I’d been looking forward to this event because I was hoping I might get on the bands for a few hours for the first time since a 20m CW QSO with K9OM on the 15th of August, over 5 weeks ago.
In three sessions I made approximately 60 contacts spread over the 40, 20 and 15m bands. Conditions seems pretty good overall (sunspot number up at 57) and I was particularly surprised to find how late into the Saturday evening 15m remained open down to Central and South America. Very different to earlier in the year when I was hearing very little on 15m much after 5pm local time (16:00 UTC)…although I’m prepared to accept that my antenna will always be a limiting factor. However, same antenna then and now so things certainly seem to have improved with Argentina, Brazil, Aruba, Galapagos Islands, Kuwait and the Dominican Republic all worked on 15m on Sunday evening.
Although no new countries were worked during the contest, in spite of my best efforts to get through a minor pile-up trying to work a Chinese station (yes, I still need China despite having already worked most of the surrounding countries), I did work two new US states towards my WAS award, New Mexico in the form of WA5ZUP and Wyoming in the form of WY7SS. That is now 45 of the 50 states worked with just Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska and Utah still needed.
It was nice to get on the bands again and nice to hear so many strong RTTY signals (on 15m in particular). I’ll be hoping it’s not another 5 weeks before the next time and not too long to the next new one!
Dean Amateur Radio contest, DX, RTTY, WAS
I enjoy digimodes, also known as digital or data modes. Although I only use RTTY and PSK, the term ‘digimodes’ also encompasses such things as Amtor, Pactor, G-TOR, PactorII, Clover, Olivia, Packet, Hellschreiber, MT63, Throb and MFSK16. There are others!
Some of these data modes have been around for a long time, RTTY being one such mode. Others, such as PSK31 are newer and have only recently gained in popularity. And therein lies the dilemma. PSK31 is now so popular that the parts of the band where this activity is found, especially on 20m around 14.070MHz, are becoming very crowded. RTTY on the other hand is, on the face of it, much less popular, attributed in part to it being seen as somehow more difficult to setup and use than PSK modes.
My problem then is this: As much as I enjoy RTTY there can at times be little or no activity heard on the bands between contests (major RTTY contests do, thank goodness, still bring out many of the RTTY enthusiasts). PSK31 on the other hand is pretty much always to be found on 20m if nowhere else. The problem is that I don’t find it anywhere near as much fun now as I did a few years ago when I first discovered PSK (in September 2005) and when I worked a lot of nice DX using the mode.
I do keep saying to myself I should invest more time in PSK31 DXing and get back to enjoying it as much as I used to. Maybe now is the right time to finally commit to that. I can then use RTTY as and when the activity pops up on the bands.
Dean Amateur Radio PSK31, RTTY
It’s true. Twenty days into the month of July and nothing in the log since the last week of June…save for 4 RTTY contacts a few days ago. So far this month I’ve just been busy doing other things and getting on the bands has taken a bit of a back seat.
The 4 RTTY contacts I mentioned were on 20 and 30m a few nights previous when I called CQ for a while to see what was out there. ‘Not very much’ was the answer! Having said that though, one of the stations worked was A61E in the United Arab Emirates for which I still need a QSL card so I’ll be sending my card to his Spanish QSL manager in the next few days.
I do keep telling myself I really should try to get back into some late night PSK31 and as 20m is often crowded with signals I may well give 30m a try. I’ll be hoping I can do that before the end of the month!
Dean Amateur Radio, Blog, Totally random A61E, G0RIF, QRT, QSL, RTTY
I was minding my own business last night working a bit of 20m RTTY. Conditions weren’t great and the band wasn’t particularly busy but there were a few stations in QSO as I tuned across the RTTY sub-band between 14.080 and 14.100MHz, all of them within Europe.
I found myself what appeared to be a clear spot up around 14.092MHz and sent the usual ‘QRL QRL ??? DE G0RIF BK‘ a time or three to see if anyone was using the frequency. On getting no reply I set about calling CQ to see who I could work.
I worked a few stations and had just cleared the last of those when I saw in the decode window ‘DE RA1DIO RA1DIO RA1DIO PSE K‘ (NB: RA1DIO is not the actual callsign of the Russian station in question). As this was spot-on my calling frequency I took this to be a tail end call so I sent a quick RST/NAME/QTH transmission and waited for his reply…which never came.
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Dean Amateur Radio, Totally random CQ, QRM, RTTY
Approaching 75,000 QSO’s in their log and less than 12 hours before they go QRT. The E4X operation will soon be a thing of the past.
Pushing 80 watts into my bit of wet string I managed to snag them twice - 20m RTTY and 30m CW on two separate evenings. The RTTY contact was plain sailing but the CW contact was a bit hairy.
Conditions were never really great and there was some fading (QSB) on 30m on the night of my QSO. I’d been calling in the pile for a while before operator Bernard (F9IE) came back to me with ‘RIF?” to which I replied ‘G0RIF”, hoping he’d confirm my call, give me my report and I’d just send the usual ‘599 tu‘ and log him. As luck would have it though the fading coincided with his confirming my call and although I thought he’d got it right I wasn’t 100% sure of the last character. Had I heard an F‘…or a U‘, an R…or something else?
I erred on the side of caution, just in case he still didn’t have the call entirely correct, and sent ‘de G0RIF 599 tu‘ only to hear the back end of his ‘tu‘ call as my TX dropped out. Did he have my call correct or not? A slightly nervy wait to see if I was in the log but it was all okay in the end.
The E4X ops seem to have done a good job of working band/mode combinations. I see that some stations have as many as 23 band/mode contacts logged, quite an achievement!
