AmateurRadio.com

A busy time on 40m

This past weekend was the running of the ARRL International DX CW contest. If you are not a CW buff then there is also an ARRL International DX SSB contest March 5-6. These contests are great to log some very nice DX stations. I had a few interesting one-offs in this contest but more on that later. If you are a frequent reader of my blog you will know I have graduated from search and pounce contesting to holding my own and calling CQ contest or running as it's called. 

In this contest, DX stations are only allowed (to gain points) to contact stations in North America and likewise, North American stations can only contact DX stations. With this in mind, I knew that it would be interesting for me to be on the calling (running) CQ contest end of things. The contest is 48 hours in length and as always I have high hopes of getting into the action at the start, Friday at 8 pm. Well as always it's Friday and I just want to relax and take it easy. So as always I started Saturday morning and I was not disappointed the bands were very very busy with DX. 

Before beginning the contest I opened up my go-to CW practice program G4FON contest trainer. I find it to be very helpful to get my ears warmed to fast speed CW before going live! I spent about 15 minutes with G4FON and then it was off to the races. I started out sending CQ CONTEST at 31 WPM but found most stations coming back to me came back at around 24-30 WPM. I then slowed things down a bit as I don't want to be sent at speeds where no one wants to answer me.

 Saturday morning and afternoon went well and here is one of those "one-offs" I was mentioning earlier. On Saturday EA3OH spotted me on a cluster....all of a sudden all hell broke loose!! I called CQ CONTEST DE VE9KK and 10-15 stations (most all at once) were calling me. I had NEVER had this happen and I can understand what rare DX stations go through. If this was not a contest I would have worked split but as they say, it's not a perfect world. Once the first 3 seconds of what I called a CW mess finished then one of two stations would toss out their call. This would allow me to work with them and I continued to work this way. Sometimes a few stations waited and I could only get 2 or 3 letters of their call. I would send out those letters followed by ?. This worked very well but I assumed some stations just moved on and came back later. 

I was spotted about 4 different times and to be honest I felt overwhelmed and I started at times to make silly mistakes. Hitting incorrect keys so wrong call letters were sent, not hitting a correct key on my contest program so instead of my exchange being sent I sent TU (thank you). I could just imagine the look on the face of the station I was contacting. At one point I called Julie my wife into the room and with headphones removed I gave her a listen of the "pack. 

When I was spotted my hourly worked station count went to around 80-90 per hour. To be honest, those times were exhausting and at times my nerves got the best of me. I now fully understand one of the "how to's" to trying to work a popular station. Don't drop your call as soon as the station signs their call. He will only hear what I did....a CW mess. Wait until things clear, about 3 or so seconds and then drop your call in. This was how I heard stations calls or part of the calls. 

Here in New Brunswick, our COVID restrictions had just been lifted to the least restrictive level. This meant going to a restaurant was almost back to normal. Julie wanted to celebrate by us going out for dinner. That gave me a nice break from the contest BUT it's time for another "one-off". Once we arrived home from our dinner out almost right away I started to feel ill. YUP bad food from the restaurant, I was sick all Saturday night and Sunday until late afternoon. This cut into my contest time and evening in the afternoon while on the radio I was not feeling the greatest. 

Since we are on the subject of "one-offs" here we go again. I was on 40m (7.027) early Sunday evening and a station came back to me but it was not your standard exchange. I heard "PSE QSY UR ON CHAN 816 PSE QSY TU" I thought WHAT....so I sent "? ?" and the same message was sent. No worries I sent "SRI" and two short DIT's. After the contest, I did some online searches and came up with nothing. Does anyone know what this op was talking about I would be interested to know?

The final score

Because this was a contest with emphasis on DX I was pleased to have made some nice DX contacts such as: 

- Turkmenistan is number 23 on the DXCC list

- Congo 

- Japan 

- South Cook island 

- Liberia 

There is a nice piece of software that takes your ADIF file and shows you many visual options adventure radio.

Below is just one option the program gives you to view your ADIF file. All the contacts I made in the contest.

I find this more of a relaxed contest compared to the international contests. Most of the time, CW speeds were a bit slower. When someone you know makes contact, there is time to say thanks and 73. Speaking of someone you know, I had the pleasure of John AE5X a blogger I follow contact me, and we had the opportunity to send pleasantries to each other. Thanks for the contact John. 

