NAQP RTTY Juk 2011 IW1AYD & IZ1TNL

North American QSO Party, RTTY - July

Call: IW1AYD
Operator(s): IZ1TNL IW1AYD
Station: IW1AYD

Class: M/2 LP
QTH: Bra (CN)
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   80:           
   40:   81    32
   20:  283    50
   15:           
   10:           
-------------------
Total:  364    82  Total Score = 30,576

Club: 

Team: 

Comments:

Great time. IZ1TNL was also happy  about her first experience, both of
contesting and contesting with her husband. I wouldnâ??t ask she what was more
heavy. Unfortunately the propagation wasnâ??t so good on 15m, 40m and 80m and
at last absent on 10m. As the 20m band, with  five elements at 30m high, was
pretty well workable and open until late we resolved to stay there still
barefoot. The RUN routine went quite flawless but not before almost 21 UTC.
Prior to this time we experienced a lot, really a lot, of EU calls due to the
DMC contest running  together with NAQP. A nightmare. After the first 15
minutes, since the NAQP start, we added a macro with â??HI NAQP NAQP ONLY NA
SORRY DE IW1AYD NAQP CQâ??. Having a â??NAQP CALL CALL CQâ?? in the automated
CQ doesnâ??t solved the question so when any call was thrown in by out of the
NA call signs we fired the added macro and continued the NAQP CQing. So, we
interleaved the new macro with the RUN CQ as one EU call was popping up in
between every two NA calls. This happened quite half of the time for 2 to 3
hours. Sorry for that but we couldnâ??t afford a contest in a contest logging
practice. It was a good practice to keep ourselves calm and motivated to work
on our objectives. We hope not to have been too much rude with all those other
friends. A simple read of the events/contest calendar may have solved this
issue, but no way to make it simple. A more simple look at the NAQP instead of
TEST or even DMC string may have solved at all this issue, but again no way.
A handful of US operators went up with out of contest QSO style answers in
between ours RUN and this was quite interesting also, as itâ??s not so often
that a EU station went so cherished by any US stations. It was a pleasure for
us and clearly a more big pleasure for ours correspondent. So we stopped the
contesting style RUN to have some form of  fast QSOâ??s. Sorry to have been
late for somebody out there. But beading the happiness of somebody about a QSO
with a simple IW1 call is a pleasure. For example having a great time with a
dipole under the roof to make a QSO with EU isnâ??t a every day job, we all
need to remember this. Yes, 20m during the NAQP went very well, for sure.
We struggled on 15m and 80m calling running stations but there was nothing to
do at all. Lately at our local night and until the end of the NAQP tournament
we have had also something interesting to do on 40m. But not so much unluckily.
May be this season marked its hole about.
Having  to train another operator, IZ1TNL my wife, was a pleasant job in the
contest. Sometimes I was tempted to be a little bit rude remarking some points,
but she managed increasingly well the radio that all went  smoothly and we had a
good time practicing with all those needed tasks in a contest. Well the post
contest tasks are another history.
First radio used was a IC-7600, running quite hot but very well performing,
software was N1MM, plenty of macros, all worked pretty well. We have had a
really hot WX here, so it was a pleasure not to have the PAâ??s running nearby.
Instead of those the air conditioner have done a great job, but only for
ourselves, sorry.

           73 de IZ1TNL Simonetta and IW1AYD Salvo

DL-DX RTTY Contest IQ1RY Team

DL-DX RTTY Contest

Call: IQ1RY
Operator(s): IK1HXN, I1BEP, SWL_FEDERICO, IW1FNW, IW1AYD
Station: IQ1RY

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

Summary:
 Band  QSOs   Pts   Mults
--------------------------
   80:  103   1157    30
   40:  334   3951    12
   20:  511   6189    89
   15:  299   3518    73
   10:   96   1036    30
--------------------------
Total: 1343  15851   270  Total Score = 4,279,770

Club: 

Comments:

What a great time!
This year the DL-DX was this: a great time contesting, full of friends
everywhere, thanks to all for all for the Qâ??s!
 
The major thanks have to be for the several Wâ??s and JAâ??s operators that
tirelessly have had the patience to overcome the not so good prop. They have
had signals small than usual, sometime it was somewhat tricky to decode those
not so well sounding tones. 

The EU wall was quite every time present, at least for the first 12 hours
period, sorry for who didnâ??t come out from any hole to us. 
The 80m and 40m bands didnâ??t worked as for the 2010, more noise and not too
much signals. This was quite expected.