I’m pleased with my 2 contacts though, so much so I didn’t even bother chasing a 20m CW contact when they were loud with me on Saturday, having worked them on 20m previously for my RTTY contact and with CW in the bag by virtue of my 30m contact.
Dean Amateur Radio CW, dxpedition, E4X, RTTY
Well, where to start? I’d hoped that I might be able to work a few new ones over the weekend as the bands were alive with CW stations taking part in the CQ WPX contest. I’d also hoped I might be able to work a few stations from those countries identified in an earlier post for which I need LoTW confirmations towards my CW DXCC (there are of course many more but I consider these to be potentially easier to work).
In addition to all of the CW activity there was also the small matter of the E4X operation from Palestine which I hoped to work for a new one. The CW pile-ups earlier in the week and been huge but as luck would have it they seemed to focus on SSB and RTTY over the weekend and I managed to snag them on 20m RTTY on Saturday evening as the pile-up thinned out. I also worked TL0A in Central Africa on Sunday evening (also 20m RTTY) for another all time new one (number 178).
The WPX CW contests didn’t offer up any new ones but I was pleased to work a few of those countries mentioned in that earlier post. I also worked a few CW new ones. Conditions weren’t great but they did seem to improve from Saturday to Sunday (with the sunspot number up to 45 on Sunday).
Highlights of the weekend were:-
- Working E4X on 20m RTTY for new one #177.
- Working TL0A on 20m RTTY for new one #178.
- Working Colombia and Bonaire for new ones on CW.
- Argentina, Belgium and Slovakia CW now confirmed at LoTW.
So not a bad weekend. Two all time new ones, 2 new ones on CW, 3 more CW countries confirmed at LoTW (and hopeful of a few more), 136 contacts in the WPX contest spread over 54 countries. And all of this on my bit of wet string!
Dean Amateur Radio CW, DXCC, E4X, RTTY, TL0A, WPX
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As mentioned back in February, when I wrote about the WPX RTTY contest, my 40m RTTY contact with PJ4R was the very first contact I made in 2010. It was a great start to what has been a pretty good year so far despite being QRT for the first 43 days.
As ever it’s always nice when you get the card for ‘a new one’ so it was good to receive this card from PJ4R this morning. Of the 124 countries worked on RTTY this is the 100th confirmed by card.
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PJ4R QSL card
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Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures PJ4R, QSL, RTTY, WPX
I wrote back in March about the pros and cons of macros in amateur digital communications, particularly RTTY and PSK31. Since that time I have been much more aware of not over doing the use of macros and as you will see from the recent posts about my 30m contacts last week I have been enjoying some nice long ragchew contacts on both PSK31 and RTTY.
I have seen suggestions that if you’re looking for more than the simple rubber stamp exchanges, which can amount to no more than a brief exchange of macros, then calling ‘CQ ragchew’ might be a good idea. I’m not sure about that because I’m sure not all amateur radio operators for whom English is not their first language would understand.
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Dean Amateur Radio CQ, macro, PSK31, ragchew, RTTY
…seemed to be in pretty good shape. The sunspot number of 70 certainly helps. More please sun gods!
I was initially intent on working some PSK31 just to see what came along in response to my CQ calls but before I could get started I noticed JD1BLY (on Ogasawara) spotted down around 10.1055 MHz so I had a quick listen. Nothing heard. Maybe next time.
Having checked out the CW part of the band I tuned up beyond the PSK31/63 signals around 10.141MHz and checked out the top end of 30m where RTTY is usually found. I found a few signals but was intrigued by a station (with a good 59+ signal) dishing out rapid fire 599 reports to a run of Asian stations and apparently working split. After a short wait he identified himself as ZA/OK7RY in Albania, which although not a new one for me is not all that common. I set up a 1kHz split and tried to get a contact but nothing doing. He just seemed to be getting through a succession of Japanese stations with the odd Russian thrown in, and a South Korean for good measure.
As luck would have it though for some reason he suddenly started working stations simplex, when it got a bit chaotic on his frequency as a number of EU stations started sending their callsign, but I got lucky and worked him within a few calls. Maybe not an all time new one but a new one on 30m!
I then moved on to PSK31 where it seemed that as good as conditions were they were favouring short skip because there were many EU stations operating PSK31 with good solid traces showing little fading and with relatively low noise levels. I set about calling CQ and was rewarded with a few nice long QSO’s with CU7CL, 9A8W and LZ1HK before turning off and calling it a night.
Dean Amateur Radio 30m, PSK31, RTTY
I have previously mentioned my failed attempt to upgrade my radio interface unit. The proposed replacement unit on that occasion was one of the very smart G3LIV Isoterm Multimode interfaces.
G3LIV Isoterm Multimode
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Despite my own best advice I have now done the deed and replaced my old SB-2000 unit with an Isoterm Multimode and this time I am happy to report that all went well and everything works at least as well as before the change.
You may well wonder why I bothered to try again having had the problems last time and having made a very public statement to the effect I really shouldn’t be trying to fix something that wasn’t broken. The answer is simply this - the G3LIV interface is a better fit in my setup when you consider how I like to operate and which modes I prefer.
Having had terrific help and support from Johnny (G3LIV) in identifying and resolving the issue I’d seen first time around (FSK RTTY wasn’t working) I was confident that I’d see no such problem this time…and so it proved. |
The unit is now installed and all modes tested and working with the respective software - CW (CWType), PSK31 (Airlink Express*) and FSK RTTY (Airlink Express). The SB-2000 will now be sold off to cover the cost of the new arrival. Job done!
* I will be writing a review of the Airlink Express software in a later post. I only recently discovered the software and I’m liking it a lot. Works well for PSK31 and FSK RTTY. More soon.
Dean Amateur Radio, Pictures CW, FSK, FT-950, G3LIV, PSK31, RTTY