| "Fun" contesting
in CQ WW CW 1999 PileUp 5/99 Ilkka Korpela, OH1WZ Aftermath makes complete contest This "CQWW CW aftermath" article tries to give an inside view to logs operated by two CCF-members, Juha OH1JT and the author, Ilkka OH1WZ. Juha sailed to Åland Islands for this year's contest and Ilkka travelled for OH5LF's forest QTH in Sysmä, OH4-Finland. Both stations have more than one radio to transmit with and more than one direction to send signal to. Juha has been involved in building both stations - Ilkka's never been to the masts at OH0Z. They entered the SOAB HP UA category. Getting ready The amount of critical components in a contest has grown larger over the last years. Knowing this both ops had packed their cars with loads of "stuff". Juha had three linears, two radios (only one functioned!) - Ilkka had two complete lines, an extra PC,a keyer, spare keying cables, etc. OH0Z's sad experience in SAC Phone 1999 was perhaps reminding them of proper preparations. Still you can't be prepared for everything and there are always lots of problems to overcome before and during the contest. This was the case for both ops also in this year's event. There was not much that Juha could do when the record strong winds hit his island-QTH. At OH5LF's there were problems with the PA that were fixed on Saturday "run-time" by Kari, OH5LF. One crucial component is the operator. Getting yourself and all necessary equipment to a remote QTH involves a lot adrenaline which is not good for you the night before the contest. OH1WZ quit drinking any coffee on Wednesday, finalized all work in the shack well into the contest and was sleeping like a baby early Friday evening. This paid off on Sunday. Juha was doing pretty much the same. Some are known to have been adjusting untill the very last minutes.... The start The propagation this year was quite good for Southern Finland where both these stations are located. Radio-aurora was only moderate and this resulted in good openings between OH and W/VE. The contest began with both 40 meters and 20 meters open to W/VE. A good start is always good for the motivation. Here are the first five qsos in both logs: 20CW 27-Nov-99 00:01 1 OH2U 599
599 15 OH 15 1 40CW 27-Nov-99 00:00 1 W4AN 599
599 05 K 05 3 Juha got away with his commitments in the beginning and Ilkka made his first "Bad Call" mistake already in his fifth S&P contact. That should be "EEE" not "EE". This happens when you leave out the "automatic warning" provided by master-databases that would have given <W3EEE> as a proposal. OH1WZ by purpose had not enabled this "helping hand" in TRlog software and was relying on his ears - with known results. Move mults around or dance their song? OH0Z made four band changes in the first three minutes and there were many more to come. OH5LF has not automated band changes so this difference in "willingness to change band" shows in the two logs. See picture 1. for illustration. This is a big difference in terms of strategy and operation tactics between the two stations in question.
OH0Z moved multipliers from band to band. In the contest there were at least 4 stations on from Åland Islands: OH0R (m/s), OH0Z, OH0V (15) and OH0RJ. Evidently OH0Z shows as a multiplier in many logs. Same does not apply for OH5LF. On Saturday at 11 am Juha worked 12 multipliers within seven minutes with JW5NM. They started from 28 MHz! VK8AV was there for OH5LF on Sunday for a sequence of six multipliers in two minutes, but sadly that was Ilkka's only real QSY. Can you compete against an OH0 from OH4-land?
Initially both operators had their own goals which were score objectives. Juha had set his eyes on the European Record and Ilkka wanted to improve the existing OH-Record (and do better UBN-wise). OH5LF's initial objective was to achieve 5.8 M points with 8500 points and 540 country + 160 zone multipliers. By midway the score should be 2.8 M for OH5LF Picture 2. shows how the claimed score developed for both stations. OH0Z's final score is app. 6.7 M and OH5LF's 6.07 M. Juha got an edge in the beginning that he kept well the whole 48 hours.
S&P (search & pounce) was the only way OH5LF could work those 700+ mults he had set as his target. It usually means that the rates go down a bit when you go S&P. OH0Z did a remarkable job in keeping his Qso-point and multiplier-rates high for 48 hours. Juha really moved stations efficiently! See pictures 3. 4. 5. and 6. for full comparisons.
An OH0 is "forced" to have lots of European stations (1 point qso)
to call him. There is some difference in the proportion of DX-contacts that
OH5LF and OH0Z worked. Pictures 7. and 8. show how propagation changed during
CQ. Both stations were able to keep the DX-% high the first hours when 40
and 20 meters were wide open to W/VE. Afternoon and evening hours are good
too. Between 07-11 Z you have lots of EU in the log. But that brings inmultipliers
also - so you can't complain. Picture 7. reveals how the overall DX-percentage
stabilized for both stations during the contest. There was some relatively
good DX-propagation all the time and neither one had to rely on EU pile-ups.
It was mainly European qsos that helped OH0Z to log 4717-3561 = 1156 (24 %) more qsos than OH5LF. However Juha did better to West Coast, Mid West and JA too. A clear win for OH0Z on most fronts (see Picture 9.).
Table 1. One or more qsos with the same station ?
Unique calls in log Multipliers ? There were quite many multipliers that show in both logs (see tables 2. 3. and 4.). All in all there were 163 DXCC and WAE-countries found among the claimed mults. I would estimate there were still some 10-15 that were on the air but missed by both us. These were most likely African stations. According to the logs all zones had activity. Some had very few stations representing them. The really rare ones are: 2, 6, 7, 10, 12, 22, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 and 40. Rare is defined so that qsos to that zone make less than 0.25 % of total number of qsos (every 400th qso). That makes a long list! Table 2. Country multipliers that appeared in both logs and
multipliers in one or the other's log. Table 3.Country multipliers by band. "X" = in both logs. " | " only in OH0Z's log, "~" only in OH5LF's log. Table 3. shows how both stations have missed many "easy ones". Let's take OH0Z's missing RW2F on 160 or and OH5LF's missing YL-qso on 80 meters as examples. There's lots of room for improvement. Table 4. Zone multipliers by band. "X" = in both logs. " | " only in OH0Z's log, "~" only in OH5LFs log. Data tabulated in table 4. shows how both stations missed W6/W7 on 80 meters. It is really difficult in CQ WW to make that zone 3 qso on 80 meters from Finland. African stations were difficult on 160 - 40 meters. OH0Z has missed 80 m to the east: 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27 are all lacking from Juha's log. HC8N was hard to find and zone 10 is missed often by OH0Z. However Juha's 6-pack with JW5NM really paid off (zone 40)!. KL7 is difficult on 160 and 80. 1.8 MHz is not a DX-band: {4X, 5B4, A6, CN8, CT3, JW, K, UA9 and YV} for OH0Z on that band. Summa Summarum This year the CQWW CW contest was fun from OH. Many stations scored well and there are lots of stories to tell. A contest is over only when it is properly analyzed. I hope you've enjoyed this story. CU in TEST! |
