ARRL DX CW: Oh My!

I decided to write up my experience in the ARRL DX CW contest this past weekend because I learned a great deal by putting in a more committed effort than I planned for. My early hope was to make this the first multi-op contest from my station. That plan foundered because I hadn't completed work on the shack in time. 

Instead I took the opportunity to install my new operating desk and temporarily assemble the two operating positions for SO2R. I didn't even bother to move it back against the wall. Access for cable work was more important than having it look pretty. I finished one hour before the contest started. Despite the haphazard wiring, the only RFI was to the SM5000 on top of the FTdx5000. I don't use the speaker so I disconnected it. 

I took lots of breaks, short and long, on Friday evening. Most of the time I was running stations on 40 meters and hunting multipliers on bands from 160 to 15 meters. Conditions were fabulous. I stayed up for the European sunrise then slept for several hours. 

Every band but 10 was open when I got up an hour before dawn. From there it only got better. Runs on 15 and 10 were phenomenal. It was difficult to keep the rate high due to the difficulty of extracting a call sign from the roar of the pile up.

Well, that's not of interest to most readers since everyone had the same experience. From here I'll deviate from the standard contest narrative to provide insight into the challenges I was dealing with and how I dealt with the best DX contest conditions we've seen for nearly a decade. I think this approach is more interesting to readers.

The arrangement is only a little different from before. I wanted to try a few changes to see how I'd like it. The biggest change is the monitor position. I like the monitor to be low to minimize eye movement as my focus shifts between the keyboard and N1MM entry windows. I was using WSJT-X, when the picture was taken. Imagine that the N1MM entry windows are positioned at the bottom of the monitor. 

The 24"gaming monitor has an adjustable height. Should the change to the layout become permanent, a short shelf will be built and the monitor placed on that. Rotator controllers or other devices can be placed underneath. That is difficult do with this monitor since the pillar gets in the way. For the contest I instead moved the FTdx5000 inward for less reach to the controls. Like many contesters, I prefer keyboard controls to twiddling knobs, and I don't need the rig in front of me. That said, I did find a benefit in this contest of having the bandwidth control and a few others up front.

My preference is to place the amp on top of the rig, as is done for the FT950 and L7 on the right, but that isn't possible for the heavy Acom A1500; the L7 power supply is on the floor. Auto-tune amps don't need much attention so, whenever I acquire those, they can be placed out of the way.

Rotator controllers on the left are ideal for the right handed, such as myself. For multi-op contests they'll be moved to between the operating positions. I ran into a last minute technical issue while wiring the BPF for control by my automation system so they had to be within reach for manual control. The BPF can be moved under the desk when the automation is complete. 

Until I convert commercial controllers for prop pitch motor control I will continue with the ugly one I inherited. All I did before the contest was wire the breadboard direction circuits via the direction rotary switch so that you see the direction of the selected prop pitch motor on the outboard meter.

Weather and results

Weather was a problem. Several hours of freezing rain before the contest had yagi elements drooping and misbehaving. The upper yagis of the 15 and 20 meter stacks were severely affected and were pretty well useless until late Saturday afternoon. By Sunday morning they were back to normal and my signal into Europe was full strength. For some reason the 40 and 10 meter yagis and the TH6 were fine. 

High SWR on the 80 meter vertical yagi limited my power to about 400 watts for the duration of the contest (amp protection fault). As a result I did poorly on 80. After the contest the 80 meter vertical yagi did not recover. It switches normally and the antenna pattern appears to be normal. Further investigation will wait for warmer weather. 

As few days earlier, I once again installed my trusty old 80 meter inverted vee at 100' (32 meters). I couldn't use because I have no free ports on the 2×8 switch (more on that antenna in a future article). I would have swapped it for the vertical yagi had I known that the fault wasn't due to ice.

