Comments about the 2002 Geminids Contest and Debating the Format for the next event... (These comments are captured and posted for the purpose of preserving historical comments for future planning. If you are opposed to having your comments posted here let us know and we will remove them. "GOOD CONTESTS ARE PLANNED FROM THE USERS COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS" tnx to all who share their comments.
Comment 1.
The December 2002 North American Meteor Scatter Contest
-------------------------------------------------------
Well, it's over, and it appears to have been a success. I kept a
few notes as the weekend progressed, and this report will be a
somewhat disjointed summary of my own view of the contest. I will
be most interested to hear how my experiences and impressions
compare with those of other participants.
I competed in the high power unassisted multi-band category. I
run 300 W to 7 elements on 50 MHz, 500 W to 4 x 9 elements on 144,
and 100 W to 2 x 16 elements on 222. The rules for unassisted
operation dictate that QSOs be initiated by calling CQ, answering
a CQ, tailending, or moving a station to another band. Schedules
are not permitted unless made before the contest, and for
distances over 1300 miles. I made only one sked
-- with Tip, WA5UFH, in southern Texas, on 6 meters. At 1474
miles we knew it would be a long shot, and indeed it turned out
to be a bust.
So I was on my own, sworn off of any postings to Ping Jockey for
the duration. I did make "read only" use of PJ, though;
I believe some other unassisted stations stayed off the web
entirely for the contest, and my hat is off to them for this
extra level of unassisted purity.
I had a dinner engagement Friday evening, but did not linger; was
home and on the air about two hours into the contest. The
Geminids radiant had risen to 26 degrees and was ENE of me;
should be a good time for N-S paths, or perhaps to my NW. South
of me is mostly water, so I aimed SSW and called "CQ 150 K1JT"
on 144.140. Bang! Back came Phil, N0PB, almost due west in EM39.
So much for calling your shots by the book! We completed easily
on 144.150, he copied my request to "QSY 50.240", and
we completed easily on 6 meters too. Ten minutes on the air, 2 Qs
and 2 band-grids -- and most importantly, no phone call from my
least-favorite neighbor who won't pay for cable and who leaves
her TV on channel 2 almost 24 hours a day. She must be visiting
the grandchildren. This is going to be fun!
It *was* fun, though there were many ups and downs over the
weekend. I operated for about 22 hours, and since this meant
being in the shack but not necessarily having a hand on the
tuning knob all the time, I thoroughly cleaned the shack while I
operated the contest. Can't do that in an HF or "normal"
VHF contest!
In no particular order, here are a number of the musings I jotted
down during the weekend. I offer them as an aid toward design of
an even more enjoyable meteor scatter contest in the not too
distant future, and I will look forward to hearing your views!
1. The present scoring system is surely not the best one we could
invent. Sure, it's standard to use (QSO Points) X (Grids) in VHF/
UHF contests; but in this event most every station is a new grid,
so if you make N contacts your score is something like N*. This
means that scores grow as the square of your number of successes,
rather than being proportional to that number. Possible
alternatives: QSO points alone? Total miles? What should be done
about "close in" grids? I know that if you carefully
arrange it, you can work backscatter with stations not very far
away. But those QSOs are arguably "contrived," and they
are virtually impossible to accomplish in unassisted mode.
2. Although I was silent on PJ Central I was nevertheless reading
it, so I know that there was plenty of chit-chat on the page.
Much of it was in the form of good-natured help to newcomers or
folks who did not know that a contest was on, or that they should
send their grid instead of a report. (I had to convey this quite
a few times, too, via meteor scatter. I send "YOUR GRID?"
until the other station complied.) Other common comments on PJ:
QSY to XXX, I have a birdie on YYY.
Please try "Hot A".
Is it worth continuing?
Did you stop? We are not yet finished.
Please use STs when we get to that point.
Let's run until xx30 and then touch base here.
Fix callsign! You forgot to change it!
... and etc.
I had to deal with that last one, too. I sent "FIX MY CALL"
until he got it right, and then we completed.
