Stew Perry Top Band Distance Challenge Results

by Tree Tyree N6TR and Lew Sayre W7EW

The results have been updated as of 27 October. Remember your report sheet showing how you log was scored is also available via return e-mail from n6tr@contesting.com.

The second running of the Stew Perry TBDC was held on December 27th and 28th UTC and it is doubtful that topband conditions have ever been better during a contest. With the exception of South Africa and South America, most everyone enjoyed good openings worldwide. While ZS5K did manage a few QSOs, the band just wasn't working for him. VK6VZ had good openings into the USA both at the start and end of the contest. Anyone above the 45th parallel enjoyed good conditions to most anyone else above the 45th parallel. The GM3POI beacon was being heard on the west coast of the USA one hour before sunset and many stations worked him at that time.

Activity was up from the first running of the challenge, but still not as crazed as the "big" 160 meter contests. This made it possible for most anyone to find a clear frequency and produce results. There were just over 1000 stations who were worked by at least two different people. Some stations, including H44IO, didn't hand out their grid square. To make it fair, QSOs with him only count 1 point in everyone's log.

This year's winner is once again GM3POI with 4,751 points. Perhaps the best statistic I have found to demonstrate how effective Clive's "beacon" was is this: GM3POI appeared as the first QSO in 23 of the 164 logs received. W4MYA was the next most popular first QSO with 8 appearances. Other popular guys were DL0TZ, N9FH, N4OGW and VY1JA who each claimed the first entry in four logs.

The second place score also came from Europe, but with low power. OM3TZQ claimed the low power plaque with a great score of 4,522 points. Third place was K7CA in Nevada also with low power. The performance of these two stations demonstrate that perhaps the multiplier of two makes up for running 100 watts.

The Boring Amateur Radio Club station operated by N5KO and N6TR claimed the top multi-single score, just edging out the QRP multi from K1ZM. The top QRP single operator score was produced by N0TT with 1,868 points. Charlie's best DX was S58A, but the longest QRP QSO was made by Robin, WA6CDR, who worked DF0KW at a distance of 9,223 km. Robin made only two QSOs with 5 watts (he was operating the rest of the time with 100 watts as N6LL). The longest low power QSO was made by WJ0M to VK6VZ at a distance of 16,962 km. The longest high power QSO was made by VK6VZ and K2XA who worked each other at a distance of 18,506 km. That is pretty much half way around the world.

Many thanks to most everyone who submitted their log in electronic format. The few paper logs received were typed in and the logs were all checked with the computer. QSOs which had incorrect grids were removed without penalty. If you busted the callsign or were not found in the other guy's log, the QSO was removed with a QSO penalty equal to the points you would have gotten if the call was good. A printout showing how your log was scored can be sent to you via e-mail. Send a message to n6tr@contesting.com and ask for it.

We had three check logs (used packet): NI6T, KC7V and W1BB. We also missed hearing Tony, GW4VEQ in this contest. He had some terrible winds just before the contest and lost all of his antennas. I hope he has at least found his glasses which were ripped off of him in the wind - along with his pants! Also, DJ7AA suffered some antenna damage but Wil discovered his antenna did work a little anyway and made some QSOs (using his club callsign).

The third running of the Stew Perry TBDC will be held next December 26th and 27th. Hopefully the good conditions we have had for the two previous contests will bless us again. Please be aware that the Canadians have a contest that occurs at the same time. They will probably be happy to give you a grid square, if you give them a QSO number. Rules for next year can be found here.

AWARDS

Our awards department (W7EW) was overwhelmed with 15 sponsors for plaques - we thank all of you for making this possible. Also, a special thank you to Jeff, K1ZM, who donated a signed copy of his book DXing on the Edge for the winner. Here are the award winners:

Soapbox

What a fun contest ! Good EU condx (but not quite as good as the previous 2 nights). Excellent activity from EU and JA, but USA activity not as high as I expected.

Started the contest at 2315Z (local sunset is 2340Z). Signals from the USA east coast seemed down at 2315Z, but all hell broke loose at 2330Z with a bunch of EU QSOs. Even though the transmit antenna is only a half-sloper, I think I am transmitting better than I am hearing on the 600' EU beverage. Probably missed 10-15 EU QSOs that I could not pull through. Sorry ! It might be time to consider phased beverages towards EU.

Except for the ever-present OH/SM, EU signals seemed to drop as EU sunrise approached - a little disappointing.

ZS4TX worked at 0217Z for the only African QSO (sorry Greg !). Last EU QSO was at 0756Z, although SM/OH was probably workable even later.

