ARRL DX CW 2010

On February 22, 2010, in Amateur Radio, by TF4M

The weekend of February 20-21 will be a busy one for CW operators as the 2010 ARRL DX CW Contest takes center stage. First started in 1927 as the ARRL International Relay Party, the ARRL DX CW contest lays claim to the longest running contest in Amateur Radio. Stations from all around the world — from Australia to Zimbabwe — should be active for this great event that takes place on 160-10 meters (contest QSOs are not permitted on 60, 30, 17 or 12 meters).

Stations in the US and Canada work only DX stations — Alaska and Hawaii are considered DX for this contest — and DX stations only work the US and Canada. DX stations will be trying to make QSOs with all US states and Canadian provinces as they can. The contest exchange is simple: US and Canadian stations send a signal report and their state or province, while DX stations send a signal report and the amount of power they are transmitting with.

I operated in the Single Operator, Single Band 160 meters (SOSB/160) category and I made 376 contacts with 56 States/Provinces for a total score of 63,000 points.

Conditions were poor, as the 160m band has not recovered from the massive Aurora a few days earlier.

Despite the poor conditions all US States except South Dakota and Idaho were worked.

I used my K3 in diversity mode with the USA rhombic feeding one receiver and two phased Beverage antennas 400 meter long in the other receiver.

Most stations worked were very low signal levels, at the same time stations in EU were pounding in at times with the usual Key Clicks.

The K3 handles these conditions well and although hard, working the contest was a pleasure.

The high points of the contest was being called by VK6GX (Australia) and OA4TT (Chile) for a quick exchange of reports.

My score is higher than last year´s top EU score (ON4UN – 61,548 points) by a small margin, so I feel that I did well despite the tough conditions – the score is most certainly a TF record.

It is possible to follow the scores on the DXWatch web site – SOSB/160 World – SOSB/160 EU.

I recorded the entire contest and you may listen to your QSO with me.

The Arctic King Rocks!

On February 2, 2010, in Amateur Radio, by TF4M

CQ 160 Contest – TF4X #2 in Europe, #6 World !

Yuri, K3BU operated TF4X in the CQ WW 160 meter contest in the Single Operator High Power category.

A solar flare about a week before the contest started caused worry that conditions would be poor. The band seemed to have recovered nicely, but the Aurora Index stayed high during most of the contest and it became clear that conditions were disturbed.

Iceland is greatly affected by any Auroral disturbance, much more so than neighboring countries and Yuri observed, for example, that my Great Beverage antennas showed almost no directivity during the contest. I know for a fact that they work very well, but during the weekend it seemed that signals appeared to come from all directions simultaneously. I understand this may be due to a high arrival angle during disturbed conditions.

Some juicy DX was worked, two KH6 stations for example, it is only recently that the historic first QSO with KH6 was made from my station – this is quite remarkable considering the disturbed conditions.

The raw score is as follows:

1643 QSOs

51 States/Provinces

80 Countries

Total Score = 1,317,729

At present TF4X has the second highest reported score in Europe and is #6 worldwide. This may of course change as and/or when other stations report their scores, but it is incredibly satisfying to see all my hard work being justified with such superior results.

It was quite illuminating to observe such an experienced operator running my station – at times I feared that my amplifier would literally melt, but it performed to my full satisfaction and there were no equipment/antenna issues whatsoever during the contest.

Yuri wrote in his comment to the 3830 Reflector:

Last minute adventure to the Aurora zone, taking up Thor’s invite.
Being rusty from dormant period, problems with equipment setup,
drivers, but got ready for the start.
Stories about Aurora wipeouts made it a big if.
Thanks to Thor and his magnificent station it ended up being fun and decent
score, even if coming short of beating the Eu record.
The background noise is probably the lowest in the world allowing to
hear lot more of the juicy stuff than working it.
Thanks for wonderful hospitality and station from Thor, TF4M and all the QSOs
and points. Lot of dirty clixing signals and rude behaviour by “CQ pirates”.
Will have more later.

Yuri, TF/K3BU

I used my PERSEUS SDR receiver to record the entire contest 1800-1900kHz. The recording obviously contains the entire contest effort of TF4X and in addition it contains the contest effort of everyone else heard at my location.

This consumes two hundred GB of data, please contact me if you are interested in specific time periods.

A new chapter in the History of Amateur Radio has been written.

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Tagged with: 160M • antennas • Aurora • Beverage • contesting • CW • DX • TF4X • The King

CQ WW 160 – TF4X

On January 17, 2010, in Amateur Radio, by TF4M

Siggi, TF3CW was going to activate TF4X in the CQ WW 160 meter contest, but unforeseen circumstances caused him to cancel.

Yuri, K3BU, has stepped in and will operate the station in the Single Operator High Power category.

I sincerely hope that there will be no sun spots and no Aurora.

This may be the last chance in our life time to enjoy these fantastic conditions on Top Band.

I also hope the activity will reflect this – it would be so very cool if Yuri was able to work All 40 Zones in the contest !