Despite the various technical problems, my raw score includes over 3300 contacts and close to 400 multipliers in 36 hours of official on time. I am pleased with how I did despite my score not being competitive. Had there been no ice and had I put in a longer effort, it is likely my QSO count would have been close to 4000. 

My skills at SO2R put a limit on how well I can do. 2BSIQ (running on two bands at the same time) is difficult under ideal conditions and far more challenging when faced with large unruly pile ups now that propagation is so good. I will get better at 2BSIQ but I have little motivation to become highly skilled. I might not be capable of it even if I was interested. I'd rather focus on preparing the station for multi-op contests and enjoy myself with less intensive efforts the rest of the time.

I took notes after the contest about propagation and station performance. I'll now look at the points that might be of interest to readers, or at least the contesters among you. Everybody know propagation was great so I'll say less about that and more about how it affected my operating tactics.

Automation

This is the second contest for my home brew station automation system. This time it had an intense workout because I was SO2R and frequently changing bands and antennas. None of that was needed when I first used it in the CQ 160 contest. I am happy to report that the software worked very well. It ran the full 48 hour contest period, including off times, without interruption, proving its reliability.

I'm showing the GUI again to illustrate design flaws I discovered while operating the ARRL DX contest. This is apart from the ugliness of the current layout. It comes done to how it communicates critical data during a hectic contest like this one. Imagine you have to switch the stack mode for the left radio (R1) to gain a few decibels to copy an Asian station calling over the pole while running Europe. Which button do you press?

The answer is obvious but try to do it instantly in the heat of the contest. During the contest I often pressed the wrong button. The association of the many antenna mode buttons to each radio is not obvious from a brief glance. Reading the numerals on the buttons to figure it out is prone to mistakes when you need to do it instantly. It is surprisingly difficult to recall what band you're on while focused on a deep and unruly pile up, or two.

Another problem was knowing whether an alternate antenna is available before pressing the radio's adjacent antenna button. That's slow and confusing. It most often occurred with sharing the TH6 on the high bands. What would happen is that I'd press the antenna button to call a station where the TH6 is pointed and then find it can't be selected because the other radio has it. Of course I could read the other radio's antenna button but it's easy to miss that in the heat of a contest. 

I have ideas for a new GUI layout to alleviate these and related operating issues. The redesign is likely months away since I have higher priority tasks. It works as it is and that will have to do during the upcoming late winter and spring contests. Other planned feature development will also be paused since the GUI redesign will affect everything. The hardware is under the desk, invisible and relay clacking is barely noticable with headphones.

My immediate task is to finish the electronics and wiring for automating BPF selection. That topic is interesting enough that I plan on dedicating an article to it.

Run, run, run

When a band is wide open to Europe there is only one word of advice anyone needs: run! The volume of available contacts is enormous and it cannot be ignored. No matter your station, you are almost always better off running than hunting. Many casual operators find running intimidating and avoid it. It is well worth making the effort, no matter how clumsy you might be at first. Single band rates of 3 to 4 contacts per minutes add up fast! 

Rare multipliers often call you when you run, avoiding the time needed to hunt for them. I was unassisted in this contest so finding multipliers can be very time consuming, and that's expensive when the runs are so good.

The large number of callers with stacks and a kilowatt makes running especially challenging. It is a problem that is nice to have. I have had to learn techniques to get at least partial calls and make it clear that others should QRX. I am getting better at it while maintaining rate. 

This is the one time when I raise my CW speed closer to 40 wpm and signing my call once every 2 or 3 contacts since it communicates to callers that I am doing all I can to serve them quickly. When the rate slows, so does my speed. I don't want to scare off casual operators.

When my speed goes up so do the bad spots. It is easy to know even though I was unassisted. Suddenly the pile up would increase in size and most callers are dupes. In almost every case I was spotted by a human as VE3UN. Skimmers tend to make different call sign errors. It is a consequence of point and click contesting. Spots and skimmers drive the multitude to the runners and the net benefit is strongly positive despite these challenges. When it happens there is really no good escape other than to QSY. Fighting the inevitable only wastes time.

