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The conditions for contesting were both great solar weather-wise and local weather-wise. The solar weather was very favourable during the entire contest which was nice. The sun has been very active these past few months and this weekend it was nice and calm. Local weather was just right for contesting as well...it was pouring rain and windy all weekend. Why is this great you ask..well during the contest slow periods no sun and the blue sky were calling my name to get outdoors. My goals for this contest were to have fun (check), run for 98% of the time (check), beat last year's score (double check) and hopefully have no radio or PC issues (check).

As always this was a very well-attended contest with lots of DX so even if you are not an avid contester there was an advantage to logging some rare DX. My radio was the Icom 7610 at 100 watts using the Hustler 4BTV vertical antenna. Max  CW speed was at 34wpm and toward the end I dropped it to 30wpm. For most of the contest, the Kp index was Kp3 and dropped to kp1 toward the contest end. The Bz index was in the plus for Friday and Saturday but headed in the negatives on Sunday. When the Bz dips in the negative numbers it accounts for problematic signal fading. At times the caller was there and then gone. 

I was very pleased all the way around,  the radio worked great, the PC and its software had no issues and the solar conditions behaved themselves. Mind you toward the end of the contest I  started to have a little brain fog and messing up similar CW letters such as H and S and on occasion transposing letters. This year I also made a point to not take things personally. What I mean by this is when asking for a few repeats because at my end I had either a close station wiping them out or another station calling me on top of the desired station. In the past when the station I was asking repeat from seemed to leave in a huff it used to bother me....well not anymore. In the past, I took things personally and that took the fun out of contesting....well no more. 

A very busy map of my contacts.

Some things that threw me off were stations coming back to me with "DE WXYZ". I would copy DE thinking it was the first two letters to only find out they were sending "DE" for "this is". I have my filter set for 400hz when calling CQ TEST and in crowded bands like in the CQ WW contest that is wide for me. I would have some stations come back to me way off my calling frequency. Most of the time I thought they were answering another CQ TEST close to me....but not so. I would end up adjusting the RIT make the contact and get back. But that was it and I am not by any means complaining just sounding off a bit. 

Well ok, just one more....those who when they send back their exchange would also send their call again which makes me think I messed up their call.  This became problematic when their call was "HSH" or "KH5" so made for unnecessary back and forth while others waited to contact me....or some would just step in with their call knowing the call was good the way I had it.  I also had fellow blogger Bas PE4BAS contact me during the contest as well.
When you hit 1750 CW contacts once you're done with the contest and in bed with your eyes closed you can still hear cw code in your head rolling around. I had a blast and am looking forward to the next contest.

Very happy with the outcome.

This coming weekend is the CQ Worldwide CW DX contest. You don't have to be a contester to jump in this contest. There will be some great DX  to be had so one can add contacts to an award you are working towards.  If you are a QRP op you can see how far your 5 watts will get you. At one time I even ran QRPp power and was amazed at the distances I made. The exchange in this contest is easy peasy a signal report (always 599) and your CQ zone. (Found here). If you are working your way up the contest code ladder this is a great time to log in some practice time. So double-click on your contest icon and roll in a few hours over the weekend in the contest.

 This weekend was the WAG (Worked All Germany) contest which I entered CW low power and unassisted. About 10 minutes into the contest things started to unravel, I was on 10m calling CQ TEST when my contest software (N1MM+) had the contact log window turn black. It came back to normal within an instant but that is never a good sign. Next, I pressed my F1 key to send CQ TEST again and it did not respond, I pressed it again and nothing. Then all of a sudden the rig keyed and the macro started to send...twice. Then the issues got worse as when I had a station come back to me and I responded with my exchange the macro would not send right away. It was very confusing to the answering station and as he sent his call again, it was then my exchange macro decided to send. 

It was time to shut down and get things sorted out. I  have had this issue in the past and thought I figured it out. In the past, my wired Lanovo mechanical keyboard was picking up RFI and causing me problems. I was looking for a fast fix and added some mix  31 toroids to where the cable enters the keyboard. I now have toroids at either end of the keyboard cable. 

I then fired up the contest software and called CQ TEST again on 10m. For over an hour, I  had no issues and hoped I had fixed the issue. This was the first time this issue had ever shown up on 10m in the past it has always been just  20m but of course now that I am contesting "MR RFI" changes things up.  Heading up to 20m and again while calling CQ TEST I had the N1MM+ contest log window go black again. It was time once again to shut things down as I couldn't contest in this situation. 

As I sat there and went over things I knew in the past I had had issues with my wired mouse, I went wireless and the problem was solved. Maybe it was time to go with a wireless keyboard? I have a Logitech K830 hanging around and thought I would put that into service and see what happens. Of course, the keyboard's rechargeable battery was dead and needed about an hour of charge time before I could use it. That gave me time to label the keyboard and look up the instructions on how to pair it. 

Logi wireless keyboard.

