Rudi's

Update 14/2/2024: The results of this contest has now been released. As expected it did not go as well as I hoped. The extreme QRM that I had on the second day just as the bands started to open really hurt my results. Anyway, that is now history, here are the Results:

31'st Place in the world (As an indication of how bad things were, I won this contest in the past)
First in Africa
First in South Africa
First Zone 38
New South African, African and Zone 38 records.

Well, hopefully things will be better next time, it was still fun!

CQWW CQ 2023 is history, did not turn out as planned at all....

The day before CQWW CW I had not made a final decision on if I am going to compete or just try to work some nice DX stations. I think the final decision will only be made tomorrow morning after I have made some contacts. After the first hour or so I was quite keen to make this as serious effort, my first since 2015 but a few things have not worked out as planned. I wanted to compete in the "all band" category, more stressful due to the long hours and less chance of being competitive but my motivation is to make it possible to work some new DXCC band slots.

In the past I have mostly chosen a single band as it allows you to rest a bit when the band is closed. I was planning on putting up a 80m antenna, I have none at the moment, as well as to raise my 2 40m "phased" dipoles, they are only about 8m high at the moment. My hex beam also needs attention as the retaining screw that prevents rotation relative to the rotator is loose/stripped (stupid design!) so the antenna moves around in the wind and you cannot trust your direction indictor in the rotator controller.

Well, due to various reasons, mostly the extremely hot weather and high winds we have had recently, non of these things happened, so no 80m, terrible 40m antenna and a hex beam that points where ever the wind pushes it.

Report on CQWW CW 2023, the contest that was not supposed to be and was not!

Day 1, Saturday 25 November 2023

I started the contest at about 03h00 UTC, a bit later than ideal but at this stage my plan was simply to work some DX. A quick scan across the bands showed a bit of activity on 20m but 40m seemed like the place to be. This was perfect as I really wanted to add to my 40m CW QRP totals.

The going was slow, signals were not strong with the strongest signals on the band at around S4. This is not ideal for a QRP station as the S4 station is most likely running 1.5KW as most top contest stations do! So if they are S4 with 1500W imagine how weak my 5W signal will be on their side! But we do not give up that easily. I called a few stations and I soon found I could make contacts even though the rate was very low. I also started a bit late as soon after i started the signals started to drop.

By 04h00 the stations had become so weak I gave up on 40m with 23 stations in the log, around 1 QSO every 3 minutes, not great at all but I reminded myself this was 40m and QRP, not the easiest band to work QRP!

Notable stations worked on 40m in the first hour include:

D4C - Cape Verde
5Z4VJ - Kenya, a new QRP DXCC for me!

Most of the other stations worked were US stations with a few South American stations in-between.

The first hour was slow and hard work but I was having fun! Next band to open was 20m, it was still a bit early so the going was really slow but I did manage to work a few stations. The higher HF bands normally only open after lunch this time of the year so at around 06h45 I gave up having worked 35 stations on 20m up to that point.

Stations worked were mostly in the USA and Europe with a few notable exceptions like Morocco, Mauritius and Rodriquez island, nothing new but fun! At this point I was having so much fun I was starting to consider making this an actual contest entry.

There was one problem, since I was not expecting to actually enter I was just using my normal "DX hunting" logbook, AALog, so my log did not only contain the contest entries but also QSO's before the contest. Even worse was the fact that the log did not have my correct "Info sent" entry, it should be "599 38", with 38 being my CQ zone, it actually contained "599" and a sequential number that I use to just track the number of contacts made. Well, I decided to rather than attempt to change logbooks to my normal N1MM+ contest log to just use the log I started and to later sort out the issue even if I had to write a Linux script to batch process the log. As it turned out it was not really an issue and easy to fix!

The rest of the morning I popped into the shack every now and then to scan the bands, I did make a few contacts on 20m, then 15m and eventually 10m but conditions were bad.

