CQ WPX RTTY EFFORT REPORT FROM W4PJW

[Jeff Rinehart]

Great RTTY contest this past weekend.  The less than ideal weather provided a good excuse to stay inside and play radio.  The Contest Online Scoreboard served as a good inspiration to keep going - and going.  It was neat to watch the progress of N5SMQ and AD4TJ - It showed how far behind I was - Hi - but who's counting  Right?

LIST OF DX COUNTRIES WORKED:  

Lots of good DX - most with strong signals.

All of my contacts were made using the Extended Double Zepp wire dipole - the one I presented at recent club meetings - MARA and VARA.  The antenna worked great! (with external tuner).  

Total Time On the air was 12 Hr 45 Min.

I never did catch up with Butch or David - worked David on 80 and 20M - worked Butch on 80M and WS6X on 80 and 40M.  Didn't have much time to operate Sunday - I did OK for the time I had on air.  One of the great reasons to do contesting is that it helps you learn about band characteristics, skip conditions and other propagation issues.

I operated almost 13 hours using my old Icom Pro3 at 100 watts with an external fan (or two) to keep the finals cool.  It's great having a rig with 100% duty cycle.  I used my Extended Double Zepp wire dipole antenna for the entire period.  I operated Classic Category single op. and no assistance.

In the N1MM contesting software I had my RTTY receive filter set to 400 Hz for nearly the entire period.   I transmitted and received FSK using MMTTY with 3 additional AFSK decoders - 2 separate versions of 2Tone and one Gritty.  

I'm looking forward to the next RTTY contest - - - -  A shorter contest period.

North American QSO Party, RTTY: 1800Z, Feb 28 to 0559Z, Mar 1

Jeff W4PJW

Jeff Rinehart   W4PJW

https://www.qrz.com/db/W4PJW

On Monday, February 16, 2026 at 10:40:45 AM EST, David Tanks <ad...@yahoo.com> wrote:

  As usual, that was interesting! Only 39 Qs on 10, but 65 on 80. No JA, only

  1 VK, No ZL. Worked Jeff on 80 and 20, Butch on 80 and 40, WS6X on 80,

  no other locals heard/seen. I made a furious finale that put me just ahead

  of Butch at the end! I stayed on 40 CQing and picked up several new Ms; 

  that helped tremendously. 18 hours Butt-In-Chair.

  Looking at Contest Onlind Scoreboard info:

  I'm 114th of 277 in SO HP category.

  Butch: 38th of 244 in SO LP category.

  Jeff: 93rd of 244 in SO LP category.

  

Single Operator, High Power, No Assistance, Classic Overlay category.

TS-2000X, KPA-500 at 150 watts on 80, 350-450 all other bands.

TA-33 at 20 feet, 17' tall Inverted L.

N1MM, MMTTY, 2Tone (2 instances), AFSK as I could not get FSK to work.

Used LOGTHENPOP 4 or 5 times; neat!

Even at 400+ watts some stations had a hard time getting my call, and

others came back on my first call. Lots of EU, some South Americans,

only saw the one VK, saw a couple of JAs print on the screen, but think

I was seeing other stations sending those calls.

Called CQ many times with good results.

That's my report and I'm sticking to it!

David AD4TJ

[Butch Washer]

Well... Here I go, long winded as always!!! LOL!!!

I started 7 minutes late and was behind both Jeff and David. But, I eventually got ahead and mostly stayed that way. But, David would catch me while I was off and I would run him down while he was off, until the last hour or so when David finally out Powered and passed me in the last few minutes! LOL!! We'll see after Log Checking how many QSO's I lose!!!
I hate that Jeff had a busy day on Sunday, he usually kills RTTY contests!! As always, Jim WS6X did Awesome!!
 

Stats from Contest scoreboard:
Call        Score    QSO's   Mults
AD4TJ   444,906   530     321
N5SMQ 441,524   558     302
W4PJW 142,880   335     188
Shenandoah Valley Wireless Total Club Score:  1,029,310 pts

I operated as:
Single Operator 1 Radio, Low Power (NOTE: 100w on ALL BANDS)
"Classic Overlay" (24hrs of the 48hrs from 1900L Friday to 1900L Sunday)
All Band 10-80m,  Non-Assisted

Station
Antennas:
Hustler 4-BTV Ground Mounted 10-40m Vertical w/20 25' long Radials
80m Double Bazooka Dipole at 15' from ground.

Rig:
Kenwood TS-450 Radio (2nd TS-450 is going out to be updated)

Computer:
RigBlaster M8 Serial Port AFSK, N1MM, MMTTY, 2Tone (2 instances) for 3 decoders

Operation was ~90% S&P.

I had 2 short Runs calling CQ, but for only about 70 QSO's total.
While Running, I got to use the LogThenPop a bunch of times. I learned to not rush calling the first Decode. It seems to save some time.

Lots of EU & SA. The closest to AS I got was HI(KH6). I also was shocked that I got more Q's on 80m than 10m!! As always, 40m is my "Money" Band for Q's and 20m for Mults.

Locals worked were AD4TJ(40 & 80m) and W4PJW(80m). I followed WS6X up 15m for a little while.

Next contest will be:
ARRL International DX Contest CW 02/21/26 I will play a bit to help my CW copying

North American QSO Party RTTY 02/28/26  12hrs of ROCK N ROLL RTTY!!!

73 ES GD DX

Butch Washer N5SMQ

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