I was up and running again with the wireless keyboard and things were working just fine! This is a much smaller keyboard and I found myself hitting macro F keys when I was supposed to be hitting numbers. This also is not a mechanical key-type keyboard. I tend to be heavy-handed while my hands are resting on the keyboard waiting for the  CQ TEST macro to finish. The keyboard was so sensitive by mistake that I would type letters into N1MM+ call box. When this happened my CQ macro stopped (as it should) I had to lighten up my heavy hands while I was using this keyboard. 

While waiting for the keyboard to charge I made my way to Amazon and ordered a full-size mechanical keyboard. I was sure this was the solution to the issue and so far I was right. It was getting more toward evening and 40m looked like it was hopping. When I pressed my F1 CQ key my N1MM+ , Win4icom  radio control software and the web page I had open all disappeared! With everything restarted I tried again with the same results, it was time to pull the plug and think about things over the evening. The wireless keyboard was not the answer. It was time to get back onto Amazon and cancel the keyboard order.

Winkeyer with ground lead to main ground bus

I  began contesting and all was good on all bands, my fingers are crossed  BUT I have had this false hope in the past. Today (Monday) I have my weekly Medium Speed Contest (MST) in the morning and afternoon. It will be a good test to see if the issue has been fixed.
Also, I posted my issue on the Groups.io N1MM+ site and had some excellent feedback.  One common thread was the USB outer metal shell on the PC. I was told most of the time they are floating and not grounded and this can cause issues. I have a lot of USB cables connected to my PC for radio-related things. I was given a very good idea on how to ground them but more on that in another post. 

UPDATE: This morning and this afternoon I took part in the MST contest and called CQ on all bands without any issues. Maybe I have the RFI issue solved. BUT in the past I have done the happy dance to only be greeted with RFI....so we are keeping this celebration very low key. 

The forecast

This past weekend was not shaping up to be a stellar contest weekend. The sun was very active and blowing bits and bits directed toward Earth. The predictions were not looking good. On the contest groups I  follow the scuttle was "rough seas ahead" I planned to participate in the California QSO Party, last year was my first year dabbling in this contest. I was shocked at the amount of activity and I made 61 contacts the previous year. I marked it in my contest calendar as a must-do QSO party.  With the solar forecast, I was hoping to meet my previous year's score at least. 

Now that the weekend has come and gone I ended up tripling my score from last year and doubled my contacts! The poor solar weekend forecast was a flop and conditions were great. My best band was 10m  hands down followed by 15m and then 20m. The way I look at the solar forecast is just that it's a forecast and you have to wait and see.

My contest contacts

 This weekend was the IARU contest and you can participate in CW, SSB or both. As for me, it was CW only....surprise surprise. The solar weather can affect how radio operations in both a good way and a bad way. This weekend it was a bad way but that is ok as I tell myself the solar weather does not discriminate it treats all operators the same way. The advanced solar forecast prepared contesters for a rough ride but to add to it the Bz index, something we don't hear much about in Solar weather circles was deep in the negative direction. When you have poor solar weather and add in a -Bz index it just makes things worse. What it sounds like to a CW contester is one moment a signal is very decent and then gone and in most cases gone for some time. 

This is a challenge for contesters as when you hear a call sign, come back to them and get a report you generally have no luxury for repeats. If the anomaly happens mid-contact well you most likely cannot log the contact. I find during these conditions you have more stations contacting you more than once on the same band (called a DUPE). Because of the changing condition, you may think the station heard your exchange but they did not and may be asking you for a repeat and you can't hear them asking. So due to the poor conditions, they are not able to log your contact that you think was a solid contact. Whenever I have a station call me that has called me before and is in the log (DUPE) I  always work them again as you are not penalized for it. But there are a few that send "QSO BEFORE" and will not log the contact. 

Anyway, I digress....this year I was able to log more contacts (56) during very poor conditions compared to last year and better yet I almost doubled my score. Last year's score was 69,484 compared to 130,130 this year.  This contest starts on Saturday at 9 am local time and ends on Sunday at 9 am local time. I was up early on Sunday (5:15) to keep adding to the log. I am a morning person and up each day at 6 am so I was not too far off from my normal time.

The final results

I did a part-time effort in the Canada Day contest on the weekend. I  wanted to take it easy as I just had minor surgery and sitting in one spot for long periods hurts. The contest was from Sunday at 00:00 or 9 pm local time until 00:00 Monday. I was on and off during the day Monday and noticed the number of contesters was on the low side. I attribute this to Monday only being a holiday in Canada and most others were working. In the Canada Day contest you have the option of CW and SSB or a combination of both. As you may have guessed I was CW-only and unassisted. 

The solar forecast was predicting a Kp index maxing at 4 but the good news was the maxed at Kp2. I still found deep QSB (fading) on all bands (for me 10m-40m). I did manage to beat last year's score and total contacts. As always I found this contest more relaxed CW speed-wise, I was calling CQ in around 30wpm but dropped it to 26-28wpm. I found at times I would be calling CQ RAC for 5 or minutes without an answer. Because of this I had some web pages up on my other monitor and was doing some reading. Funny when an answer to my CQ did come back to me it would startle me out of my reading trance. 

This years score

My contacts during the contest