WAE DX RTTY Contest

RTTY contesting is a favorite of mine. Unfortunately, most contest sponsors do not include a QRP category for RTTY contests. While RTTY is not nearly as good a mode for QRP operation as CW or PSK31, it is better than SSB and most SSB contests include a QRP category.

The Worked All Europe contests are always fun. One of my first forays into HF contesting was the Worked All Europe SSB contest in September 2000. I made over 100 contacts in that contest and it was a great deal of fun.

I only worked the final day of this contest. Saturday was filled with Michigan State football and partying, which made it tough to wake up at 8:00am in time for 10 meters to open to Europe! I also shut down early to go to the bar to watch the Detroit Lions game late that afternoon.

Here is my summary score from 3830:

WAE DX Contest, RTTY

Call: N8HM
Operator(s): N8HM
Station: N8HM

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: Washington, DC
Operating Time (hrs): 7

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Pts  QTCs  Mults
------------------------------
   80:                      
   40:                      
   20:   3     3           6
   15:  29    39   10     42
   10:  11    11          18
------------------------------
Total:  43    53   10     66  Total Score = 3,498

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

Rig - Yaesu FT-817ND
Antenna - AlexLoop Walkham Portable Magnetic Loop

As multipliers are doubled on the 20, 15, and 10 in this contest, the multiplier totals actually should be half of what is listed here.

I started this contest on 10m shortly after 1300Z. I worked a couple of stations in Puerto Rico and then found some European stations. Worked several Europeans over the next hour. As I am running QRP into a small magnetic loop antenna, it often takes several calls to break through. At 1415Z, I was sitting on 28.097MHz when a loud station started CQing a few hundred hertz up the band, I tuned it in and it was ZD8F on Ascension Island calling. I replied and he came right back to me for a new DXCC entity. One difference between the RTTY version of this contest and the SSB and CW versions is that QSOs are allowed between any station - not just with Europeans. Just after 1430Z, I moved down to 15m and continued to work Europeans, running across LY1R in Lithuania at 1621Z for another new DXCC entity.

One interesting feature of this contest is QTCs, which are reports of QSOs made with other stations. Each station can send 10 QTCs to any other station, though QTCs can only be exchanged between stations on different continents. QTCs count the same as QSOs, so exchanging them can really pump up your score. I was not set up to automatically send or receive QTCs and my weak signal ensured that no one would ask me to send QTCs due to the probability that much of the data would need to be resent several times. At 1742Z, I worked DL4RCK and he asked me if I wanted any QTCs. I decided that I would copy them down manually and input them into my log, so I told him I was ready and copied 10 QTCs without a problem. It's an interesting feature of this contest that I hope to explore more in future contests.  Afterward, I continued to work several more Europeans and at 2000Z, I moved to 20m and worked three more North Americans to I could break the 3,000 point mark before going QRT and heading to the bar.

It was a fun contest and I can't wait until next year's!

Here is a map of the QSOs made: