Since I was going Low Power, I threw out some numbers as goals for the weekend – 1500 QSO’s and 500 multipliers. So I figured that if I optimized my operating time, I could catch up, get ahead and stay ahead to the end. The second thing that helped was that, unlike the XE contest, all single operators in WPX have to take the same amount of rest. The first was the fact that just one week prior in the XE RTTY contest I started three hours late and was able to catch up with almost everyone. Two things helped me overcome the psychological problems with a late start. Conditions could change and I might not be able to catch my competitors.
Taking rest at the start of the contest was a big gamble for me.
After all, I wanted to try win something in this contest, so seeing others way ahead in serial numbers can be psychologically damaging. Psychologically, I had to convince myself I was doing the right thing.Īnother thing I had to overcome by starting late was seeing the higher serial numbers being given out by my competitors. And because 40 and 80 meter contacts are worth twice the QSO points as contacts on 10, 15 & 20, I felt justified in starting later. By starting the contest at 0200Z, I could start right away on 40 and 80 and not have to deal with this 40/20 interference. This is due to the close proximity of my antennas. This is a problem at my QTH because of the interference I get when transmitting in the lower portion of 40 meters with the 2nd harmonic on 20 meters. This means I have to work 40 and 20 meters at the same time until signals start showing up on 80 meters. Since the start is right at my sunset, 15 meters usually goes away quickly so I have to go to 40 meters on that radio. The contest starts at 0000Z which means I normally start on 15 and 20 meters. I didn’t like the idea of taking the first two hours off, but I thought of several things that would help reinforce this decision. I would try to operate as much of the contest Saturday as I could and take advantage of the good numbers. With this data in hand I mapped out my off-time strategy. When I quickly analyzed this I felt that conditions would be good-to-excellent for at least the first 24 hours of the contest and that Sunday would be a mystery. This was very good news for at least the start of the contest. The flux had been slowly rising the previous four days as the A and K indices had dropped from highs of 36 and 4 respectively since the 8th of February. When I saw the solar flux was 114, the A index at 11 and the K at 2, I knew conditions should be good. Because I was stuck at work on Friday, I decided to take the first two hours of the contest as a rest period in order to get home from work, eat a good meal and try to relax a little. I did not decide to go Low Power until after the contest started. I can CQ on one radio and S&P on the other. For me, it’s not a problem because I’m SO2R. The strategy when running Low Power is still to go for rate, but because it can be difficult to get good runs going, I end up doing a lot of S&P on the second radio. This year I entered Low Power because I guessed from looking at propagation forecasts before the contest that conditions would be fair-to-good and Low Power might be fun. Strategies differ greatly between High and Low power as well. In the latter part of the contest as the rate slows down, I chase all new multipliers because they are so important to the score. In the first part of the contest I only use the Packetcluster to show spots on the bandmap so I can see who’s on the band. There are so many multipliers available that you can achieve more new multipliers simply by calling CQ instead of chasing them. In the first three quarters of the contest, I go for rate only and do not chase multipliers spotted on the Packetcluster. I break this contest down to two strategies. Activity is usually high which makes for a fun event.
And because the rules allow the use of the Packetcluster for all categories, it allows a different type of strategy than most other RTTY contests by using the Packetcluster. The CQ World-Wide RTTY WPX Contest is one the most fun to operate because prefixes are multipliers which means there are LOTS of multipliers.