Getting the most from the stacks

For most of the first day of the contest the upper yagis of the 15 and 20 meter stacks were next to useless due to the ice. Ice is a dielectric that lowers the VF (velocity factor) of the elements, lowering their resonant frequency. The effect is uneven across the elements. The result is high SWR and severe pattern impairment. I mostly got by with the lower yagis until the ice load loosened when the temperature rose. They are effective antennas when used alone to work the Europeans.

With all the yagis working, there are many strategies to their use and I exploited all of them in the contest:

• Stacking gain to Europe during prime time European openings
  
• Turn the upper yagi to high production directions and to hunt multipliers
• Spray in two directions while running to pick up multipliers from marginal paths

With my lower yagis fixed on Europe, Europe is the only direction I have stacking gain. I would like to have the 10 and 15 meter lower yagis rotatable for stacking gain to Japan and elsewhere. I may eventually do that and I have preliminary design plans. For now I must to work within the constraints of those fixed yagis. Often I'll use the rotatable TH6 to hunt multipliers when I need the stack for Europe, or the upper yagi is in use for working Asia and the Pacific.

Spraying was very effective on 15 and 20 meters. In the early morning I would aim the upper yagi about 10° to 20°, almost over the north pole. This positioned it between Russia and east Asia, while still offering some stacking gain towards Europe. There were few callers from Asia during those European runs, but many who did call were multipliers. These included VU, E2, VR2, BY, among others. 

Pointing the upper yagi to the east in the late afternoon attracted long path Pacific stations, including ZL and VK. Again, that also provided some stacking gain towards Europe. But I couldn't do that for long since it was sunrise in Japan, followed by the rest of east Asia. There were good runs to Japan on 10 and 15 meters.

Sharing the 10 and 40 meters yagis appropriately was a challenge. The 40 meter yagis are not stacked, and there is conflict when Europe comes blasting in well before sunset when Japan starts pouring in on 10 meters. Having every band open at once is welcome but difficult for a single operator to maximize contacts and multipliers.

Luckily the lower XM240 works better than the high 3-element yagi to Europe before sunset. So I turn the upper 10 meter yagi to Japan and the big 40 meter yagi goes along for the ride. Once the 10 meter opening fades an hour or so after sunset, the 10 and 40 meter yagis are turned back to Europe. After our sunset the high yagi pays big dividends on 40 meters.

More yagis and more rotatable yagis are common in the biggest stations to exploit solar maximum propagation. I will never do that. What I've built is about as big as this station will get. Rotating the lower yagis is about as far as I'll go. The TH6 helps fill the gaps and, as I've noted, I hope to improve on it this year or next.

Overnight strategy

The high bands lose productivity at night even during a solar maximum. Daylight at this northern latitude is limited in winter and that closes the high band sooner than further south. After Asia and the Pacific fade after sunset there is little more to work than a few stations to the south. The low bands continue to get a lot of love during contests.

The faulty 80 meter vertical yagi kept me off that band when I needed to be there. It was frustrating to be unable to work many wanted multipliers because they couldn't copy me. Partial contacts don't count, and I had lots of those. I didn't need a high rate, just multipliers. 

Others followed the same strategy, though with more success than I had. There was little reason to try to bulk up on contacts on 80 and 160 meters when so many stations preferred to stick with the high bands.

As sunrise sweeps across Europe, the low bands open in sequence: 160, 80, 40. Unlike during a solar minimum, the openings are shorter. I can remember back a few years when I was working Europe on 80 meters a full two hours after their sunrise, and for longer on 40 meters. This year one has to be more agile and avoid lingering too long in one place.

