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WA3QIZ QRZ?

For the first time I was operating “assisted” in a major contest. One of the first serious CQWW RTTY contests too … I think I once worked this one from OH1ZAA’s station (some 20 years ago).

CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: OH1F
Operator(s): OH1NOA
Station: OH1AF

Class: SOAB(A) HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 36

Summary:
Band QSOs Pts State/Prov DX Zones
——————————————
80: 112 226 1 40 9
40: 220 500 17 63 21
20: 420 996 35 69 30
15: 502 1323 40 74 28
10: 221 588 31 67 26
——————————————
Total: 1475 3633 124 313 114 Total Score = 2,001,783

Club: Contest Club Finland

Comments:

FT1000D + WinTest + MMTTY + Microham Keyer II + Alpha 91b + antennae

The best condx for 10 years! The highlight was to work KH6MB during the daytime
on Saturday at 10 meters and then at 22z on 15. Propagation was not as good at
Sunday although it was still ok. It was also challenging to work European
multipliers on high bands.

As I was SO1R this was just relaxed “just for fun” operation. Chasing DX spots
and chatting on WWYC IRC. I had some techincal issues like BSoD of my mini
laptop 4 times during the contest. Also WT had its own tricks and someway I
feel that I am not totally understanding all the features of MMTTY yet (= I
should have more qsos).

CU all in SAC SSB contest 8-9 October, 2011 from OH1F M/M.

73 Timo OH1NOA, OJ0M

10 meters and slightly 20 meters were dissapointments but I think we did ok. I was mainly operating 40 meters. We will return for SSB part in multi-multi with 3 guest ops: OH1RX, OH6XX and OG9X.

Scandinavian Activity Contest, CW

Call: OH1F
Operator(s): OH1NOA, OH1TM, OH1HS, OH1LWZ, OH1RX, OH5DX
Station: OH1AF

Class: M/M HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
——————-
80: 454 41
40: 863 59
20: 961 67
15: 683 66
10: 161 41
——————-
Total: 3122 274 Total Score = 1,967,046

Club: Contest Club Finland

Comments:

Our first SAC CW multi-multi since 1995! As usual, lots of problems to solve
before kick-off time, but managed to get 4 stations on the air at the start.
When OH5DX arrived 45 minutes after the start, he had to climb to tower to
release 10m antenna. With our antenna set up we have to make compromises in
multi-multi, eg. we didn’t beam to USA on 20m until late Saturday evening. Lost
obviously lots of qsos and maybe some mults there.

Night was quite quiet propagationwise, thanks for aurora. 15 meters was anyway
in good shape, USA came in till 23z and we have a good JA opening on Sunday.

Plenty of rare, unheard OHs on the air! CU on SSB leg.

73, Timo OH1NOA

I worked last weekend CQ WPX Contest in the single operator all bands class at OH1F. During the SSB leg I lost to top Finnish stations almost 1000 qsos, now I was doing better against OG8X, OG0Z and OG2B. Unfortunately propagation was the worst for years – we had several big flares from the sun during the weekends – I didn’t even manage to break my own record of this contest. I worked only a bit over 200 North American stations in the contest!

CQWW WPX Contest, CW

Call: OH1F
Operator(s): OH1NOA
Station: OH1AF

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Devil’s Rock, Pori
Operating Time (hrs): 36

Summary:
Band QSOs
————
160: 16
80: 126
40: 644
20: 1196
15: 315
10: 247
————
Total: 2544 Prefixes = 830 Total Score = 3,794,760

Club: Contest Club Finland

Comments:

“Der Angst under aurora oval 2011 edition”

No good DX runs, but some weird openings. Coronal holes and flares made life difficult in Northern Europe. 80% EU, 9 % NA, 9% AS.
73 Timo OH1NOA

Great news, Russia has now joined CEPT:

From Eugene UAØCA, “I wish to inform all of pleasant news – Russia has joined CEPT. Now foreign hams who have a radio amateur license and come to Russia will be able to operate without notice, using their call sign with a slash adding the call area of Russia. For example, RAØ/JA8BMK.”
The ARRL Contest Update for April 13, 2011

This weekend I will participate to CQ WPX SSB Contest at our club, OH1F. I will operate in a single operator all bands high power class. Just relaxing, having fun without any pressure “to win”. WPX web site is super nowadays: you can search for all your past operations easily:

http://www.cqwpx.com/searchbycall.htm?cl=oh1noa&order=contestdate&submit=Go

So I can set eg. a goal to make my personal best in this contest easily as I see that my best all time has been:
OH3MMM 2000 5,297,812 2,593 qsos 884 px
I was operating from the station of Seppo, OH1VR and band conditions favoured high bands.

Radio Nord was a famous pirate radio station broadcasting at sea outside of Stockholm in 1961-1962. Now there is an anniversary station on 1512 kHz and 6060 kHz. Check for details:

http://radionordrevival.blogspot.com/

More about Radio Nord on Wikipedia.

Call: OH1F
Operator(s): OH1NOA
Station: OH1AF

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Devil’s Rock, Pori
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
Band QSOs Pts
—————–
80: 155 155
40: 266 266
20: 401 401
15: 88 88
10: 0 0
—————–
Total: 910 910 Mults = 95 Total Score = 485,490

Club: Contest Club Finland

Comments:

Poor propagation although there was some short DX-openings. Especially low bands were tough. Continents as multipliers is a really stupid rule in the contest where you work 2 South Americans (LU, PY), 2 Africans (CT3, EA8) and 3 Oceanian stations (2xYB, 9M6).

Now 2703 RTTY QSOs this year.

                    UK DX Contest, RTTY

Call: OH1F
Operator(s): OH1NOA
Station: OH1AF

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Devil's Rock, Pori
Operating Time (hrs): 18

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Pts   Mults
-------------------------
   80:  171          50
   40:  175          42
   20:  335          60
   15:   79          32
   10:    1
-------------------------
Total:  761  1756   185  Total Score = 324,860

Club: Contest Club Finland

Comments:

Murphy visited several times. Good signals from V31YN and USA on 80 meters!

I have now worked 1793 RTTY Contest qsos in 2011. Maybe I should aim to 10k this year 🙂
This was pretty hard contest. I could get clubhouse’s lock open, because of -22 Celsius outside. Yes, I know this a new excuse. When I finally got in (thanks OH1TM), I had to download N1MM. But then I didn’t get N1MM working with AFSK. Then finally after almost 2 hours of official start, I made my first contacts. I decided switch to Win-Test and counted score manually afterwards.

I am thinking about BARTG RTTY Sprint next weekend. Similar contest than this was, but probably a bit more stations QRV.

Last weekend I worked my first long RTTY contest for years. In the 1980s I was quite active on RTTY by using decoder builded from the legendary Sinclair ZX81 🙂

In ARRL RTTY Roundup I broke an old OH record, but only by 1k points, so after log check – no chance. At least I am #1 in Finland for single op high power. At the beginning I had some problems with MMTTY – actually I just don’t know it well enough yet.

ARRL RTTY Roundup

FT1000D + Win-Test + MMTTY + MicroHam Microkeyer II + Alpha 91b + antennae

This weekend there is an UK RTTY Contest. It seems to be pretty popular – winners worked some 900 qsos last year. I will probably go and give it a shot. Unfortunately I need to use N1MM, one new software again.