It is interesting to note that I have followed the Tesla Radio Club project for years and several times I have been on the verge of writing to Yuri to invite him to my station !

Tagged with: 160M • contesting • CW • TF4X • The King • The Shack

Ears of Steel

On December 27, 2009, in Amateur Radio, by TF4M

I operated for 14 hours in the Stew Perry Distance Challenge and made around 400 contacts.

Conditions were poor with some Auroral activity. Despite the poor conditions, I made a few juicy DX contacts, notably CE1/K7CA for a new country and Zone 12, VK6DXI for the longest distance worked – 15.800km, and KH6LC in Hawaii.

Several QSOs were made with Japan, but the US was noticeably absent. Only a handful of US stations were worked, despite conditions allowing contacts to be made to the West Coast.

All QSOs may be listened to on the Online Audio page.

I observe with dismay, the low quality signals that descend on 160 meters during contest weekends. Key Clicks are rampant and several stations made it hard to operate near them due to their dirty transmitters.

Generally it is a pleasure to operate on 160 meters and I may have to reconsider my contest participation, as this is simply not enjoyable.

I am using a Yaesu FT1000MP MK V with key click modifications in place and the radio is fitted with an INRAD roofing filter and a 200Hz CW filter in the 455kHz IF cascaded with the stock 250 Hz filter in the 8MHz IF.

I receive with an array of 8 Beverage antennas, coupled through a K9AY preamplifier with excellent overload characteristics.

I used a very nice feature of the Win-Test contest logging software that is called Targets Tracking which enables real time comparison of last years rates compared with the current rates on an hourly basis.

Tagged with: 160M • audio • Beverage • contesting • CW • The King

CQ WorldWide DX Contest 2009 – CW

On November 30, 2009, in Amateur Radio, by TF4M

2009 CQWW CW Contest: 0000 UTC, November 28 through 2359 UTC, November 29.

Three operators arrived from Reykjavik to operate the contest. Yngvi – TF3Y, Kiddi – TF3KX and Oddur – TF3OO along with a Gourmet Chef who had planned the feast for weeks.

Conditions were rather poor, not a single sun spot during the weekend made conditions on HF rather poor and in addition there was some Auroral activity affecting the lower bands.

Despite this 4525 contacts were made in 48 hours of operation.

You may listen to the activity from TF4X:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The menu was fantastic. On Friday we had Tom Ka soup with Halibut followed by real-Vanilla ice cream and cake, on Saturday the menu was pigeon breast, Elk meat with carrots boiled in orange juice and Sunday we had icelandic mountain lamb fille, with baby tomatoes braised in olive oil and maple syrup garnished with fresh Timian.

The Arctic King awed us with the performance – 1270 QSOs were made on Top Band and was only matched by 20M where 1306 QSOs were made using an array of Rhombic antennas.

We used Win-Test contest logging software which performed flawlessly on 5 computers during the entire contest.

We used a feature of the software called Targets Tracking, which showed us real-time graphs on the screen of our progress compared to last year´s effort. Right from the beginning things were going much better than last year and this was very inspiring throughout the 48 hours.

This graph shows the over-all difference on an hourly basis compared to the effort of 2008.

This graph shows the hourly over-all rates compared to 2008. 2008 in grey, 2009 in violet.

This picture shows the zones worked on all bands.

The Icelandic record in the Multi/Single Category was set by TF3IRA in 1980 at the height of the Sun Spot Cycle.

That record stood at 2,169,760 points. They made 3004 QSOs and they worked 85 zones and 231 countries to accomplish this.

We beat the 29 year old record handsomely as can be seen in the summary.

It is interesting to note that Yngvi, TF3Y and Kiddi, TF3KX were operators when both records were set.

Highlights of the operation was working a Pile-up of JA stations on 160 meters – this is the first time in history that JA/TF QSOs are made on Top Band during this contest.

KH6 (Hawaii) was worked on 80 meters for the fourth time in TF history that I am aware of. Prior to this, only Boggi – TF3TF (SK), Yngvi – TF3Y and Gudmi-TF3SG have worked Hawaii on 80 meters.

It was interesting to note some extremely strong poor signals that obliterated parts of the bands along with some strong EU stations that seemed to be completely deaf. It took me 46 minutes of constant calling to raise one of these stations on the low bands. It is absolutely necessary to have separate receive antennas for the low bands (160/80) to be able to operate there with any kind of efficiency.

A very successful weekend is behind us and a what a good omen of things to come.

Our SoapBox comment to 3830 was as follows:

Comments:

This was the first CQ WW with TF4X being active. TF4X is a
special call issued to the TF4M station. The latest addition, the
phenomenal Arctic King 160m antenna took us by surprise. Almost as
many QSO’s on 160 as on 20. Numerous new Beverages and zero noise
level on RX. The strength of the station is displayed by low band
performance. First time JA pileup for us from TF on 160m in CQ WW.
Propagation was relatively good as we had little Aurora and definitely
better on the Saturday. According to the raw score the 29 year old M/S
record from TF was broken by 1.1 million points.

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