There was a large band signal well placed on almost 21.080 MHz to 21.105 MHz
lately in the morning, radar?. Several of us tried to move out of the mud in
the upper band slice, but it was near the end of contest and not anybody get
it. The already diminishing traffic heavily suffered from this QRM, at least
from this side. That time, plain daylight, the 40m bands still worked for EU
Qâ??s, another load of DL's!

The 10m band went largely opened the first day afternoon. But, as a personal
opinion, not so many have made a trip so long out of a small a bunch of
operators or the skip was quite short also there. Well, better now than years
before.
A lot of I station not so far away from us where listened and contacted on 20m
and 15m, more from ours East than from ours South, some sort of short and
strong skip was also there.

The 7600 again well outperformed the 756PROIII in several aspects, the tricks
of the CAT commands inside the N1MM macros saved our pours fingers and souls
switching filters and the TPF in and out. This last was not so often useful as
it is a somewhat wider than the one on the PROIII, noisy bands made it
sometimes unusable. The 200Hz tricks that Don AA5AU suggested some time ago
helped and give us some relief, but not every time. 
The N1MM in was great as usual. MMTTY greatest features, filters, worked well,
apart from the switching time â?¦ a second MMTTY window with a different filter
setup may help with the more elusive signals already in view. Not anybody get
into the tights filters needed for weak and faded signals. BTW several peoples
seems that doesn't have NET on or never checked out for any RX to TX
difference. It's quite usual and well expected, time to time it could happen.

TNX to the organizers of this every time nice contest, also for all their
efforts that doesn't end now. They will have just from now their time! 

Well, CU all in the 2011 results and than in the 2012 for the DL-DX!

               73 de iw1ayd, Salvo: one of the IQ1RY Team.

A. VOLTA RTTY Contest 2011 - IQ1RY team

Well: we win our category! 

...

Volta RTTY DX Contest

Call: IQ1RY
Operator(s): IK1HXN, IW1AYD, IZ1LBG, I1BEP, YV5JDT/I1
Station: IQ1RY

Class: M/S HP
QTH: BRA
Operating Time (hrs): 22

Summary:
 Band  QSOs   Pts   Mults
--------------------------
   80:   53    428    22
   40:  265   2785    49
   20:  485   7265    77
   15:  193   3307    64
   10:    5     65     4
--------------------------
Total: 1001  13850   217  Total Score = 3,036,183,150

Club: 

Comments:

We had a blast, well we have had three (tens) or more blasts, during the whole
Volta contest and some more after since we get an helping hand from K3CT. 
What we have done this time at the Volta RTTY Contest  will be written in our
history for years here at IQ1RY. First of all: we enjoyed a lot any single
contact, thanks to all. The Volta is one of the nicest contest from our
standpoint  and we enjoy participating it from here. Itâ??s a unique RTTY
business and the operators are consciousness and highly motivated about. We
operated, well we hardly tried to operate,  during the event in five OM,  two
in charge for the whole contest operating time and three as welcomed guest
operators. The major part of the contest went on as pure adrenaline, well
sometime it was too much quite to be dead on.
We started putting in front of the operating position the last year plaque we
won as IQ1RY in MULTI ALL BANDS. It was the right memento to all the operators
in charge over time. Things started  smoothly  reaching levels  of pure
enjoyment as the local evening was coming. At night one of the blast was the
20m band fully open, as it was for the ARI International DX contest the week
before.  But something was better than then.  The 40m and 80m bands donâ??t
went abruptly closed, some more appreciable contacts on those band continued
well into ours night time, with the 20m band still working and 15m, well, so
so. 
A big loud software bang. At almost the 04Z AM local, 02 UTC, the logger
reached over 900 QSO and went screaming about a runtime error. We werenâ??t
able to make a workaround to this until 08Z AM. In the meantime we have had
some contacts,  during trying and troubleshooting  the mess. All those
contacts, counting on two hands, where recovered but we furnished some
duplicated numbers. Sorry for that, but we hope that this would not have any
consequence. 
After all we restarted one logger, it was almost the 80th I think,  and gained
the ability to log contacts without problems. That was done with a workaround
and we knew that we will have to do a heavy work in the post-contest to
reassemble the whole contacts data base. We have now done it, successfully we
think.
As the contest ended we asked for any help from the N1MM development team.  Oh
men, to make short a very long story. We had our last series of blasts after
the contest. But we are really lucky as we meet highly motivated and
professional peoples over there. Particularly instrumental for the solution we
had was John K3CT, TU John! You deserve all yours gratefully thanks.
Now Volta operations time for the 2011 is gone and we should be able to send
our results. WOW! What a bunch of blasts! Itâ??s radio, itâ??s ours world.
   CU in contest!
              73 from the whole IQ1RY RTTY team