I found there was the early contest jitters, but I did settle in a bit sooner  compared to the other contest. One take away was to NEVER try drinking coffee while calling CQ! Thought I had this calling CQ thing down, I decided to have a drink of coffee as the PC was belting out RAC DE VE9KK. While in mid-sip of coffee, the radio went to receive and a nice multiplier station was coming back to me! In a rush to put the coffee down my elbow was banged, coffee all over the keyboard and multi station gone! 

Overall, a great time was had. 

I find this more of a relaxed contest compared to the international contests. Most of the time, CW speeds were a bit slower. When someone you know makes contact, there is time to say thanks and 73. Speaking of someone you know, I had the pleasure of John AE5X a blogger I follow contact me, and we had the opportunity to send pleasantries to each other. Thanks for the contact John. 

I found there was the early contest jitters, but I did settle in a bit sooner  compared to the other contest. One take away was to NEVER try drinking coffee while calling CQ! Thought I had this calling CQ thing down, I decided to have a drink of coffee as the PC was belting out RAC DE VE9KK. While in mid-sip of coffee, the radio went to receive and a nice multiplier station was coming back to me! In a rush to put the coffee down my elbow was banged, coffee all over the keyboard and multi station gone! 

Overall, a great time was had. 

She looked at my school timetable and the available classes for my so-called spare period. She found a class that fit right into the spare period time slot..........TYPING.....yup that's right typing! With my mom it's not a suggestion.....it's "your taking typing, and you will end up thanking me for it one day" I went to school in the '70s, and you know how many guys were in typing class.........ME! 

In I went and well there was a positive note and that is it was a great place to meet girls anyway I digress.  The first thing I noticed was you can't look at the keyboard to find the letters as there were no letters to be found, the keyboard was blank. To make a long story short I learned about something called home row and I can still hear the teacher calling out "AAA   BBB    EEE" and so on. I have to admit that yes, mom knows best, and I took 2 semesters of typing class. It made my university years way easier for term papers and so on. 

Fast forward to now......getting a blog post together runs along very smoothly, BUT who would have thunk that my CW contest would benefit as well? I found that when I was running in a CW contest, having the ability to not look down at the keyboard was a bonus. I can hear the calls or exchange and just look at the PC screen and enter the information. 

Here is the catch........ I can type, and my speed is ok for blogging, but typing a call sign and then an exchange at 25-34 WPM takes practice. In the past I felt keyboard was a  keyboard right ?? Well, I found over time, frustration and trial and error that all keyboards for contesting anyway are not alike. 

When practicing with this keyboard for CW contest call sign copying at slower speeds it was good but up around 25 WPM, I found myself hitting two keys at once a lot. At 25 WPM when this happens you lose track of the next letters coming at you, and it can get frustrating.  The Logitech keyboard is not going to cut it. 

I have heard it said that most times the solution is right under your nose, and you just can't see it. This was the case with the perfect keyboard. My wife was working from home during the height of the pandemic, and for some time that has not been the case. Her company PC has sat ideal at home for some time now along with a KEYBOARD! It was a full size keyboard, much different from my other go-to keyboards, but I thought I would give it a go. This keyboard is a Lenovo Pro 2 and when she requires it again I have already scoped them out online. I am thinking I will purchase one as a New Years gift for myself. 

I have been using it for about 2 weeks now, and it's amazing, the keys are the right height and key sensitivity is spot on as well. Not only that, but I am having no issues copying calls and exchanges around 33-35 wpm.  So no, a keyboard is a keyboard is not true. I found that it's a personal thing and once you get the right keyboard for you, it sure can make a differance ....in contesting anyway. 

She looked at my school timetable and the available classes for my so-called spare period. She found a class that fit right into the spare period time slot..........TYPING.....yup that's right typing! With my mom it's not a suggestion.....it's "your taking typing, and you will end up thanking me for it one day" I went to school in the '70s, and you know how many guys were in typing class.........ME! 

In I went and well there was a positive note and that is it was a great place to meet girls anyway I digress.  The first thing I noticed was you can't look at the keyboard to find the letters as there were no letters to be found, the keyboard was blank. To make a long story short I learned about something called home row and I can still hear the teacher calling out "AAA   BBB    EEE" and so on. I have to admit that yes, mom knows best, and I took 2 semesters of typing class. It made my university years way easier for term papers and so on. 