3. Was the contest period too long? Should it have been Thursday
through Saturday evenings, instead of Friday through Sunday? The
Geminids shower probably peaked sometime Friday night or very
early Saturday morning, and things were pretty much down to
sporadic meteors by Sunday evening, as far as I could tell.
4. Although I operated consistently with the rules for unassisted
class, I know that my score would have been much lower if I had
not been reading PJ. I tailended on a number of QSOs by knowing
where to look, according to on-line skeds that had been made by
others. I think it would be really nice to wean ourselves from so
much dependence on the web, at least during an organized event
when we know that many stations will be on. The Europeans have
had a very successful Geminids event for the last few years, and
they permit ONLY random QSOs. No skeds, no packet cluster, no
Ping Jockey. And they make plenty of QSOs. I know, out west in
low population density areas this might be a problem.
5. Many times I would see "QRV 2 and 6 meters" posted
repeatedly by someone I had not worked, but there was no evidence
that the station spent any time listening to the CQ frequencies.
6. Frustrations of the Unassisted Op: Several times when calling
CQ, I was called by more than one station simultaneously. Once it
was AD4EB, KR8L, and AF4O. Another time it was AF4O, WB8SKP, N5FAC,
W4WHN, and N8OC -- five stations, all calling me at once!
-- and I never worked any of them! Sorry, guys, I probably got a
bit flustered and did not handle it well.
7. Memorable highlights: Blue whizzers near the end of RX periods
on W5GAD and K0AWU, both on 6 meters, which allowed quick
completions of the QSOs on SSB. With Bill, K0AWU, I somehow found
the presence of mind to ask, after the 73s, "Do you want to
QSY to 2 meters," and Bill replied "Yes, one thirteen"
as he faded back into the noise. Bill somehow remembered that 144.113
has been my favorite 2 meter working frequency, and we completed
there using FSK441 a few minutes later.
8. Additional highlights: I worked and heard a number of stations
that I have never (or very seldom) heard before on FSK441. A
number of these were worked in truly random mode -- I never saw
them on PJ. These include N1RWY, W2FU, KB3EDF, and N9WBR (all
worked) and N5FAC and WB8SKP (heard only).
9. Moving stations from one band to another is a great way to
bring up totals for an unassisted multi-band station. I did this
successfully 8 times, with no pre-arrangements. It works!
10. Coulda-woulda-shoulda category... I heard or saw signs of
*many* stations that I have worked before, easily, but never
connected with in this contest. Unassisted to unassisted QSOs
were difficult, although I probably made this worse by failing to
listen much on the calling frequencies, myself. I realized too
late, maybe Sunday afternoon, that I should stop calling CQ (listening
up 10) and listen on the calling frequencies to see who *else*
was calling CQ.
11. Coulda-woulda-shoulda, #2: The night before the contest I
hooked up with Bill, N8AIA, in EN83, and we "ran the bands"
entirely by meteor scatter: 50, 144, and 222 MHz in less than
half an hour. When I heard Bill blasting through with good 6-meter
pings on Friday I thought "hot damn, we can do it again."
Alas, it was not to be. We completed easily on 6, and I sent
"QSY 144.113" but I never heard him again. I think Bill
had high SWR problems on 2 during the contest.
12. Notes for the WSJT "To Do" list:
A. I have concluded that hitting "TX Stop" should kick
the program out of Auto Mode. The transmitter coming on again,
unwanted, has happened too many times for me, including one
embarrassing one that AD4EB knows all too well about. I was all
ready to tailend on a QSO he was having with W5KI. Hit the TX
button once while W5KI was transmitting then hit TX Stop to kill
it. Then the XYL called me upstairs to help her; when I came
back, nearly 20 minutes later, I discovered that I had been
calling in the second 30-second sequence for the entire 20
minutes, QRMing Jim and Steve so much that they had to QSY. Very
sorry, guys!
B. WSJT badly needs a birdie killer in FSK441 mode. If the "notch
filter" on my FT847 works well, which it does with most
birdies, then WSJT can do this too. In the next release, I hope!
