Thoughts on Contesting and Ham Radio

Data Visualization

k1ir@designet.com — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:18:28 GMT

I've been playing with data visualization a lot at work. Have you ever seen a word cloud? Its a visual presentation of words where the most frequently encountered words are bigger.

Here's a word cloud created from the Wikipedia page on radio contesting.

Try building your own word cloud at http://www.wordle.net

2008 ARRL DX CW Results are Out

k1ir@designet.com — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:14:36 GMT

Second place is fantastic! Congratulations to the team at W3BGN who powered ahead of us with a lead of 200 QSOs and 15 multipliers.

Boxboro Dinner with Elecraft and Sherwood

k1ir@designet.com — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:12:12 GMT

On Saturday night, August 23, 2008, YCCC members, Elecraft president Eric Swartz and his wife Lerma, and receiver performance measurement expert Rob Sherwood broke bread at Legal Seafood in Framingham, MA. Eric and Rob spoke earlier during the ARRL New England Division Convention in Boxborough, MA. Local attendees were W1STT, K1EA, W1WEF, K1EP, K1IR and XYL Sue. Dinner conversation drifted from radios to flying to motorcycling and an eclectic variety of other topics. We very much enjoyed their company, and we sure hope our visitors felt welcomed by the New England ham radio community.

K1IR Goes Mobile on Two Wheels

k1ir@designet.com — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:48:13 GMT

Sue and I decided to have a little fun a few weeks ago and take a beginning motorcycling course sponsored by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. In Massachusetts, before the course, you have to get your motorcycle learner's permit, which requires a test. I took it first and just made it through. Sue took it and aced it, of course. The course includes six hours of classroom and ten hours of riding. We took it with Ironstone Ventures. The classroom is in Acton, MA and the riding range is a short drive away in Ayer, MA. We did it over a weekend starting Friday night and finishing on Sunday morning. The course ends with a riding exam. If you pass it, you get your full motorcycle license. We both passed. Of course, Sue did a lot better than me. I had trouble with the figure-eight . . .

Next, it was time to find a "ride". I did a little searching on Craig's List, and found the perfect solution. So, here's the latest additional to the K1IR toy collection. It's a 2001 BMW F650GS. I chose it for a number of reasons:

I really like the way it looks
The riding position is very comfortable - fairly upright and the seat height is just right for me
The F650GS has a proven performance and reliability record
This bike had fairly low miles for its age - 10,371
After inspection, it turned out that the bike is in good condition, requiring only normal maintenance
Sue likes it
The F650GS has a very loyal following and there is a lot of good information available on the 'net
There are many accessories available for it
I really like the way it looks

So, there you have it - the latest distraction to enter my world.

73, Jim

Contest Score History Added

k1ir@designet.com — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:59:00 GMT

All K1IR scores available from the Contest Score Database are now shown on the Trophy Case page. Unfortunately, this does not yet include scores from the CQ WW DX Contests.

Playing with Photos

k1ir@designet.com — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:41:52 GMT

Today I added a module for display of images. The first use of that module is on the Ops page. Have a look.

73, Jim K1IR

New K1IR Website

k1ir@designet.com — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:05:56 GMT

I thought you might like to know a little bit about this website. Upon our return from Dayton, I wanted to post the story of this year's trip. Building a new website is something that's been on my mind for quite some time, so I decided this would be the time to do it.

A few months ago, I moved my company's website www.designet.com to a new server, running under an open source content management system called dotnetnuke [DNN]. DNN runs on a Windows Server with an MS SQL Server database. This server is a machine running right here in the K1IR shack. It's been pretty reliable since I put it into service.

DNN has the ability to support multiple websites on the same IP address; a very cool feature. So, I added www.k1ir.com to the system and started populating it with content. I hope to flesh it out slowly, but surely, over the summer. DNN is a modular environment. When you want to add a particular type of content, you pop a new function module on the page. Through a series of settings you can control where each module appears on the page, what it looks like and how it operates. This blog is being delivered via one of these DNN modules.

Trying Out Skimmer in 2008 WPX CW

k1ir@designet.com — Sat, 24 May 2008 15:36:44 GMT

KT1D decided to come over and give WPX CW a try this weekend. We just got back from Dayton and thoughts of Skimmer were floating through his mind. So, Tim brought along his SDR and hooked it up just before the contest started. We had to fix the 80m 4-square and get a logging program running first, so Skimmer was a last-minute project. Logging software was N1MM. Skimmer was running on a separate pc, bandwidth is 48kHz. K1TTT's packet aggregator software was combining Skimmer spots with spots from other telnet sources.

We used the SDR/Skimmer in "Skimmer-on-the-same-band-as-a-human-op" mode. Our multi-single station includes what I call the "dual-headed rate station". This station has two radios and goes through an Acom 2S1 Switch to share an amplifier and antenna on the same band. When both radios are in RX mode, both hear the band on the same antenna. When either radio goes into TX mode the antenna connection to the other radio is removed to keep that radio safe. We substituted Skimmer for one of the radios. So, the same antenna was shared between Skimmer and the rig with the human op. This was great because it gave Skimmer a really good antenna. But, when the human op was transmitting, Skimmer heard nothing. So, some data was missed. Skimmer proved to be very good at picking up callsigns immediately after she got her antenna back.

Here are some observations:

So many spots - overall this is bad - too many to be useful and lots of them are bad
So many busted calls - again, this is bad - too much thought is required to determine the value of any particular call in the list
Lots of multipliers - this is definitely good - after brain-filtering the list, there are a lot of good mults available. This is particularly good in WPX.
Distraction - like packet, looking at Skimmer is distracting and that is a bad thing - presently, it takes too much brain power to figure out what is good and what is bad in the list. It might be more efficient to just find the stations manually and listen to it all your self.
Waterfall plot - This is good - with CW "copyable" by eye, you get a different and very useful perspective. It does feel a bit like RTTY.