Fast forward to now......getting a blog post together runs along very smoothly, BUT who would have thunk that my CW contest would benefit as well? I found that when I was running in a CW contest, having the ability to not look down at the keyboard was a bonus. I can hear the calls or exchange and just look at the PC screen and enter the information. 

Here is the catch........ I can type, and my speed is ok for blogging, but typing a call sign and then an exchange at 25-34 WPM takes practice. In the past I felt keyboard was a  keyboard right ?? Well, I found over time, frustration and trial and error that all keyboards for contesting anyway are not alike. 

When practicing with this keyboard for CW contest call sign copying at slower speeds it was good but up around 25 WPM, I found myself hitting two keys at once a lot. At 25 WPM when this happens you lose track of the next letters coming at you, and it can get frustrating.  The Logitech keyboard is not going to cut it. 

I have heard it said that most times the solution is right under your nose, and you just can't see it. This was the case with the perfect keyboard. My wife was working from home during the height of the pandemic, and for some time that has not been the case. Her company PC has sat ideal at home for some time now along with a KEYBOARD! It was a full size keyboard, much different from my other go-to keyboards, but I thought I would give it a go. This keyboard is a Lenovo Pro 2 and when she requires it again I have already scoped them out online. I am thinking I will purchase one as a New Years gift for myself. 

I have been using it for about 2 weeks now, and it's amazing, the keys are the right height and key sensitivity is spot on as well. Not only that, but I am having no issues copying calls and exchanges around 33-35 wpm.  So no, a keyboard is a keyboard is not true. I found that it's a personal thing and once you get the right keyboard for you, it sure can make a differance ....in contesting anyway. 

The hills are alive with the sound of music....well you get the idea.

For those of you who are not into CW contesting when you are running (for me anyway) it's a big deal, and you have to  be on your CW game. You send out your call sign (for me at 26-28wpm) and wait for the grease to hit the fan and at times it did!  Below is how it feels to be a first-time CW running contester. 

Before I begin with the adventure, just a little background. They say that preparation is the key, and that I worked on. Over time, getting my code speed up to copy around 30wpm.  Every day I practiced with programs such as Morse Runner and RufzXP.  These are both free programs and  excellent tools. I also downloaded the CWops intermediate CW course and worked through that each day.  I worked on my keyboard skills, so I am now able to copy calls without looking at the keyboard. This allowed me to concentrate on the contest program. 

Well here we go......first thing that occurred to me was a contest simulator and the real deal is very different! I was not sending code to a computer program but a real person, it's a hobby and all, but I was very nervous about the whole thing.  Out the code went, "TEST VE9KK VE9KK" I did this about 3 times and then a station came back to me........it didn't turn out as planned. 

I heard the code but my N1MM+ contest software was just met with my blank stare.  I heard the call again, and this time it was a full out fumbling act between reading the call and keyboard stumbling. Eventually the op just moved on to another running station.  Well, that was a bell ringer for sure! I took a deep breath and tried again, and this time it was worse. The next station came back to me in around 35 wpm, and I was clueless. This time I did not even attempt to answer them, they gave their call a few times and moved on. 

I decided it was time to go back to search and pounce and that contest running at this stage in the game was not for me. I took a little break from the contest with a walk, and once I got back to the operating desk, I began to search and pounce. After making a few contacts it occurred to me that  this was the first time I tried running in a contest and for sure there are going to be hiccups. Heck after all I just did not grab my first bike and started riding it, I had training wheels..........wait a minute training wheels! 

I took a deep breath and set my N1MM+ contest program back to running but this time I opened up a program called MRP40  an excellent code reading program. Now just wait a minute, I am not giving up and relying on a code reader......it's my training wheels and will be used when needed.  Well off I went again......"TEST VE9KK VE9KK" 

The contest is now in the history books and I did keep running throughout the contest except when I did some search and pounce for needed multiplies for a better score.  Midway through the contest, I started to loosen up and began to get the hang of things. Sure, I had op's get frustrated when I messed up their call and when I asked for repeats, some just moved on. 

-The obvious one being, running for basically the entire contest. 

- Being spotted in the cluster and BOOM I'm not trying to work a pileup, I am the pile up. They were not huge pileups and did not last for long but exciting nonetheless. 

- Having the time fly compared to search and pounce where the time went slowly. 

- My highest number of contacts ever in a contest of 412 and my best score as well of  113,775.

