CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY (2011)

CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: NR4M
Operator(s): NR4M, K4EC, K7SV, K3ZV, K14UDF, W4MYA
Station: NR4M

Class: M/2 HP
QTH: VA
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs   Pts   State/Prov  DX   Zones
-------------------------------------------
   80:  351    600       49      38    13
   40:  744   1751       51      74    21
   20:  821   2048       53      88    32
   15: 1148   2985       47      96    32
   10:  944  10040       25      87    30
-------------------------------------------
Total: 4008  10040      225     383   128  Total Score = 7,389,440

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

Can't really add to what has already been written about the FANTASTIC
conditions. Everything was open all the time, it seemed. Some of the EU signals
on 10 and 15 were super loud!

Being a RTTY contester with limited experience, W4PK and N2QT, showed me how
they were using two digital windows, each with a different antenna source.
Thought this was really a neat thing.  Got it set up on 80 with the 4 sq and
Beverages, but never could make it work on 40.  I suspect a sound card issue.
It really made working 80 a blast!
 
A minor 'correct freq' issue caused us to change out the 15 meter rig.  But,
other than that, all the equipment worked very well. 

(from K7SV)
It would have been difficult to ask for better condx. 80 was pretty decent
despite the fact that 10 meters was just incredible. QRN on the low bands
was not a large factor. To work Southeast Asia and a huge  number of JAs on
ten meters in addition to endless Eur runs was thrilling. In the midst of
the Eur run fairly early Sunday morning, two JA6s called in on the long
path. To be working all of Eur on 15 during the very middle of the night
their time was a blast. Whether muf rising about 20 meters was the reason or
the fact that folks were gravitating to 10 and 15 was the cause, 20 meters
wasn't the bedlam that it has been for a number of years. Working 10 was
sometimes frustrating. As the band was opening up and signals were just
tickling the S-meter the pile up sound like white noise. Later when we were
dealing with S9 signals the pileup still sounded like white noise, just
louder! While several of last years crew couldn't make it this year, we
still had a super team. One change from last year is we switched to using
N1MM and it with MMTTY was fantastic on RTTY.  Bring on CW!

Thanks for the patient people who put up with me (NR4M)fumbling with macros,
etc.  This was our first time using N1MM at NR4M. Although some of the ops were
already familiar with the program, this was my first time using it.  There were
things like 'Oh, I didn't know that..." and 'Why did it just do that?...' and
'&%+@#!' that I said way too often.

Thanks for all the QSO's and looking forward to next time.