13. For me, the contest was essentially over on Sunday evening
when the neighbor got home from seeing her grandchildren. I was
just finishing with Jake, W9BLI, on 6 meters, asking him to
"QSY 144.113" We completed on 2, but I knew I was dead
in the water on 6 meters thereafter, so I hung it up.
Enough for now. Please forgive my loquaciousness, and I look
forward to hearing about the experiences and opinions of others!
-- 73, Joe, K1JT
Comment 2._____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Joe, what would you have done if your neighbor had been home
all weekend? Some
of us have neighbors that we rip up who do not go away. For us,
the prospect of
endless hours CQing offers alienation of our neighbors (more than
usual). I
know some operators don't care about their relation to their
neighborhood, but
there are those of us who do, so we try not to impact their
happiness in
pursuing ours as much as possible. Though 6M is more conducive to
CQing, I feel
2M and above relies more heavily on a lot of factors going right.
Getting as
many of those factors slanted in our favor is served well by the
assistance
that Ping Jockey provides us with.
Still, if we feel the need to operate as blindly as possible,
short of
rendering our efforts impotent, we could consider the following
scenario. read
all the way through it and ponder the process before you go off
"half-cocked".
Since I'm a 2M enthusiast, I will model my idea around the
accepted 2M band
plan.
Channelization:
Prior to the contest, participants will apply for and be assigned
a specific CQ
frequency.
These frequencies will begin at 144.102 and occur every 3 Khz up
from there, IE 144.102, .105, .108, .111, .114, etc. 144.140 will
remain the itinerant CQ
frequency.
For those participants who know the usage tendencies in their
area and feel
comfortable with going above 144.150, they can also elect to
use .151, .154, .157, .160 and .163. Lets not push our luck with
surly SSB ops
above .165.
That provides us with 22 assignable channels and one itinerant
frequency. Now,
we are not limited to just 22 channels because I seriously doubt
that the
Geminids will provide us with rocks that allow the East coast to
bother the
West coast. actually, when you consider the Midwest trying to
work the East,
West or Gulf coasts, chances are a station off the side or back
of their yagi
from a co-channel occupant will not adversely impact their
success. Strict
adherance to West beaming East goes first will only help matters
more.
Participants can elect to sit on their assigned CQ channel and
pound away or
visit the other channels and listen for CQs. Participants who are
local to one
another should coordinate with each other and apply for channel
frequencies as
far away from one another as possible. that also goes for
participants who know
they have cripplingg birdies on certain frequencies.
A person will need to volunteer to serve as frequency coordinator.
He should
have thick skin and a cool head as I'm sure conflicts will arise
and need
resolving.
The Ping Jockey Web page will serve only as a liason point to
coach newbies or
the uninformed should they show up asking what's going on. I was
surprised to
happen upon people on Ping Jocky during this past contest who do
not subscribe
to the HSMS reflector, yet are active in the HSMS scene. That is
bound to
happen again and these people will need to be brought up to speed.
Imagine the activity we could generate when a participant,
whether new or
experienced tunes across the band to find it chocked full of
CQing stations
every 3 khz.
I have to lobby against using an offset transmit frequency, even
on .140. This
past contest it was very difficult to sort out what was going on
when Russ, Joe
and Dell were all CQing at the same time. I almost had several
skeds near .140
busted because those CQing on .140 were inquiring on the offset
frequency as to
whether we were calling them or not. Repeated QRZs accompanied
the burst we
needed to complete our contact and it got tense a few times.
That's it in a nutshell. I'm sure I have not thought every
possible negative
aspect through, but this can be a starting point for discussion.
73, John, K0PW
Comment 3.____________________________________________________________________________________________________
K0PW wrote:
> Joe, what would you have done if your neighbor had been home
all
> weekend? Some of us have neighbors that we rip up who do not
go
> away. ...
That's easy! I would have been on six meters less, for sure.
Maybe I would have made some completions on 222 MHz. I have no
neighbor problems on either 144 or 222.