- Depending less and less on MRP40's decodes. 

Some funny moments: 

- With N1MM+ you are able to program macros to send preprogrammed messages.  It's when my fingers press the wrong key and send thanks for the contact before the was made! 

- Finding out the hard way that the code reader is not always correct.  I copied a call in my head and then glanced at the code reader, I may have messed up on a letter. So I change it and low and behold my head was correct and MRP40 was wrong. 

- This has happened more than a few time......forgetting to change N1MM+ from search and pounce to run and send out the incorrect message. 

- Finding myself answering one call after another and sounding  to others that I have really pulled this off to only then totally screw up the next few callers.....the way the contest can humble me.

Finally, I want to apologize to those of you with whom I messed up your call or made your contact with me a bit painful. Then those who just gave up and moved on I hope next time things will be better.  

The hills are alive with the sound of music....well you get the idea.

For those of you who are not into CW contesting when you are running (for me anyway) it's a big deal, and you have to  be on your CW game. You send out your call sign (for me at 26-28wpm) and wait for the grease to hit the fan and at times it did!  Below is how it feels to be a first-time CW running contester. 

Before I begin with the adventure, just a little background. They say that preparation is the key, and that I worked on. Over time, getting my code speed up to copy around 30wpm.  Every day I practiced with programs such as Morse Runner and RufzXP.  These are both free programs and  excellent tools. I also downloaded the CWops intermediate CW course and worked through that each day.  I worked on my keyboard skills, so I am now able to copy calls without looking at the keyboard. This allowed me to concentrate on the contest program. 

Well here we go......first thing that occurred to me was a contest simulator and the real deal is very different! I was not sending code to a computer program but a real person, it's a hobby and all, but I was very nervous about the whole thing.  Out the code went, "TEST VE9KK VE9KK" I did this about 3 times and then a station came back to me........it didn't turn out as planned. 

I heard the code but my N1MM+ contest software was just met with my blank stare.  I heard the call again, and this time it was a full out fumbling act between reading the call and keyboard stumbling. Eventually the op just moved on to another running station.  Well, that was a bell ringer for sure! I took a deep breath and tried again, and this time it was worse. The next station came back to me in around 35 wpm, and I was clueless. This time I did not even attempt to answer them, they gave their call a few times and moved on. 

I decided it was time to go back to search and pounce and that contest running at this stage in the game was not for me. I took a little break from the contest with a walk, and once I got back to the operating desk, I began to search and pounce. After making a few contacts it occurred to me that  this was the first time I tried running in a contest and for sure there are going to be hiccups. Heck after all I just did not grab my first bike and started riding it, I had training wheels..........wait a minute training wheels! 

I took a deep breath and set my N1MM+ contest program back to running but this time I opened up a program called MRP40  an excellent code reading program. Now just wait a minute, I am not giving up and relying on a code reader......it's my training wheels and will be used when needed.  Well off I went again......"TEST VE9KK VE9KK" 

The contest is now in the history books and I did keep running throughout the contest except when I did some search and pounce for needed multiplies for a better score.  Midway through the contest, I started to loosen up and began to get the hang of things. Sure, I had op's get frustrated when I messed up their call and when I asked for repeats, some just moved on. 

-The obvious one being, running for basically the entire contest. 

- Being spotted in the cluster and BOOM I'm not trying to work a pileup, I am the pile up. They were not huge pileups and did not last for long but exciting nonetheless. 

- Having the time fly compared to search and pounce where the time went slowly. 

- My highest number of contacts ever in a contest of 412 and my best score as well of  113,775.

- Depending less and less on MRP40's decodes. 

Some funny moments: 

- With N1MM+ you are able to program macros to send preprogrammed messages.  It's when my fingers press the wrong key and send thanks for the contact before the was made! 

- Finding out the hard way that the code reader is not always correct.  I copied a call in my head and then glanced at the code reader, I may have messed up on a letter. So I change it and low and behold my head was correct and MRP40 was wrong. 

- This has happened more than a few time......forgetting to change N1MM+ from search and pounce to run and send out the incorrect message. 

- Finding myself answering one call after another and sounding  to others that I have really pulled this off to only then totally screw up the next few callers.....the way the contest can humble me.

Finally, I want to apologize to those of you with whom I messed up your call or made your contact with me a bit painful. Then those who just gave up and moved on I hope next time things will be better.