P40L-P49Y Contest Summary Information

Comments:

Fortunately, the bands came alive with RTTY signals for the contest. During the week prior, I CQd continuously for 2-3 hours per day and only managed 105 contacts total. While I was alone CQing, just below me was the FT sub-band where stations were packed into 2.5 kHz, QRMing each other. Nothing else to be found in the digital sub-band. Quite a contrast.

At 2300 UTC on Sunday, my 24-hour scoring time ran out. But I kept operating for another half-hour because the JA pileup on 10 and 15 meters was so incredible. Maybe the best I’ve ever heard it from here. Their signals on 10m were stronger than on 15m and rivaling NA. The stats in this report pertain only to the 24-hour scoring period, but the full log is submitted to ARRL so my QSO partners don’t get NIL penalties. Roundup is special.

This is my 20th calendar year operating it from Aruba. Roundup was the first contest I did from Aruba (2005) and I finished second in the country behind Jacky Oduber, P43P. In fact, it was only the second RTTY operating I’d ever done, the first being the 2004 Roundup from home. But the Aruba experience motivated me to come back for more! I’ve done the contest every year since 2005, except for the 2021 and 2022 COVID years when I wasn’t traveling.

This year’s QSO total is a bit below the average of the prior 17 events: 3,055 vs. 3,086, However, the first 6 hours are virtually the same as my prior best QSO rates, in 2017. This year surely would have been the highest had it not been for some PC problems that interrupted my run, losing both momentum and run frequencies!

My highest QSO total was 3,808 in 2015 due to a combination of propagation and participation. For several years now, I’ve felt 4,000 QSOs are possible, but it’s been quite elusive! I wonder, though, if there is enough activity these days to support this QSO goal.

The chronic regenerated RFI here was a mixed story this weekend. (We suspect hundreds of RF diode junctions in the metal roof connections on the large building next door and directly under the main 40/20 meter tower. During the week, the broadband RFI on 20m from my 40m radio rendered it impossible to work stations there. Same on 40m from the 80m side. To my delight Saturday night, the 20m RFI from 40m was barely perceptible. That euphoric feeling quickly vanished when I moved from 20m to 80m and then couldn’t hear or decode most anything on 40m. QSO rate vanished and I was basically relegated to alternating SO1R between 40 and 80 meters.

Thanks to everyone who is in the log on more than one band. While additional QSOs don’t add to the mult total, it sure helps the QSO total discussed above. Surprisingly, 23 of you made it on all 5 bands even though there are only 73 total QSOs on that band. Another 123 made it on 4 bands.

Thanks to station owners John, P40L/W6LD and Andy, P49Y/AE6Y for sharing with me. Hope to be back for WPX RTTY in 3 weeks.

73,

Ed P49X (W0YK)

Station detail (on a small suburban lot): 

(K4D (x2), K3S/P3, Alpha 91B, ACOM 2000A and Alpha 86A, FilterMax low-
power BPFs, high-power BPFs, SixPak (x2), StackMatch (x2), Green Heron 
rotor controllers (x3)

Networked ThinkPad X220s (x3, one for each radio):
     WriteLog 12.77B
     MMTTY 1.70K (x2)
     2Tone 21.03a encoder/decoders (x4)
     Mortty 2.0 with modified TinyFSK 1.1.0 sketch 

Tower 1: 65’ with 2-element shorty-forty, 4-el 20m Yagi, 
80m Inverted-V, 2-el SteppIR at 35’ due north/south and double-L vertical
for 160m 

Tower 2: 55’ with single boom interlaced 5-el 15m and 6-el 10m Yagi 

Tower 3: 45’ with JK Mid-Tri tribander 

Beverages (x4): West US, East US, Europe, un-terminated Africa/VK/ZL
on K9AY switch

73,

Ed - P49X (W0YK)