ARRL RTTY Roundup 2010

During the weekend I was contesting in ARRL RTTY Roundup. Since I have just a wide SSB filter (the stock one) in my FT-897D and I can always hear only the very strong stations, I didn’t plan to make some very good result – I just wanted to make more than 100 QSOs.

I started at 1800Z on 7 MHz and during the first hour I made only 7 connections. After that it became a little better and until 2230Z I had 51 QSOs in my log – I know it’s not very good, but since my goal was 100 QSOs I was quite happy – especially because I had in my log also two U.S. stations (from PA and IL) and French special station TM6WRC (celebrating Sebastian Loeb’s and Daniel Elena’s 6th consecutive victory in World Rallye Championship)

After that I switched bands and went to 80 meters where I made 23 more QSOs before I went to bed at 2340Z.

On Sunday I began at 0700Z on 14 MHz and… (continues under the table)

DXCC entity 3.5 MHz 7 MHz 14 MHz 21 MHz 28 MHz All bands
United States of America 0 4 39 0 0 43
European Russia 0 6 21 0 0 27
Ukraine 6 7 13 0 0 26
Spain 1 3 8 0 0 12
Asiatic Russia 0 2 9 0 0 11
Fed. Rep. of Germany 5 3 0 0 0 8
Finland 0 5 3 0 0 8
Italy 1 6 1 0 0 8
Greece 0 2 3 0 0 5
Belarus 2 2 0 0 0 4
Czech Republic 4 0 0 0 0 4
France 1 3 0 0 0 4
Netherlands 0 4 0 0 0 4
Poland 4 0 0 0 0 4
England 1 2 0 0 0 3
Hungary 1 1 1 0 0 3
Latvia 1 2 0 0 0 3
Romania 2 0 1 0 0 3
Kazakhstan 0 1 1 0 0 2
Moldavia 0 1 1 0 0 2
Norway 1 1 0 0 0 2
Slovenia 1 1 0 0 0 2
Wales 1 1 0 0 0 2
Belgium 0 1 0 0 0 1
Bosnia-Herzegovinia 1 0 0 0 0 1
Bulgaria 0 1 0 0 0 1
Canada 0 0 1 0 0 1
Croatia 1 0 0 0 0 1
Iceland 0 0 1 0 0 1
Japan 0 0 1 0 0 1
Northern Ireland 0 0 1 0 0 1
Serbia 1 0 0 0 0 1
Sweden 0 1 0 0 0 1
Tunisia 0 0 1 0 0 1
UK Sov. Base Areas on Cyprus 0 0 1 0 0 1
West Malaysia 0 0 1 0 0 1

… and I was doing much better than on Saturday, my rate was 23 QSOs/hr during the first hour (most of contacted stations were Russian, just one of them was from Japan). At 0806Z I reached my goal for the contest, when I sent “599 100 100 100” to UW1M. Of course I didn’t call it a day and kept contesting… When I stopped for a few hours to take a lunch break, I had 127 QSOs in the log – the best QSO was the last one, with 9M2CNC (my first QSO to Western Malaysia).

I returned to my “HAM chair” in a good mood at 1215Z for what later turned out to be the best part of the contest for me. During the afternoon I worked mostly U.S. stations and not just from (for me usual) call areas nr. 1 and 3 but also from other parts of the USA. Till the sunset I worked stations from 24 states, 5 of them were new for me (Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota)! I also heard two Californian stations, but I was too weak and they couldn’t hear me.

After sunset at about 1630Z I took a break and after that make a few more QSOs on 40 metres. I ended at 1830Z with 203 QSOs in the contest log. (Summary is under the tables.)

U.S. state 3.5 MHz 7 MHz 14 MHz 21 MHz 28 MHz All bands
Virginia 0 0 5 0 0 5
New York 0 0 4 0 0 4
Pennsylvania 0 1 3 0 0 4
Massachusetts 0 0 3 0 0 3
Alabama 0 1 1 0 0 2
Florida 0 0 2 0 0 2
Illinois 0 1 1 0 0 2
Maryland 0 1 1 0 0 2
New Hampshire 0 0 2 0 0 2
North Carolina 0 0 2 0 0 2
Ohio 0 0 2 0 0 2
Texas 0 0 2 0 0 2
Arizona 0 0 1 0 0 1
Colorado 0 0 1 0 0 1
Connecticut 0 0 1 0 0 1
Iowa 0 0 1 0 0 1
Kansas 0 0 1 0 0 1
Minnesota 0 0 1 0 0 1
Missouri 0 0 1 0 0 1
New Jersey 0 0 1 0 0 1
South Dakota 0 0 1 0 0 1
Tennessee 0 0 1 0 0 1
Wisconsin 0 0 1 0 0 1
Canadian prov. 3.5 MHz 7 MHz 14 MHz 21 MHz 28 MHz All bands
Prince Edward’s Island 0 0 1 0 0 1

Summary: I made 203 QSOs from 34 DXCC countries and 24 states/provinces. Net operating time was nearly 13 hours and my claimed score is 11 744 points. It’s not a great score, but since this was my first bigger RTTY contest I’m quite happy with it. I enjoyed the Roundup very much, especially because I worked 1 new DXCC country (9M2) and 5 new states (AZ, CO, IA, KS and SD).

This entry was posted in Contesting, Ham Radio and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.