Thanks for the comments, Jiri. I absolutely take them as constructive. I also operated a fair bit of 40 from V31MD and given that this was my first experience operating 40 in the DX phone band, I was never quite sure of the best strategy. I did try listening on frequency for periods but was seldom able to get anything going in the way of a run on my own frequency, but did get some very high rate runs into the US going listening up. The other comment I would make is that I find the SDR's split GUI a little confusing. That may be more of a deficiency on my part than on the part of the software, but it was never intuitive to me how to *quickly* (meaning one keystroke, if possible) go from transmitting in the DX band and listening US to listening simplex in the DX band. I'm not in front of the console right now, but seems like there was always an A>B frequency swap that had to take place, then un-split to listen on frequency, then the reverse of that to return to split. When it's the middle of the night and you're tired, it's easy to mess up a multi-stroke sequence AND return focus to the logging program before you type in a call in the SDR VFO and make an unscheduled departure for Neverland.
Also, Dual Watch would be absolutely wonderful to have in this situation. The split difference may be too much, though. Thanks again for bringing this up. I can see where you'd get pretty frustrated with us. On the other hand, "it's all about rate" when you're running, and we had some pretty hot runs going to the US, and trading off those 300+ per hour bursts would be questionable even to get the 3 point Qs from EU. That's just being practical. 73, Gary W5ZL -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jiri Sanda Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 1:44 PM Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Scoring Details V31MD SDR CQWW SSB Hello all, One comment to V31MD operation. I ran 40m single band with my 2x5Y full size Yagi and I have to say you were probably the TOUGHEST multiplier to achieve not because you were weak or inaudible but because of the way you run - ingnored there is 1000 stations in Eu you could easily work and who want to work you. The globe is not only USA ! You were not loud in Eu but reasonably audible - the problem was you were NOT at ALL so far as I have observed (at least 15 times) listened on your own frequency or CQ "upstairs" and listen "downstairs". I came to you at least 5 times before I made it and no avail. There was always a couple of Eu stations calling but you did not care at all !. So once you were listening a bit bellow 7200 my chance came I made it through the USA pile up at first call and response was Oh! you are loud here- I told you a lot of EUs is calling you on your FQ but the op ignored the fact at all and strugled with some WA4 upstairs. I have talked with OK5Ws and he said the same it was the toughest mult to reach they operated like I.... Of course 40m is a ZOO..... Please take this as a positive remarque - no ofense ! 73 ! Jiri OK1RI On Wed, 9 Nov 2005, Gary Schmidt W5ZL wrote: > By now you may have tired of hearing about the V31 thing, and I couldn't > blame you. But we just posted our scores and summaries to the 3830 contest > site which is THE website where everybody that's anybody posts their claimed > scores, pounds their chests, makes excuses for their poor performance, or > all of the above. Well, we SDR contesters aren't any different. We've got > our excuses, too, as you'll read below (if you haven't already hit DELETE). > > > > Here's the text of what we just posted to the contesting world. Note that we > are currently sitting somewhere around 13th in the world (non-US), but of > course, that's subject to some slippage as more stations report. > > > > Gary W5ZL > > > > CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB > > > > Call: V31MD > > Operator(s): AA4SW (V31SR), WO0Z (V31LL), AB5K (V31TG), W5ZL (V31ZL), V31MD > > Station: V31MD > > > > Class: M/2 > > QTH: Placencia, Belize > > Operating Time (hrs): 48 > > > > Summary: > > Band QSOs Zones Countries > > ------------------------------ > > 160: 188 7 14 > > 80: 343 13 36 > > 40: 819 26 69 > > 20: 1115 24 75 > > 15: 1134 25 77 > > 10: 55 6 18 > > ------------------------------ > > Total: 3654 101 289 Total Score = 3,085,290 > > > > Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club > > > > Comments: > > > > Team SDR, comprised of Eric AA4SW (V31SR), Larry WO0Z (V31LL), Terry AB5K > (V31TG) and Gary W5ZL (V31ZL) rented Bob V31MD's Belizean shack for CQWW SSB > and descended on Placencia with a complement of three SDR-1000s - a pair and > a spare - and the requisite computer gear to mount the first ever > DXpedition/contest operation using exclusively software defined radios. > > > > Technical complexity for our setup was relatively high, but for the most > part we were able to dispatch technical problems quickly as they arose - > with one key exception. We realized in the moments leading up to the > starting gun that we didn't have what we needed to interface either SDR to > Bob's Ameritron 600 amplifier. Had we been near, say, a Radio Shack, no > problemo. Working as we were with fairly modest antennas, running 100 watts > instead of 600 was a serious handicap on the low bands, and kept us from > maintaining nighttime runs as we had hoped to do. > > > > Propagation from Belize was a little surprising. 20 meters seemed to largely > die with the sunset (around 6 pm local), and 15 didn't tend to wake up until > nearly noon. 10 was virtually non-existent until Sunday when we had a pretty > good pipeline to South America (lots of LUs) and a handful of other > Caribbean stations, but NIL to the US or EU (or anywhere else, for that > matter). 40 was decent, but again we had a lot of trouble holding a run > frequency in the DX band with 100 watts and a vertical, and our runs were > modest aside from a spectacular early Sunday morning opening to JA. 160 was > excellent both nights to the States and by the second night it was hard to > find anyone we hadn't worked. 80 was just plain tough sledding. > > > > The receiver in the SDR lived up to its press clippings in the very crowded > bands of this contest. The panadapter display, felt by some before the > contest to be "cool, but largely useless in a contest we should be running > in" became downright invaluable in spotting pin holes that we could drop > into to try to establish a run frequency, and to spot possible 40 meter > split frequencies. N1MM integrated with the SDR's application software > flawlessly and proved a huge hit with the team. Our biggest problem was > being heard. > > > > Rigs: Two FlexRadio Systems 100-watt SDR-1000s, networked wirelessly using > N1MM logging software and N8VB virtual com port software. Station one was a > 3 GHz Pentium 4 desktop machine (WinXP) and a Delta 44 sound card plus a > Heil Pro Set Quiet phone. Station two was a 1.8 GHz P4 Dell Inspiron 700M > notebook computer (also WinXP) with an outboard Extigy USB sound card and a > Pro Set Plus headset. > > > > Antennas: Two element multi-band quad at 35', HF2V for 80/40 located in a > saltwater lagoon about 70' from the shack, an HF9V vertical for 80-6 just > outside the shack, and a top-loaded 160 meter vertical erected nearby just > prior to the contest. > > > > We had a GREAT time! > > > > > > _______________________________________________ FlexRadio mailing list [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz
