2021 CQ WPX RTTY Contest AK1W

                CQ WPX RTTY Contest - 2021
 Call: AK1W
 Operator(s): K5ZD
 Station: AK1W
 Class: SOAB HP
 Operating Time (hrs): 30
 Radios: SO2R
 Summary:
   Band  QSOs
    80:   479
    40:   878
    20:  1137
    15:   257
    10:     0
 Total:  2751  Prefixes = 975  Total Score = 8,171,475

 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

I was looking forward to this contest, but had not planned on doing a full effort.  Friday night was fun and I went to be when it stopped being fun. Didn’t set my alarm, but work up around 1115z so decided to get back on.  Bands sounded terrible until I got to 20m around 1145z (my sunrise).  Band was already hopping.

Some time later 15m opened to Europe and I was able to do some dual CQing.  Was watching the scoreboard and was keeping up with the big dogs.  Was even ahead of AA3B, which provided some motivation.

I didn’t see how I was ever going to get 36 hours of operation, so didn’t pay much attention to off times.

40m opened to Europe very early with good signals.  Managed to get a few JA QSOs on 20 after dark.  The band seemed to close to Japan and then open again. Always good multipliers to be had.

When I laid down to take a nap Saturday evening, I vaguely remembered that WPX RTTY still uses the 30 hour limit for single ops.  Uh oh! I got up and checked the rules.  That changed things because I already had 20 hours of operating time in the log and still 20 hours of the contest to go.

I decided to start a bit later and do what I could with Europe on Sunday morning.  Bands were not as good.  15m didn’t really open so it was all 20 meters.  The band was packed.  I lost my frequency when I chased some mults and struggled to get a new one.  That was a bad hour and I could see AA3B chasing me down.

It was weird to have to take most of Sunday as off time.  I went out for a 4 mile run, had lunch, watched some TV.  Came back one at 2200z to do my last 90 minutes.  I was late to 40m and could not get a good frequency.  Rates were not good.  Then I saw AA3B pass me with 90 minutes left in the contest.  It looks like his extra time spent on 40m paid off.

Congratulations to Bud AA3B on the win.  He did a great job.  It was a very exciting contest to have such close competition the whole way through. Especially with the variations in off time strategy making the distance between scores ebb and flow. I probably would have quit if not for the race on the live scoreboard keeping me engaged!

This was a new personal best for me in this contest. RTTY operating practices keep improving.  I can’t wait until with the higher bands open!

I used WriteLog as my logging software.  2Tone as the primary decoder and MMTTY as the clone was a great combo.  Amazing how often one would decode perfectly and the other had nothing but garbage. This was my first real contest using dual decoders and it paid big dividends.  Also nice when both decoders copied the same thing so had a higher confidence it was right.  Even so, I expect a few busted calls and numbers when the log checking gets done.

Station

K3 + AL-1200
K3 + AL-1500
 160m: 1/4-wave GP, shunt fed tower
  80m: 4 square, dipole
  40m: 40-2CD @110′
  20m: 205CA @100′
  15m: 155ca @66′
  10m: 6-ele @90′
  TH7DXX @ 40′
 WriteLog software, MK2R+ SO2R box 

Rates:

QSO/Pref by hour and band

Hour      80M     40M     20M     15M     10M    Total     Cumm    OffTime
D1-0000Z  32/28   43/41   --+--   --+--   --+--   75/69     75/69  
D1-0100Z  56/38   66/51     -       -       -    122/89    197/158 
D1-0200Z  64/32   46/33     -       -       -    110/65    307/223 
D1-0300Z  66/32   37/24     -       -       -    103/56    410/279 
D1-0400Z  42/21   58/27     -       -       -    100/48    510/327 
D1-0500Z  49/24   55/33     -       -       -    104/57    614/384 
D1-0600Z  40/14   37/19     -       -       -     77/33    691/417 
D1-0700Z   7/2     3/2      -       -       -     10/4     701/421    51
D1-0800Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--    0/0     701/421    60
D1-0900Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     701/421    60
D1-1000Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0     701/421    60
D1-1100Z   7/5    14/4    22/13     -       -     43/22    744/443    20
D1-1200Z    -     29/7    92/39     -       -    121/46    865/489 
D1-1300Z    -     28/10   79/25   12/4      -    119/39    984/528 
D1-1400Z    -       -     76/17   68/16     -    144/33   1128/561 
D1-1500Z    -       -     78/23   59/9      -    137/32   1265/593 
D1-1600Z  --+--   --+--   77/14   38/10   --+--  115/24   1380/617 
D1-1700Z    -       -     70/27   15/7      -     85/34   1465/651 
D1-1800Z    -       -     53/12   15/5      -     68/17   1533/668     2
D1-1900Z    -       -      5/4      -       -      5/4    1538/672    60
D1-2000Z    -     22/5    41/6    28/8      -     91/19   1629/691 
D1-2100Z    -     72/10   23/6      -       -     95/16   1724/707 
D1-2200Z    -     43/8    41/19     -       -     84/27   1808/734 
D1-2300Z    -     44/6    51/15     -       -     95/21   1903/755 
D2-0000Z  14/3    41/8    29/7    --+--   --+--   84/18   1987/773 
D2-0100Z   8/1     8/1      -       -       -     16/2    2003/775    43
D2-0200Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2003/775    60
D2-0300Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2003/775    60
D2-0400Z  27/4    43/11     -       -       -     70/15   2073/790     8
D2-0500Z  42/6    42/10     -       -       -     84/16   2157/806 
D2-0600Z  11/3    41/7      -       -       -     52/10   2209/816    14
D2-0700Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2209/816    60
D2-0800Z  --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--   --+--    0/0    2209/816    60
D2-0900Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2209/816    60
D2-1000Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2209/816    60
D2-1100Z    -      6/4    15/6      -       -     21/10   2230/826    48
D2-1200Z    -     16/2    70/27     -       -     86/29   2316/855 
D2-1300Z    -      3/1    70/29     -       -     73/30   2389/885 
D2-1400Z    -      8/2    53/16    4/2      -     65/20   2454/905 
D2-1500Z    -     13/4    38/9     6/3      -     57/16   2511/921 
D2-1600Z  --+--    1/1    71/15    9/3    --+--   81/19   2592/940 
D2-1700Z    -      1/0    19/4     1/0      -     21/4    2613/944    41
D2-1800Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2613/944    60
D2-1900Z    -       -       -       -       -      0/0    2613/944    60
D2-2000Z    -      8/0    18/7     2/1      -     28/8    2641/952    40
D2-2100Z    -      3/3      -       -       -      3/3    2644/955    56
D2-2200Z   1/1    23/4    36/7      -       -     60/12   2704/967     9
D2-2300Z  13/0    24/5    10/3      -       -     47/8    2751/975    25
 
Total:  479/214 878/343 1137/350 257/68    0/0