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N1MM Contest Logger Section Analysis

N1MM Contest Logger Rate Per Hour Analysis

N1MM Contest Logger Country Prefix Analysis

Good afternoon from the #hamr shackadelic zone while Radio Dawg is waiting for her walking work out! Admittedly, my lower back pain is definitely associated with the lack of stretching, and yoga is my answer. I started walking breaks after long periods in the chair and it looks like stretching is a good prescription as well.

My above screens shots detail Q production from the effects of 10m propagation over the course of 20 hours. Also, after watching the news last night, I’m curious if mid-western storm systems, contributed to the radio blackout for this region? Heat. Snow. Rain. Tornadoes.

On the other hand, Florida 41 Qs, Ohio 31 Qs, and North Carolina 28 Qs, with South America stacking up like this — Lima Uniforms (Argentina) 32 Qs, Papa Yankees (Brazil) 19 Qs, Charlie Echoes (Chile) 7 Qs between two operating modes.

Ten meter propagation favored southerly latitudes perhaps related to either a positive or negative Bz with a relatively poor sunspot showing as well? There wasn’t enough ionospheric ionization to open northern latitude paths because of diminished sunspot numbers on the visible disc.

When paths were stable my rate(s) spiked — 61 Qs at 1500UTC (shortly after sunrise to East coast); 51 Qs at 1900UTC on Saturday (sun beginning descent suggesting enhancement effect); and 54 Qs at 1900UTC on Sunday much like Saturday.

I’m noting 8 Qs at 2000UTC on Saturday and 10 Qs at 2000UTC on Sunday suggesting significant path decay after 1900UTC peaks.

Is Cycle 24 peaking? Has Cycle 24 peaked?

73 from the shackadelic near the beach. 

“Club Log represents a unique innovation that has quickly become established in the culture of our hobby. By providing free access to features such as leagues, online QSL requests and expedition management tools, Club Log has expanded the state of the art of DXing and has grown quickly as a result. The Foundation’s grant to Club Log gives the team the means to install backup servers and keep this precious resource online for everyone to enjoy into the future. We look forward to seeing more innovations from the Club Log team.”

Rusty, W6OAT, the Yasme Foundation

However, when LoTW either crashes or delays processing for more than a day, then, what about the viability and resilience of traditional QSL cards?

There will be something to be said about an analog backup when chasing coveted awards like DXCC, 5BDXCC, or WPX first five hundred.

Think about analog?

Logbook of The World Web Page Now Features Daily and Hourly Status Updates: The ARRL has created a new informational page to issue daily status updates and information of interest to the Logbook of The World (LoTW) user community. These updates will include planned downtime and changes that will impact LoTW operations. In addition, LoTW’s processing queue is now updated hourly, telling how many logs and QSOs have been uploaded to the LoTW system and are awaiting processing. New hardware that will improve LoTW’s throughput is on order and is expected to be running in six to eight weeks. 

Rick Murphy, K1MU, and Dave Bernstein, AA6YQ, have been charged with rebooting the Trusted QSL open source project. If you have demonstrably strong C++ development skills that you’re interested in applying toward improving LoTW’s usability and efficiency, please contact Bernstein via e-mail…

My take on 63 Degrees of Propagation: The 2012 ARRL 10 Meter Contest – Like Eggnog: In the end, I made well under half of the contacts I did last year. I’m certain I did not work anything new to me this weekend but I was sure hoping. Running low power, I sure had plenty of stations CQ’n in my face but that’s all part of the challenge when the bands are tough. But a bad day of contesting is still better than a great day in the office!

Contest on, Brother!

2012 ARRL 10 Meter Mixed Mode Results

Good morning from the #hamr shackadelic zone where I’m listening to Hans Zimmer score from The Dark Knight film. If any one composer can establish a mood for writing then Zimmer’s passionate heroic tracks gets my, “Roger, that.”

RadioSport Pain
Sometimes, RadioSport is a game of pain, when hours seem to punish my lower back, muscles stiffen, and my brain rings from automated CQs generated by N1MM Contest Logger. Meanwhile sunny skies beckoned and I wondered if the challenge is worth my time? This weekend was remarkable because I experienced propagation vagaries especially skewed path toward South America, radio black outs, and long path out of no where.

Friday Night
Friday night was a radio frequency adventure because Australia and New Zealand started populating my log as SL’s five element beam pointed 75 degrees toward the East coast of the United States. Likewise, Japan and China are in sun light however not a signal heard inside the cans. This was the start of strange propagation where I did not beam energy in otherwise normal directions.

Am I logging Victor Kilowatts and Zulu Limas via long path? Where is Japan and China? I have not heard a single Yankee Bravo either? Fascinating.

Waterfall
I paid attention to the position of the sun in the southern hemisphere. It was like a gargantuan magnetic pulling electromagnetic waves over the equator. The rush of energy probably surprised many Papa Yankees, Lima Uniforms, Charlie Whiskeys, Hotel Kilowatts, and Charlie X-rays. My situation was a midwest-to-easterly radio blackout throughout Saturday with zero signals radiating out of the Caribbean basin and vapor out of Europe.

I’m thinking this is remarkable because my normal strategy does not apply.

Es
South American stations carried my log all day Saturday after a brief opening to the East coast shortly before West coast noon. In contrast, perhaps, an E cloud of significant size focused my signal toward the south eastern section of the United States specifically Georgia and Florida. I realized six straight Georgian stations and seven Floridian stations in the log within an hour after sunrise.

The record for consecutive state Qs goes to Florida. Amazing! In contrast, I logged only one 0-land station from Colorado during my 20 hours of operation. It was complete radio silence from the heartland including Texas.

South America Roars
Perhaps mid-western latitude and longitude significantly impacted by the lack of ionospheric ionization created a skip zone between both coasts? Wireless skip did not approach a latitude of 60 degrees or greater throughout Saturday at least from the central coast of California. Additionally, I pointed SL’s 5 elements at 310 degrees in the afternoon instead of 110 degrees or greater and South America roared inside my cans. Skew path is fascinating.

I was grateful that so many in South America kept the game in the game for North America especially for this operator on the central coast of California!

It is evident that the go-to mode this weekend was definitely Morse code. I could not establish any ionospheric traction using single side band and calling human generated CQs was punishing enough. Instead, with less ionospheric absorption soaking up energy, I focused on the code. My hours matched the rush of shooting Class V white water with peaks at 4 Qs per minute or 1 Q every 15 seconds.

In Sum
Yes, as painful as a RadioSport weekend can be this was one, however; let’s not overlook the lemonade from lemons. It was strange propagation that made 20 hours in the pilot’s seat a learning experience. The reward was knowledge gained from practice, practice, practice.

Contest on!       

Just returned from West Africa Toivo. Your approach works there as well. The only difference was, I had to ID every 6 or 7 QSO when pileup was really heavy. There are other methods of pileup management such as turning output power down, increase CW speed and split as the last resort. But most important the operator should be able to sustain rate of 200 + QSO per hour. If DX op is slow it irritates everybody…
Igor UA9CDC

Also on pileup management – turn the IF SHIFT or PBT control on your rig on top of the pile way off to the side of the BW filter. Once you have an effective filter BW of something close to zero you’ll hear one or two stations at a time even if the pileup is at blizzard level and don’t have to resort to the RIT. I’ve employed this many times, including last weekend’s CQ WW CW @PJ4D. 
73 Scott Robbins W4PA