JARTS RTTY 2013

My good friend Hal ZS6WB suggested that I should consider taking part in the event. I don’t operate much on HF digital modes and my log is a testament to that fact. My digital DXCC statistics are pretty poor to say the least. Based on this I decided to give the JARTS contest a go.

I am very pleased I followed Hal’s advice.

I managed to make 451 QSOs and I worked 55 DXCC entities in the process.

Since don’t have decent HF antennas I decided to concentrate my efforts to the 10m band. On 10m I use a rigid rotatable dipole up at some 8m agl. This clearly shows how poor the rest of the antenna farm is…….<insert smiley>

As I write this (some 7 hours after the contest) I see I have already have a great number of QSOs confirmed via LoTW including 6 much needed ATNOs on digital modes. I am hoping I might just find enough confirmations on LoTW to reach the 100 required for a ARRL Digital DXCC in the next few days.  My stats show 106 worked, 67 confirmed (still a long way to go).

There were many memorable moments during the contest:

I worked David K2DSL a fellow blogger.

Being called by ATNO’s whilst running: CE, WH6, XE and UP amongst others.

On the down side:

Why do some stations persist on calling when one is trying to work partials calls?

Does “P5ABC ?” not mean anything .

Seemingly the guilty do not understand the meaning of “KN” either.

It seemed sending “P5ABC ? P5ABC ? P5ABC ? de ZS6A KN” meant that it was an invitation for any station to call immediately without even a moment’s pause or hesitation. I understand this is a competition and not a tea party, but do we really need to act in this way?

The scatter graph below is very revealing. It clearly shows the typical age of the amateur population.

There are seemingly very few amateurs younger than 40. Most are between 40 and 80 years old.

The age of zero must be ignored. Issued by XYL’s and YL’s

The age of 99 was given by club stations.

QSOs vs. contestants Age

QSOs vs time