CQ WW SSB 2015 Results

Walt - KZ1F

Ken, I originally thought I'd enjoy Maestro but upon reflection I decided when we leave the house to visit kids and grandkids I am there to visit not huddle in the corner whispering cq cq cq. On the amp, absolutely! The proof of that is how many time you ear a station that neverr hears you. If you are still at 38' a good 500-600 watts would help a lot. But your own experience operating will dictate that, whether you are big ear or big mouth. That how my mentor explained it. It's better, albeit more frustrating, to hear stations you can't work than to be heard by stations you can't hear, noise pollution. My ant is at just over 18m up, perfect for my 17-10 lp. The other thing I was always told is you strive to be one full wavelength off the ground on those bands you use most.

Ken - NM9P

It looks like am going to be stuck at 38' for a while. I wish I could have gone another 20-30 ft. That was my initial goal. But life has limits, and my yard and pocketbook did too. I have always used the term Alligator (all mouth and no ears) or Elephant (big ears, small mouth). With the excellent sensitivity and filters on this rig, I am certainly able to hear stations that I cannot hear. But was amazing that during the contest, I had many stations down in the noise that I was able to work fairly easily. My guess is that they were barefoot with verticals & wires, or using inefficient antennas. A few must have been QRP, but didn't say so. If I were only trying to add power for low-band rag chewing, or DXing, i.e. would go for a medium tube amp of 600-800 watts. If I were confident that I were going to mostly "run" frequencies in a contest, then a medium or larger manual tune tube amp might be good. But currently I am S&P which would drive me nuts retuning all the time, so I would like to get a solid state amp. But solid state with built in tuner is very expensive. At this point in the gam I refuse to pay more for my amp than I did for my rig! There is something that just sticks in my craw about that. Some are even more than my rig, tower, and antenna system combined! I guess there are only so many "splurges" available at my income level. Ha! Whatever amp I may get in the near future will be a compromise. Perhaps an ALS-600 if I can get a good deal on a used one. I have some folks I know with old Collins amps that are not too badly priced for a tube amp, the same for SB-200/220. But none of those old tube amps have 160 meters, which is the band I need most power. It really is a never ending process of improving the station. I will weigh in on legacy vs. SDR in effective contesting in another post.... But I must get back to work for now. I am writing and recording radio devotional spots for next week. Ken -NM9P

Walt - KZ1F

It will always be that never ending loop of station improvements. Alligator did ring a bell. I use an Elecraft kpa-500 and kat500. I believe both new assembled are around $900. I think it was $700 and $200. You can save around $300 if you are willing to scree the thing s together. They got can be no solder kits. The amp can be pushed to 700w and the two together work flawlessly with ddutil. You can even tell the atu to bypass for 20-10 as the lp is no tune. The atu supports three antennas so 20-10 can be ant 1 in bypass mode, leaving 160-30 to work through the tuner. Again, works great with the Flex. This will give you abt 1-1 1/2 s units. For me, east coast, it helps tremendously working the S. Pacific up thru KL. Helps in middle East as well.

Walt - KZ1F

I thought I'd circle back to Howard's dig. I've been licensed since 82, I've done my share of ACTUAL contesting, even with the Flex as well as TS-530SP w/o benefit of panadapter.

Simon Lewis

Hey Walt I had a look at the KPA500 ... as you twigged my interest on a back up amp .. the KPA500 is 2300 built and the ATU 700 ... about 3K all up .. I think I will stick to my plans - I am building some bricks from Jim W6PQL and will buy a band decoder so I can drive the amp relays off that - I have the SPE 1K amp now and love that .. I'd love a 2K one but the NZ-USD been hit hard recently so I'll be building an additional amp for low band ops rather than buying a complete one ... LDMOS too .. the way to go these days   What does those KPA500's sell like second hand??

Walt - KZ1F

Apologies Simon (and Ken). I can't believe I was that far off on price. My Bad!!
I think if I were up 100' or so I'd go with a 2KFA , or Alpha 9500. I am sort of height limited as well. But 1 wavelength up isn't too shabby. The antenna doesn't clear the surrounding trees. That'll make EME a tad problematic. I bet there would be an active used market for people who want to push out 1500w into the nearby hill. It works well for me, I do well in pile ups, rarely get a 59+10. Used they appear to be around $1800. My point was they work very nicely with the flex and don't break the bank like a Prometeus or 2KFA would. Most people just don't need 2,000 watts. I haven't had a hint of any issue with either of them.

EA4GLI

I was going to ask where I can buy the HPA500 and ATU for $900!! I think the new SPE 1.3k is a very sweet spot as far as power and functionality. These guys in the UK are building an interesting solid state amp http://www.linamp.co.uk/gemini_HF.html



They are using the new NXP LDMOS.

Burt Fisher

Ken I guess you are making one of those great videos Friday night. I thought I was good at videos but nothing compared to you.

Burt Fisher

I admire those that can do what I cannot. Everything you said is so valuable.

Walt - KZ1F

I took a lot of German in high school. I was tech lead on a project in Rotterdam late 80's and dutch is very close to German. After a couple of trips I started speaking German to people there. Turns out despite the similarities, German is the WAY wrong language to be speaking in Rotterdam. I am very much apposed to the prevailing notion if people in their own country want to communicate with Americans they are expected to speak English... or American in the case of Sarah Palin.

Walt - KZ1F

David, check out the koch trainer app for ios and Android.

Mark_WS7M

I got my zombie number!  Not sure how much op time I will get friday night but I'm 1192.  A member of the undead.

philip.theis

I'm in central PA.  I did run for some of the time, but if I wasn't spotted it was often more productive to S&P, especially on 10m in the afternoon when it was open.
It certainly is an art.

KY6LA_Howard

I have been contesting with at least a spectrum display since the Heathkit Panadaptet ant 1970. It always improved rate if you can see.

km9r.mike

N1MM+ 

http://n1mm.hamdocs.com/tiki-index.php

Ken - NM9P

UPDATE:  Preliminary results...
I just checked today and the preliminary raw scores (unchecked) lists the following results.

Category Single OP, Assisted, All Bands, Low Power
Score = 584,568 points

USA Rank = 29th of 230
NA Rank = 36 of 268
World Rank = 84 of 886

I couldn't find a way to sort for call region or state rankings.

Not bad!
Especially for having very limited antenna on 80/160 meters. 
The new LP really helped on the 20-10 Meters!

I worked 105 different countries.  I don't have a total of how many have QSL's via LOTW yet, but this is, I think, the first time of have worked over 100 countries in a single contest.

The 6000 series made it a lot more fun.
Thanks FRS.  Loving my 6500!

Ken - NM9P

k0eoo

Congrats Ken, does your world rank number indicate there were only 886 logs turned in from all who participated?

Dennis, k0eoo

Ken - NM9P

Apparently only 886 logs turned in for the category of Single Op, Assisted, All-Band, Low Power.  Other categories have different counts.

I wish that they would automatically cross-reference all-band entries to all of the single band entries, too.  This would make it interesting to compare all the Ops on each band.  It might make for some interesting counts for single bands.  As it is, a person needs to declare a single band entry and only one single band entry is allowed.  It would be somewhat easy to subdivide and sort all entries to their respective single bands and score them that way as well as in the all-band category.

Ken - NM9P

k0eoo

OK, I see now, the 886 number is the total logs turned in for your category....

Ken - NM9P

Yeah. But I'm "old school!" Hee hee!