At this stage I was still using my IC-7600 turned down to 5W, simply because that was the radio that had the key and antenna plugged in when I started! I decided to change to my normal QRP rig, the R928+ at this point. In the past I had mostly used my now ancient FT-817 for contesting so this was the first time the R928+ was going to be used for a contest!

ZS2M in front of the very inconvenient radio "stack"! Using headphones to listen to the weak stations.
Still running the IC-7600 at this stage.

Changing to the R928+ also allowed me to have a slightly more convenient setup without having to rearrange the shack as the radio is small and I could put it on the desk in front of the other equipment. Far more convenient that having to lift my arm to access the radio!

The little R928+ doing it's thing, it was a pleasure to use and it behaved perfectly!

The one thing I did not have setup on the R928+ was CAT control, I only use this to sent the frequency to the logbook program via Omnirig so it was just a matter of convenience, I just had to remember to manually change the band in the logbook software when I change bands!

The morning's "check the bands every now and then" produced only 18 contacts but by 11h00, 1pm local time, I went back into the shack and 10m was good enough to produce regular contacts.

The QSO rate was still low but at least I was working stations at a regular pace. Working up the band and then gong back to the bottom to repeat produced results. As always there are the stations who do not sent their call for long periods, a real pain as just sometimes wait 5 or more minute till he sends his call and then you see you have worked him already! The rules actually state you are not allowed to work more than 3 stations in a row, while calling CQ, without identifying, the penalty is disqualification but many stations do not seem to care!

There were also the usual very loud stations calling CQ without really leaving a gap, or calling CQ but not hearing the many stations replying to them! I made a note of these stations and it is interesting that they are mostly from 2 countries.....

But there were also the superb operators with great ears, picking up your weak signal in the noise, at high speed, the first time you send it! It was nice to recognize some of the members of the CWOps groups as well as contest regulars I have not worked since 2015! A few guys recognized me as well with a quick note added to the QSO, always nice!

With 10m slowly closing after sunset I started dropping down in frequency again, 15m, 20m and eventually 40m produced a few more contacts. But the time the bands were quiet or at least the only stations I could hear were the large contest stations that were already in the log I had 192 QSO's in the log. Not much but I remembered that I had won "country, Continent and World" before with a total of only 425 QSO's before so I set my target for the whole weekend at 400 QSO. Not easy as I did not make 200 the first day and the second day you find that you have worked all the loud stations already!

I shut down for the day at 17h54. I could have worked a few more stations but at this point I had decided to enter the "24 hour only" category so my total time for the weekend should not add up to more than 24 hours with breaks of no shorter than 60 minutes to count. Having made this decision I knew I would have to be off the air more on the second day as the few QSO's made on Saturday morning were close enough in time that the morning would not count as "off" time.

Day 2, Sunday 26 November 2023

This morning I was on the air a bit earlier at 02h00, well later than planned but still about an hour earlier. I did not set an alarm, I HATE alarms and have never used one, as I though I would be awake early as usual. It turns out that the busy day before combined with watching the F1 GP qualifying the night before made me sleep a bit later than usual. Oh well glad this is a casual contest entry only!

When I switched on 40m was already busy! Unfortunately many of the stations I could hear were already in the log but by the time 40m closed at around 04h16 I had 29 more 40m QSO's in the log. Again it was mostly US stations with a few European stations added, I also had a short opening to Japan that was nice.

The log also included a few South American stations with CX5UA, Uruguay being a nice QRP DXCC addition.

After 40m closed I did work 10 stations on 20m but the signals were very low and not easy to work, by 05h42 I shut down for the morning, the last 90 minutes were not very productive with most of the stations I could hear already in the log. One strange this that happened was a Japanese station I called, he said "QSO before" but I had definitely not worked him or any Japanese station before! I sent him "not in log" but he ignore me and continued calling CQ, I wonder who he worked and logged as ZS2M? Well, his loss. Since he won't be in my log his QSO will be deleted and he will be penalized double the points for the QSO. When that happens I normally try to sort out the issue but he was not interested.

