This is my favorite contest. While my buddy Jon wasn't able to operate with me this year I still enjoyed it. Contesting with others is more fun however. I was single operator, all band, high power.
This contest is like playing poker with wild cards. Call sign prefixes are score multipliers, working another continent are worth 3 points on 20/15/10 and 6 points on 40/80.
Station was flawless. Our antenna switching and band pass filters switching are automated and our rotator controllers networked. We use Acom 2000A amplifiers. These are auto tune, tube amps. Rtty is a full duty cycle mode. Mine ran 30 hours (max hours a single op can operate) at 1,500 watts without a hiccup.
In general the bands were OK. K was 4 Saturday so a little noisy. Managed a few Qs on 10 meters. Low bands great Friday night. 40 and 80 awful on Saturday night
Highlights from the contest were loud signals from Japan, South Korea, Asiatic Russia. Even managed to work the United Arab Emirates on 80 meters. I concentrated on working multipliers and working EU, Asia, and SA on 40 and 80 meters (no RTTY contesting on 160 meters). This is how you maximize your score.
Anyway....good fun. If you like FT8 you will likely like RTTY. Requires some good technique finesse to be good at it.
C
This contest is like playing poker with wild cards. Call sign prefixes are score multipliers, working another continent are worth 3 points on 20/15/10 and 6 points on 40/80.
Station was flawless. Our antenna switching and band pass filters switching are automated and our rotator controllers networked. We use Acom 2000A amplifiers. These are auto tune, tube amps. Rtty is a full duty cycle mode. Mine ran 30 hours (max hours a single op can operate) at 1,500 watts without a hiccup.
In general the bands were OK. K was 4 Saturday so a little noisy. Managed a few Qs on 10 meters. Low bands great Friday night. 40 and 80 awful on Saturday night
Highlights from the contest were loud signals from Japan, South Korea, Asiatic Russia. Even managed to work the United Arab Emirates on 80 meters. I concentrated on working multipliers and working EU, Asia, and SA on 40 and 80 meters (no RTTY contesting on 160 meters). This is how you maximize your score.
Anyway....good fun. If you like FT8 you will likely like RTTY. Requires some good technique finesse to be good at it.
C