The compensation was 20 meters. After 40 began to fade, 20 meters opened to Europe both nights. That doesn't happen during a solar minimum. Since it's been a while, I was tardy to recognize the pattern the first night, and I was early to bed in any case. The second night I arrived on 20 earlier and got the best from the opening. The run on 20 meters was tremendous. What a novelty at 2 AM local time. 

The propagation fades after a while since we don't have a high enough solar flux to keep the path open on this end. Then it's back to 80 and 160 meters or, in my case, a few hours sleep. I got up before dawn to find Asia and Pacific stations on 80 and to hunt Asian stations on 40 meters. Few distant stations were heard during our 160 meter sunrise openings.

By the time the sun is a few degrees above the horizon, the high bands come to life and it's back to running Europeans. I would keep the big 40 meter yagi northwest for a while longer to hunt Pacific and Asia countries. That kept the upper 10 meter yagi out of the action for the start of the opening.

20 meters during the day

If your peruse the claimed scores on 3830, you might notice that the 20 meter QSO counts of many are below those for 40, 15 and 10 meters. This is typical of a solar maximum. Low level solar flares are constant and keep the D-layer absorption moderately high on the sunlit half of the globe. Absorption peaks at noon and when the Sun at near the zenith. What ordinarily only blocks signals on 40, 80 and 160 meters, now also blocks signals at higher frequencies.

Those who chose to enter as 20 meter single band saw a major impact on their scores. There is more at play than signal absorption. With 10 and 15 open, contesters abandoned 20 meters. This is particularly true for those with smaller stations. Sure, you must operate 20 meters to have a competitive entry but, like with 80 meters, there is little reason to stay there for longer than necessary. Since a minority of contesters operate SO2R, 20 meters lies idle when they're having fun on other bands.

Operating desk

This first trial of the new operating desk did not go well. My penchant for home brewing everything caught up with me. There are several design flaws that I must deal with. The answer will be either my own selection of modifications or to find a suitable replacement from an office furniture surplus outlet.

The plywood is only ½", but there are two bonded layers inside the frame. The area is 8' × 30", enough room for two operating positions. There are no cross-members other than the one at the rear, and there is a diagonal strut mid-span. It's strong enough to support the heavy equipment seen earlier in the article. 

There is a lower back shelf for power supplies, the station controller and other items. The old desk had the same feature. I bolted on power bars and there is another lower shelf at the far end for the internet modem and other items.

The structure is strong but more flexible than I'd like. The mid-span strut allows a small amount of sag, which I didn't account for. The wood frame, though strong and diagonally braced, bends only a small amount. 

While not a problem, it gives me pause. I have to wonder whether the various screws will hold it together properly for the long term. Desk top flexing is already causing the hard, furniture grade paint to craze. It looks good and is holding up well except for those hairline cracks in the finish where I lean and pound the keyboards. 

The greatest miscalculation is in the ergonomics. The 30" depth is perfect for an operating desk, however the several inches overhang at the rear means that knees can connect with that mid-span strut and shins can bump the shelf. Although the dimensions are the same, on the old desk the rear of the top is aligned with the frame. Those inches make all the difference. I was trying to maximize support for the amplifiers and rigs, not realizing the impact on the operator. Now I know better.

These are correctable problems. What I have to decide is whether to modify the desk or to find a commercial alternative. Modular office furniture uses steel channels and panels to give it both rigidity and strength, with a laminated surface for durability and appearance. Perhaps I'll see what the used office equipment stores have in stock. An 8' long tabletop may be difficult to find. In the meantime I'll use what I have.

Follow up

There really isn't any specific action to take after this contest experience other than to proceed with my 2023 plan. It may sound as if I'm griping about many little things, yet this assessment is needed if I am to improve myself and the station.

Propagation makes up for many ills. A low tri-band yagi and wires would have performed very well indeed this past weekend. With my now large station I merely have an extra edge. The bigger obstacle to a competitive score is me. My station has grown to become better than its owner-operator! With a more skilled operator it is now possible to compete for the top spot in a contest.