Due to the self imposed 24 hour constraint I decide to not even switch on a radio till after lunch so that I would not be tempted to make even one QSO!

I started again at 10h50. 10m was showing signs of life and I had high hopes for the afternoon as I could see the band picking up with more stations every minute and getting stronger. By 11h10 I had about 10 more stations in the log when all hell broke loose, sudden S9+40 QRM right across the band, a sharp rasping kind of noise! I changed from the R928+ to the IC-7600 and then the IC-7610 to see if any of the DSP noise reduction could help but it did not really help. I could only hear the very loudest stations but those I had already worked.

Terrible QRM on 10m, this is with the antenna pointing away from the noise, almost impossible to make contacts!

Turning my antenna the noise was the worst from North East, turning South West it was down to S9+10 on peaks but there were no strong stations in that direction. By 11h30 I had enough and switched off, there was nothing I could do. I decided I will wait 1 hour and look again, if it was still like that I will call it a day and it will be the end of my contest. At this point I do not really have enough QSO's in the log to warrant an entry, at least I still have some new DXCC entities.

This is really disconcerting, if this noise becomes a regular thing amateur radio from this QTH will become impossible, time to move to a farm! Or maybe change hobbies? No, not really, but sometimes it can be a bit discouraging when things like these happen.

Early evening the interference was still there, worst on 10m but a bit better, by turning my antenna west and using all the DSP filtering I could (now running the IC-7610) I did manage to work a few more stations on 10m before it closed. After that I worked a few more stations on 20m, again pointing west but eventually I gave up as I could only hear the strongest stations and by then I had worked all of them.

So my contest came to an early halt, I was aiming for at least 400 contacts and 24 hours of operating (to allow me to enter the "Classic" class that only allows 24 hours). I ended up with 307 contacts (296 after eliminating duplicates) and 18 hours of airtime. I think the 400 contacts would have been doable if it was not for the QRM.

Below you can see some of the statistics I extracted from N1MM+ contest log. I had to export the contest QSO's from AAlog and import it into N1MM+ to allow me to generate the Cabrillo file that I need to submit. I am still in two minds if I will actually submit the log, I am not exactly proud of my effort!

Here are the basics:

Totals contacts (de-duped): 307 (296)
DXCC countries worked: 68
Zones worked: 25
Peak QSO rate: 122/h (Saturday afternoon on 10m)
Total hours: 18
Claimed score: 143310

Log Summary from the Cabrillo file

Hourly QSO rate, best was Saturday afternoon, the session I missed on Sunday due to the QRM.

Band QSO statistics: 52 on 40m,, 70 on 20m, 12 on 15m and 162 on 10m

Graphical band statistics

Off times and total hours worked. The last almost 6 hour session is not accurate, don't know how the software figured that out!

What worked and what not:

In general all my equipment and software worked well. When the wind came up during the afternoon of both days my hex beam was moving by more than 120 degrees so signals really went up and down, I really need to fix that! My 40m phased dipoles worked better than expected even though they were so low, no more than 8m high.

The little R928+ worked well but eventually the better DSP filters in the IC-7610 won, if it was not for the QRM I would have been happy to use the R928+ for the whole contest.

What can I do better next time?

1. Firstly I need to make sure all my antennas are optimized.
2. I need to setup my contest working position with only the one radio in front of me and an external keyboard for my laptop, the way I used to do it in the past. In my defense I can say I did not really plan to do more than a bit of DX hunting during this contest!
3. I need to use contest logging software next time, or at least my normal logging software in contest mode.

If it was not for the QRM the results would have been better and I am sure I would have enjoyed the contest more. It was fun but I think this contest will be remembered for the frustration I felt!
Maybe I will try again next year in the CQWW WPX contest, but only if I can ensure the QRM won't be back during the contest.

If I do submit the log I will update this post with the results once they are available.

Update 30 November 2023, yes, I have sent the log in, now we wait.....