My background…
I used the specified equipment as you can see in the station info. The delta+dipol on 160m has 2+ SWR so definitely I need a much better one for 160. From 80m upward the antennas are doing good, that’s true the vertical (40-10) location is far from ideal, very close to a wall and other metal obstructs. Its base was on 2m high.
The compared stations have Yagis for upper and verticals/wires for lower bands.
This is a statistics about the worked years which is based on my log. Most of the participants were between 1970-1985. The ham community is getting older...
(Legend: Used band vs. the difference aspect of HG3G. "red" indicates the actual band (primary axis), "yellow" drop lines indicate the difference on hourly basis (secondary axis))
You can find the country distribution
here for HG3G and
here for OL6P.
Logs in
parallel comparison.
(Legend: Parallel comparison – This is a comparison between two station in “when – where” style on 10 minutes basis.
Column “/” shows the QSO sum of the given 10 minute’s period with conditional formatting, (red=0-5, yellow=6-9, green=10+)
Column “∑” stands for the overall QSO sum,
Column “diff” is green when HG3G QSO# is equal or higher in the given 10mins period than the other station and red if the QSO# is lower. There is a final collation of how many 10 mins period was “won” by HG3G and the other station.)
(Legend: Used band vs. the difference aspect of HG3G. "red" indicates the actual band (primary axis), "yellow" drop lines indicate the difference on hourly basis (secondary axis))
You can find the country distribution
here for HG3G and
here for OL3Z.
Logs in
parallel comparison
(Legend: Parallel comparison – This is a comparison between two station in “when – where” style on 10 minutes basis.
Column “/” shows the QSO sum of the given 10 minute’s period with conditional formatting, (red=0-5, yellow=6-9, green=10+)
Column “∑” stands for the overall QSO sum,
Column “diff” is green when HG3G QSO# is equal or higher in the given 10mins period than the other station and red if the QSO# is lower. There is a final collation of how many 10 mins period was “won” by HG3G and the other station.)
(Legend: Used band vs. the difference aspect of HG3G. "red" indicates the actual band (primary axis), "yellow" drop lines indicate the difference on hourly basis (secondary axis))
You can find the country distribution
here for HG3G and
here for OK3C.
Logs in
parallel comparison.
(Legend: Parallel comparison – This is a comparison between two station in “when – where” style on 10 minutes basis.
Column “/” shows the QSO sum of the given 10 minute’s period with conditional formatting, (red=0-5, yellow=6-9, green=10+)
Column “∑” stands for the overall QSO sum,
Column “diff” is green when HG3G QSO# is equal or higher in the given 10mins period than the other station and red if the QSO# is lower. There is a final collation of how many 10 mins period was “won” by HG3G and the other station.)
Worked countries:
This comparison speaks for itself. I lost a lot on RA, UR and YL.
“Near zone” had approximately same effect on each contestant. Only few QSOs on upper bands from the 500km range. Although there might be a slight advantage for me on the DL direction as I located double distance compared to OK.
Central Europe is not ideal for EU-HF. But fact there’s no dark enough for the western part of Eu when the real low band activity starts.
Antenna:
My vertical was not good at all on the higher bands. Actually I felt during the first half of the test (on 20 and 15) that it’s very slow and there’s no station so I had to QSY several times trying to keep up the rate. A reason for this significant difference might be the poor location of my vertical and/or type of used antennas (vertical <> large Yagi).
Strategy:
On the other hand it’s likely I chose not the proper band for the start and this is the affect bed time on bad place. Fact OL3Z chose almost the same strategy for the start on 20.
It worths to reconsider the “QSO# <> multiplier” relation. I was enjoying the good run on 40 when I should have been on 160 to maximize the mults there.
I found a real good choreography for 160 and 80m. These bands are independent from the solar cycle so I can make a good plan for “where and when”. I need to spend more time on top band because I lost 6-10 mults there.
SO2R:
That was interesting to see the remaining number of band changes as follows:
I utilized less than 25% of the allowed count. This might worth min 20 mults which could result extra 15k points with the same QSO count.
QSO difference:
The difference built up mainly on the higher bands but it increased on 40/80 too which is a bit surprising to me. The 40 and 80m antennas were well tuned to the CW segment with SWR 1:1. Maybe the first QSY to 40m was too early and the main activity shifted there later. But the comparison shows that OK3C and I was the latest who moved to 40m. On the other hand 20 was dead for me so I was “forced” to move down. So this is big question mark in this analysis…
I have to mention the antenna issue on 160. That delta+dipol has only one problem on 160… it doesn’t work there… SWR is 2++. I couldn’t call CQ at all only S&P. Furthermore I pulled back the output to 50W as I didn’t want to boil the MP. The funny thing is that 160m was not that bad as it sounds. If I take the time spent on the band into account then my result is more or less equal with the guys’.
The “Band Analysis” spreadsheets are very transparent. Where the “/” field is yellow or red the rate was low and I was struggling to find QSOs. This period was from 13.30 to 16.00 (for 2.5 hours). This table is a summary of these periods per station.
I had 33 times lower than 10 QSO /10 min which is too many occurrences.
Tools:
Win-Test
SH5
…good old M$ Excel
Todo:
– Yagi for upper bands mainly dir on RA/UR/Baltic and to DL
– Fixed low wire Yagis to NE and NW
– “Use the highest open band”
– Good antenna for 160
If you have any idea about how to improve the comparison please let me know. I'm interesting in any kind of comment.
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