Tim seemed overwhelmed by the amount of data offered in the bandmap and spot listings. These tools become so packed with data that he would clear everything out occasionally, and repopulating both with a clean, new set of data.

There is definitely an advantage in seeing the data provided by Skimmer in this contest. Because there are so many easily copyable multipliers available, it is possible to go up and down the band, working these new multipliers much faster than would be possible without the data provided by Skimmer.

No question that using Skimmer as a second op on the same band can have a beneficial impact. The other mode - "Skimmer-listening-to-the-other-bands" would be an interesting mode to experiment with. I envision that this might enhance our ability to make better band changes and pick up more multipliers in our multi-single operations. Ten-minute rule and six band change rules would still apply, of course.

Random question. . . . if you leave your operating position for a few hours to sleep, and packet or Skimmer are left running, is there an off-time issue related to the spots in the bandmap when you get back to the radio? I suspect so. Clear your bandmap when you sit down, and start from scratch.

K1IR Does Dayton 2008

k1ir@designet.com — Sat, 24 May 2008 14:29:20 GMT

Just got home from the annual Dayton trip. It was great. Why? I saw so many of my contesting friends from all over the US and the world. I got to make a few new friends, too. The weather was just fine - contrary to warnings from www.weatherunderground.com. Don't trust anyone when you want to know what the weather will be in Dayton on Hamvention weekend.

Thursday - Jack W1WEF, Gerry W1VE and I arrived in Dayton at around 2pm via Chicago and Boston. The flight was uneventful. We debated how to spend the afternoon and decided to head over to Mendelson's surplus store. None of us had seen it, and we really enjoyed looking over the various treats. I was able to resist the urge to buy an inexpensive China-made hunting jacket. It had all the right pockets; it would have been a great coat for photography. Ah, well . . . maybe next time.

Later, we split up, and Gerry and I ended up at the SMC Hooters event for about an hour; then we managed to connect with W0GJ, N1DG, AA1V, K2TJ and KT1D for dinner at Thai9 in the Oregon district of Dayton.Although it was easily walkable, we drove because it was raining hard around dinner time. The rain didn't last long, and it was the only serious weather we encountered during the entire trip. Dinner was fantastic. Our waiter was super, and the conversation was invigorating. The rest of the evening was spent in the Contest Super-Suite. Thursday in the Suite was quite a bit more active than in past years due to the large number of contesters who had arrived early to participate in Contest University.

Friday - Gerry, Jack, Richie W1STT, Andy K2TJ and Tim KT1D headed off to the arena at about 7:45 after enjoying a quick breakfast in the Concierge lounge at the Crowne Plaza. We like that because it is very convenient and not too expensive. We spent all of Friday bouncing back and forth between the indoor vendor exhibits and the outdoor flea market. Our home base at the arena is the flea market space occupied by YCCC friends Vern W1VB and Ed K1EP. They have been in the same space for many years, and have become friendly with the guys in the adjacent space who come to Hamvention from the Milwaukee area. We share in the expenses of food - this year Thursday's lunch was New England clam chowder from Legal Seafoods combined with mid-western "brats". Quite delicious.

We spent some time helping Richie look for a 2-element 40m yagi. He decided on the M2 antenna, and got a price direct from M2. WX0B wanted to see if he could do better and promised to give us a price on Saturday morning. We headed back to the Crowne at about 5pm, stopped in at the Concierge lounge for a quick frosty, and started the search for a good dinner option. That turned out to be dinner with 20 of our closest contesting friends at the Hickory barbecue place. The restaurant was packed, and we got split up into several groups. Some of the crew we dined with were from the famous W2FU HF and VHF multi-multi operation. A great time. Naturally, we made our way back to the Crowne and enjoyed the remainder of the night celebrating in the Super Suite, and in the NJDXA, KCDX and NODXA hospitality suites. Midnight pizza was served at 11pm . . .

Saturday - After breakfast in the Concierge lounge, we were off to the arena again. Gerry spent a good portion of the morning at the SDR forum. Richie and I locked down his 40m yagi purchase. W1VB was on a mission to buy an SDR. After we heard the excellent pitch by Stefan, of German SDR manufacturer Microtelecom, Vern placed his order for their Persus SDR. Nice radio. Lunch at the W1VB/K1EP flea market spot was more chowder and pulled pork sandwiches. I had way too much to eat. After lunch, Gerry, Richie, Jack and I headed over to the arena for the Contest Forum, led by K1DG. The forum was dedicated to our good friend, Stu KC1F, who had suddenly passed away only a few weeks earlier. The forum included discussion of contesting history through the eyes of Doug KR2Q, and the impact of new technologies like SDR and Skimmer. It was a lot of fun. Feeling my money burning a hole in my pocket, I headed out to the flea market to make a deposit. I was able to keep it to just $30 worth of connectors to refill the station supply.

Putting together dinner plans for Saturday night was a little tougher than the other nights. Several of us had decided to skip the Contest Dinner this year and try something different. We ended up at Caffe Anticoli, and Italian restaurant to the north of Dayton. Around the table we had George W1ZT, W1STT, W1VE, W1WEF and K1IR. I must have been truly exhausted at that point . . . I brought my camera to capture the moment, but forgot to take the picture. In the end, Jack and I had to drive all the way back to the restaurant from the Crowne when I realized I had left the camera hanging on the back of my chair! After retrieving the camera, we made our way back to the suites. The highlight of the night was the KCDX CW Pileup Competition, of course. Jack, Gerry and I scored from 39-41 - I'll let you figure out who won. The rest of the night was spent socializing, drinking moonshine [which suite was that in again?], and talking about plans for next year. It was a great Dayton.