If this had been a "really serious" contest (e.g. the
VHF SS) and I were committed to it, I would have sent her and one
other neighbor a note, a week or so in advance, letting them know
that again this year the nation's amateur radio operators were
having a massive communications exercise, that I would be
participating, and that if there were some particular limited
hours that
they wished to watch TV, I would try to accommodate them. This
has always worked well for me, and indeed they have never asked
me for any quiet hours.
Your "channelized" scheme is very much like one I have
been
thinking about, but with an additional level of organization.
In the ARRL EME contest many stations post in advance the
frequencies they will be CQing on. I think there has been some
world-wide vetting of the frequencies, on a sort of voluntary
basis, but I don't know much about how it works. Of course,
even if we don't have an organized assignment of frequencies to
each station, anyone could post their own intended CQ frequency,
in advance of a contest.
I would like to move toward rules that would be generally
consistent with the rules governing ARRL VHF/UHF contests. This
means that no on-line help would permitted during a contest.
It would be interesting to find out how well our European friends
feel that their free-for-all system works, allowing nothing but
random QSOs.
-- 73, Joe, K1JT
Comment 4.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Thanks to those who have shared their thoughts on the Geminids
meteor scatter contest.
Today I had some free time riding the train back home from
Washington, and came up with another possible scoring algorithm
to add to the discussion. It's distance-based, and has no grid
multipliers. The basic points awarded for each QSO would be
something like the following:
Distance Points
(mi) 50,144 222 432
----------------------------------
0 - 400 0 0 0
400 - 1000 2 10 30
1000 - 1250 3 10 30
1250 - ???? 5 10 30
This scheme would disallow QSOs for credit below some limit, say
400 miles -- which is effectively "local" and within
which meteor scatter contacts are necessarily somewhat contrived.
The bread-and-butter range, from 400-1000 miles gets a fixed
numbert of points, say 2. From 1000-1250 miles QSOs are somewhat
harder, especially for folks with antennas up only 40 ft or so,
so they receive 3 points. QSOs beyond 1250 miles get 5 points,
putting a premium on the longest paths. QSOs on 222 MHz count 10
points, whatever the distance (beyond 400 miles), and on 432 MHz
they count 30 points.
And how about this: as a special bonus, the two stations making
the longest reported QSO on each band get their final score
multiplied by 1.1!
Except for the multi-band aspect and the blanking out of local
contacts, this scoring scheme is similar to that used for the
popular "Stew Perry" contest on 160 meters. We might
even take a hint from the Stew Perry and give a power multiplier,
say doubling your final score if all of your QSOs are made with
200 W or less.
Distances might best be computed using just the 4-digit grid
locators, since those would be used for the contest exchange.
That effectively treats everyone as though they were at the
center of their square, causing a not-very-significant distance
error of up to about 40 miles in each position.
What do you think?
-- 73, Joe, K1JT
Comment 5._____________________________________________________________________________________________
Just some quick comments...I think this arrangement with
distances
would be much better since almost every contact is a new
multiplie
grid. I think the 400 mile limit should be maybe 350 miles. Also
as an additional bonus, maybe we should allow some extra points
for stations that are willing to go portable or credits for
rovers
(I know of one rover for the last contest who activated two grids)
I wonder how many stations would attempt operating rover for
extra
points or just for fun? Would be a way to activate some rare
grids
maybe.
Comment 6._________________________________________________________________________________________________
At 10:02 PM 12/17/2002 -0500, Joe Taylor wrote:
>The basic points awarded for each QSO would be
>something like the following:
>
> Distance Points
> (mi) 50,144 222 432
>----------------------------------
> 0 - 400 0 0 0
> 400 - 1000 2 10 30
>1000 - 1250 3 10 30
>1250 - ???? 5 10 30
>
>This scheme would disallow QSOs for credit below some limit,
say 400
>miles -- which is effectively "local" and within
which meteor scatter
>contacts are necessarily somewhat contrived.
