack. The 30 minute rule was irrelevant. Fighting fatigue by taking care of my body and mind took priority. 

I operated right through both nights of the contest because the band was open and productive. That takes a toll. The few hours of sleep I got was at midday. I had to fight the decline of my faculties as the contest wore on. In the final hours I was making mistakes that I rarely when I'm alert. 

One example is short term memory. When I'm distracted my mind records the CW I hear and I then play it back to copy the call sign. When fatigue set in the recording was blank and I had to request a repeat. A second example is that I once hot switched the antennas. The amplifier instantly faulted and went offline, protecting against damage. Hot switching is prevented with my station automation system but it is not yet installed.

As I type these words I am mostly recovered from the contest and my sleep cycle is back to normal. I am taking it easy today and writing this article because following the contest I got a COVID booster shot. That result in one day of minor aches and lethargy. The rain is pouring down so I don't care. I purposely delayed the appointment until after the contest. There was no point going into the contest with an avoidable handicap.

Bottom line

I exceeded my informal QSO goal of 2000 by over 10% (2231, not including dupes). Despite surpassing DXCC before sunrise on Saturday morning my country total hit a wall. The same with CQ zones. There were many multipliers that were almost worked or that were unworkable. 

40 meters is perhaps the easiest band to sweep all 40 zones in CQ WW from this part of the world. I did pretty well by logging 37 of them but the other 3, all in Africa, somehow eluded me. On the other hand, sweeping all the Asian zones is remarkable. The openings over the north pole were extraordinarily good this weekend.

A couple of club members informed me that my raw score is a new Canadian 40 meter record in this contest. That would be wonderful despite my total ignorance of the record and having set no explicit goal. My objectives were to do well and to have fun. Those objectives were achieved. 

My final score and the status of the record will have to wait for log checking and the publication of the results next year. Mistakes are inevitable and my final score will be lower. I don't anticipate a large score reduction.

Lessons learned and station plans

No matter how big your antennas or the skill of the operator there is always a station better equipped. A full-size 3-element 40 meter yagi up in the lower stratosphere is a great antenna, but it pales in comparison to the even bigger antennas and stacks at the largest contest stations. 

I was outgunned more often than you might imagine. Even where my station was superior I could be beat by a more skilled operator or by the unavoidable vagaries of geography and propagation. Life isn't fair, and I'm okay with that.

Can I do better? Of course. Should I do better? Aye, there's the rub.

My preference is to organize multi-ops in the major contests. That way the station is maximally utilized and we can compete at a high level. Repeated high intensity single op entries is not what I want. I will continue doing it for a while longer. 

Although it has been interesting to learn the necessary skills to be a more competitive single op, and thus improve my skill level and results, it is not what I want to do all the time and, frankly, I will never do it particularly well. I am a good contest operator but I will never be a great contest operator. The unplanned long length of this article contains various lessons I hope to learn from.

In regard to the station, I absolutely will not stack a similar 3-element yagi on the tower. I'd need a ring rotator at the least and I'd have an ongoing worry about the tower's ultimate capacity. 30 ft² per antenna is a lot! The incremental load on station maintenance is an additional burden. The stack would have less than optimum performance since the antennas would not be high enough and the ½λ spacing not wide enough. For the predicted improvement it isn't worth the investment and maintenance. Others choose differently. 

What I will consider is a fixed wire yagi or lightweight rotatable yagi. That would give me stacking gain and additional flexibility on this important contest band. Over the winter I'll model alternatives and develop a tentative plan. There are unique requirements for equalizing phase in a stack built with dissimilar yagis.

It seems fitting I am closing what many consider an uninteresting article with a reference to the most read article on this blog. I'll return to technical subjects in the next articles.