Contest Crew Unplugged: Insights and Laughs from WPX CW 

Another great video by W1DED - thanks for all the QSO's in the WPX from Arizona. I would like to comment that being a CWOP's member and participating in CWT's sure has helped with copying SN's. The longer SN's were sometimes interrupted by QRM, and especially by QSB. There were times a station was S5 - S7 and copyable and while H&P and waiting for a QSO to complete and then sending my call - working that same station and their signal would drop out. When an op has limited antennas (I run 200 watts into two home-brew verticals for 10-15-20, and an Alpha-Delta 40-80-160 Inv V) the effect of losing a signal is magnified. I likewise experienced QRN hindering bits and pieces of CW, and in the interest of improving accuracy in my log, I took the time to try and avoid busted serial numbers. Still, I am happy with 705 QSO's in the log with over 200 on 40 meters in spite of the radar noise at S7 - S8. Condx were certainly a huge improvement over last year. 73 de K N 7 Y

Thanks for another episode! Welcome to a low noise floor and stations not replying. It's daily business here. I was operating ZM4T in low power again after some blow to my low power filter and noise issues with the 50 V dc smps. The amp still sits disassembled on the work bench, waiting for some parts to be shipped to New Zealand. I also found conds on day two better than on day one. Activity was much less on day two which helped in doing S&P. S&P hit rate is often very bad from OC as we are of the main antenna directions. I also found that I worked many more JA's and much less NA than usual. I assume Was NA busy working EU (50% of all PFX)? We had great long path openings on 10/15 m to EU. Very little SA as usual. They never beam to their South East for OC. The radar on 40 m was terrible and made working stations very difficult. Luckily we are going into the winter (Southern hemisphere) and with three beams on 40 m we start working EU/SA/NA already before 3 pm local time. With 20 m being so crowded I was unable to hold a frequency there and moved to 40 early. It turned out to be a goods decision. When the radar kicked in I went back to 15 m and later 20. 10 m was very patchy and brought a lot less NA than expected. Luckily JA/BY compensated (at least in QSO numbers). EU openings were amazing and I managed about 800 multipliers which is a new best for me in low power. As for the difficulties copying 4 digit numbers. I see three factors: 1. QRM/QSB 2. Fatigue /Zombie mode 3. At this stage the main contesters are in the lof and one works a lot of casual contesters 73 Holger

Thats Awesome! love the after action reports. Would love a tour of the KM7w shack inside and out. Although I think from the sounds of it we may have seen half of it already lol.

Even though I haven't held the call for over 15 years, it is still quite strange to see KM7W gaining such notoriety! Love the discussion - hopefully, one day, maybe I'll be able to get my contesting skills up and operate at KM7W. (Doubt it, though, as I work weekends!!) Big thumbs up, guys!

Interestingly enough, conditions were really good from the start of Saturday until Saturday night, (west coast & pacific in the afternoon). Sunday morning was OK but propagation seemed to be down from Saturday, much less NA to be heard on 20, it took a lot longer for NA stations to become workable here. I was able to work KM7W on 15m Saturday at ~1400z not very loud here but no flutter and they could hear me just fine, FB! One of the really interesting things this year was how many EU stations called me that were extremely weak, right at my noise floor (which is quite low), but they heard me fine. Either my noise floor is higher than before, or propagation was weird..? The QSB also was unreal at times. I think this is just spring / summer conditions that I always forget about come WPX CW.. Conditions were definitely down from last year, I was running NA on 15m last year, never was able to get anything going on that band this year, even though I have more antenna options.. I had practiced quite a bit before the contest but looking through some of the footage from this years WPX compared to last year I'm honestly not sure I'm any better at copying, which is concerning. One problematic thing I run into is since I'm only running 100w is I'll call you at 30+ WPM, if I don't get through I'll lower WPM to 25-28, and very often in during my exchange I'll tag on the exchange again at a slower WPM. Especially if it's over a polar path with flutter. I consider this good practice but it ends up biting me in the behind as some stations will not hear my exchange possibly and move on to another caller and once I let off the PTT I've potentially missed the "TU" or whatever confirmation. I log it and end up not being in their log, which leads to dupes. Finding a clear frequency to run on is also very difficult, this year there were often one or two other stations on the same frequency, sometimes EU that I couldn't hear well. 73 DE LB1TI / LC9A.

Really enjoy the pre and post sessions with the Contest Crew! Thanks for putting these together! I'm new to contesting and this content helps a bunch and adds to the fun. Got to work Dan on 15m (tnx for the mult) and sure we got Randy and Chris & Co as well. We ran MSLP as WK9M from The Radio Ridge Contest Club site (N4SS) in KY and had a blast Definitely some challenges along the way through three rounds of thunderstorms, etc. The mentions of log accuracy in pre session is what had everyone asking for repeats! LOL. Great contest! Looking forward to the next one. 73 de N4AAJ

For CW I’m 100% S&P here and totally relied on a decoder to read the exchanges… fear the QSB 😧

Excellent, thank you guys.

Thanks!🙌👍🤙

I don't have issues with 4 digit serials. With a bit of logic it is easy to understand what to expect. In the beginning of the contest when you hear a 1, 2 or 3 it will be a 3 digit. Later on, especially in the second day when you hear them, you have to be alert that it's a 4 digit serial.

For the 4-digit threshold, I will guess that, aside from fatigue factor and signal quality issues, the 4-digit threshold might be because of typing skills at the far end ... someone may be single-handed hunt-&-peck typing only the 2nd digit by the time they are hearing the 4th digit ... now, what was that 3rd digit? And, of course, especially when tired, many folks may not copy quite as fast as they can set their rig to transmit. It would be interesting to find a knee in an experimental curve regarding CW speed (specifically for 4-digit numbers!), vs. incidence of repeat requests. Hey, this was a really cool video; learned a lot ... thanks! -- Ben, AC2YD --

Cut numbers in the SN when people are weak are not helping! Plus who decided that an oh for zero was a good idea. T or Zero please.

Tnx QSO! JF9JTS

For CW I’m 100% S&P here and totally relied on a decoder to read the exchanges… fear the QSB 😧