I totally disagree. MANY smaller stations stand very little
chance whatsoever of making ordinary tropo QSOs over just several
hundred miles due to low antlers, terrain, low power at either/both
ends, etc. During several of the belated HSMS contests, Maarten
and I tried (but failed) to complete several backscatter MS QSOs.
It's not the least bit difficult to tell when a burst is
reflected by a meteor rather than airplane or a tropo peak.
Although close-in MS QSOs aren't very common, they DO happen
especially when the folks attempting them are experienced and
know how and what to do. Ask K0SM and others in the west.
>The bread-and-butter range, from 400-1000 miles gets a fixed
>number of points, say 2.
This is the MOST COMMON range for the smaller, limited QTH/equipment
station.
>From 1000-1250 miles QSOs are somewhat harder, especially for
>folks with antennas up only 40 ft or so,
I don't think I EVER managed to complete more than several QSOs
over the 1250 mile mark; and if those didn't occur during major
showers, they took many, many skeds to complete.
>QSOs beyond 1250 miles get 5 points, putting a
>premium on the longest paths.
This was one of the reasons why, when we considered the original
HSMS contest rules, we eventually decided not to consider a
distance-scoring technique. Although such a scheme works very
well in densely-populated areas such as Europe, the population
density in the western reaches, in particular, of the US is so
much smaller that the only folks who'd ever attain a high score
would be the bigger stations... and some thought revealed that a
large station such as that could EASILY outscore, within just a
couple of hours, what a small guy might achieve with many more
QSOs but over lesser distances.
>And how about this: as a special bonus, the two stations
making the
>longest reported QSO on each band get their final score
multiplied by
>1.1!
That sounds reasonable.
>Except for the multi-band aspect and the blanking out of
local contacts
Be careful how you define "local" contacts. From my old
QTH in central Massachusetts, 400 miles reached all the way down
within the Washington, DC area. Yet, I NEVER, EVER worked anyone
in that area other than super contest stations like W4RX and K3JO.
Heck... I never even HEARD K1RX in FM19 (or whatever his call is)
and he consistently places in the top five with a pretty large
station.
Local is different things to everyone. 400 miles, in my opinion,
is too far for a score cutoff.
>Distances might best be computed using just the 4-digit grid
locators,
>since those would be used for the contest exchange. That
effectively
>treats everyone as though they were at the center of their
square,
>causing a not-very-significant distance error of up to about
40 miles
>in each position.
This would be a problem for, for example, a half dozen
competitors in FN42... or any other such highly-populated grid
out in the far reaches compared to the rest of the country. You
could conceivably wind up with several ties. FN42 is a relatively-large
grid, stretching from Cape Cod all the way over to central Mass.
Many of the more-active contesters in FN42 live in the eastern
half, some ON the eastern border. That would add something like
50-60 miles to the actual distance from them to somewhere in the
west (western NY, OH, ONT, etc.). I'd prefer using the six-digit
locator coordinates.
Oh... and using 4-digit grid locators for scoring would also make
it highly possible that you could wind up with many ties for the
longest QSOs, such as from FN42 to EN32 or even to K9KNW in
southern Florida (EL95?? heck, been so long since I've been on
the air, I forget now ;o(
Steve, KØXP
Comment 7. ______________________________________________________________________________________________
Well, I think I'm the rover that Tip is referring to and
indeed, I was grid hopping this weekend just for fun (although I
keep trying to convince myself that assembling the antenna on a
cold, wind-swept mountain road in pitch darkness in fun)!
My comments pertain to the real-time use of pingjockey versus
prior scheduling and the definition of "assisted".
Because my rover setup has a minimal antenna and I run just 100 W
to conserve the battery, I didn't have much hope of completing a
QSO without some sort of scheduling. Even with scheduling, these
QSOs can be real tough (with the exception of K0PW!). I worked up
a list of 30 minute skeds days before the contest. 30 minute runs
are on the edge of cutting it too close, but I want to give as
many stations as possible a realistic chance of working me with
my 5 hour operating time budget. The use of schedules made me
assisted, even though the nearest Internet connection was
probably 50 miles away from my operating location(s). The big
frustration, however, was stopping at the end of a 30 minute run
just one ping short of completing. This happened to me several
times this weekend. If I had the Internet, it would be a simple
matter to inform my partner and the next guy on the list that I
was going to continue a while longer or perhaps try to finish
later. My point here is that the definition of assisted is a
little too broad for the few
(one?) of us operating portable, far away from the Internet.
Mike WB2FKO
Albuquerque
Comment 8.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Hi all,
My two cents from one who spends limited time on MS.
I believe that some value should be placed on meteor backscatter
QSO's. I was not able to join this weekend due to other
siuations, but I left WSJT in the Monitor mode on 50.270 Friday
nite and Saturday morning.
The yagi was pointed at 50 degrees from here in Dallas/Ft.Worth.
The most predominate signal I copied was Tip WA5UFH, 260 miles
and 172 degrees from me. Last year during the Leonids, I was
constantly copying the guys near Lawton and Tulsa Oklahoma on 2
Meter backscatter.
The past year and half, what few times I am in there, it not
unusual for me to pickup a back scatter signal while monitoring a
sked. It is kind of fascinating. It definitely isn't tropo, but I
really do wonder that it could be some other phenomena causing it.
Also, I believe a Rover QSO should have higher value for both the
rover and the fixed station working him. The rovers go to extra
efforts and an incentive to work them could help.
Congratulations on all your hard work. I always do what I can to
promote the events. Sorry I missed a good one.
Art Jackson - KA5DWI
Sidewinders on Two A.R.C. Bulletin Editor
Comment 9.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Steve --
K0XP wrote:
> MANY smaller stations stand very little chance
> whatsoever of making ordinary tropo QSOs over just several
hundred
> miles due to low antlers, terrain, low power at either/both
ends, etc.
> During several of the belated HSMS contests, Maarten and I
tried (but
> failed) to complete several backscatter MS QSOs. It's not
the least
> bit difficult to tell when a burst is reflected by a meteor
rather
> than airplane or a tropo peak. Although close-in MS QSOs
aren't very
> common, they DO happen especially when the folks attempting
them are
> experienced and know how and what to do. Ask K0SM and others
in the
> west.
Of course I know that backscatter or "bank-shot" QSOs
are possible at short ranges. In the last few events I've made a
number of them, by arrangement. That is, we would agree "Let's
null each other out and both point at about EN79," or some
such recipe. The resulting QSOs were actually pretty easy, and it
is certainly easy to tell whether you're doing it with meteors or
not.
I have no real aversion to including these close-in QSOs if we
allow assisted or scheduled operation in an event. Those QSOs are
quite unlikely with unassisted operation, however, and that has
been the direction of my recent thinking.
It is quite possible, in view of the wide open spaces out west,
that the ideal I've been chasing is unfeasible nation wide. If
that turns out to be the consensus, I would happily give it up.
> I don't think I EVER managed to complete more than several
QSOs over
> the 1250 mile mark; and if those didn't occur during major
showers,
> they took many, many skeds to complete.
Me, either, in the HSCW days. It's really quite different with
FSK441. Skeds take about one-third the time that they did
with HSCW, perhaps even less with well practiced operators. You
do need high antennas at both ends to work the long paths.
One more thought about scoring. I don't think the scoring scheme
really matters all that much, to most of us. Grid multipliers,
distance credits, whatever -- we get on to have some fun, work as
many of the gang as we can, and get some measure of our stations'
effectiveness and our skills relative to others.
My reason for suggesting that (QSO points) x (Grids) may not be
ideal was mainly a feeling that the guy who made 32 QSOs in 29
grids (929 points) did better than the guy with 10 QSOs in 9
grids (90 points), yes, but ten times better.
Perhaps a simple count of QSOs made on each band does that about
as well as any other scoring method. If we need to determine
"winners", maybe they should be for each W and VE call
area, as
in the original HSCW contests.
-- 73, Joe, K1JT
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________