Worked JA5BJC at 0813Z. No other JA heard at that time, so I slept for the next 3 hours. Don't think I missed much. Strong JA opening from 1140Z-1230Z, but I was too groggy to take full advantage of it. Band seemed almost dead to JA from 1230Z until 1349Z, when our sunrise enhancement started. Worked 20 more JA during our sunrise period, but signals not as good as 12Z opening. Disappointed to not hear VS97, YB or anything else that "deep" into Asia. I really need to get serious about working YB1AQS sometime before I blow the opportunity ! Last QSO was at 1441Z, 20 minutes after sunrise.

Nothing heard from VK/ZL except for VK6VZ, who had a good signal for several hours. Too much QRN down under ?

73, Steve, N2IC (/0)

Hi, all Topbanders, who worked in SP DC Contest last weekend! I want to tell You my impression after working in this Contest. It was great time. I generally first time worked in Stew Perry. The weather was not good Saturday morning: cloudy, temperature - minus 1-2 C. In Saturday evening the weather changed - the temperature gone up( + 2 C), rain and very low atmospheer pressure. The propogation was not good to the east. I didn't hear any JA-station. Only Riki, 4X4NJ, in my LOG from Asia. But great opening was to US direction. I worked all (1 - 0 ) areas of the USA. It was first time in my TopBand HAM life. I had my first contact with K2XA on his sunset. Then I worked some other stations from NY and NJ. K0HA, as usually, was very strong, sometimes - 589-599+5dB! In the middle of the night I worked AD6C. He had not big signal, but answer on my call without problem. It was pleasing surprise , because CA is new zone WAZ / state WAS for me on 160m. I heard also N7UA on his sunset, but Bob didn't answer on my calling. In amount I worked 17 US station and 1 Canadian, but many other station didn't hear me. For example, I heard N4AR, AA4NN, N8EA, K9MA and some others for a very long time and W0LFS, with report 449 - 579, was in the my receiver approx. half contest night (hi-hi). But they all didn't answer. And most strong station from the NA in this weekend was W8LRL. But Wallase didn't calling CQ. When I met him, he always was looking for somebody. At 06.20 - 06.26 I heard K6SE (559 - 579). He was calling EU, but nobody answer to him. I tried to work with Earl full six minutes, but unsuccesfully. Then AL7O was few minutes on frequency and again I didn't work him. In summary I worked one new WAZ zone( N 3) and three new states (CA, OK and OH ) for WAS - 160m. Thanks Stew Perry for good time in this weekend. I hope to meet all of You in the last weekend of January. Happy New 1998 Year! 73! Vladimir, RV1CC , KP50EB rv1cc@mail.admiral.ru P.O.Box 1, St.Petersburg-Bugry, 188660 Russia

Condx Saturday evening local time for the Stew Perry contest were nothing short of absolutely fabulous. Activity levels were even higher than the recent 160 mtr contests.

I had a project going on the bench when I fired the station up at about 2100z. Made a handful of Q's off and on for the first couple of hours while I was finishing my project. Then at 2300z I sat down and started to get serious. I finally had to go to bed about 0500z.

In short, I had 223 q's, of which 56 were Europeans! At one point, the Europeans were lined up 2 or 3 deep calling me as I ran (an unusual event from Iowa!). I would frequently ask US stations to standby, so I could work the DX.

Were there some stations running qrp or qrpp? I had some unbelievably weak stateside stations calling me that kept getting covered by Europe. I think I got them all pulled through. . . the beverages worked well for the very weak stateside stations.

I'm not really geared up for contesting here (do that at N0NI), so don't have contest type logging and computer/rig interface, etc. Logging on paper, tuning the RIT, switching antennas, and running the keyer, all at the same time, are quite a challenge!

I have no way of knowing how I did from a score perspective. I don't even know if I could submit my ugly paper logs, but I sure had a ball. We gotta do this again!

73 and Happy New Year to all,

Dave, W0FLS

I know we all love it, but what a STRANGE band is the Topband - and what strange and interesting conditions we have lately, especially in the Stew.

I decided to do the contest in two 'bites' - kick off at the start of Stew for a nighttime session of some six to seven hours until Oz sunrise, then come back for a couple of hours after sunset. I expected the bulk of my QSOs to come during the first session.

Conditions in the first few hours were good into western North America, with NL7Z, KH6AT and KH6CC making it into the log. Brett VR97BG was a nice surprise at 1627, with VY1JA an even nicer one at 1640Z. After that, as propagation switched from an easterly/northerly direction around to the west, conditions seemed to fall apart...Sunrise only brought RW0LL, 9V1ZB and an incomplete QSO with OH8LAE (?). In total, six and a quarter hours operation had produced 20 QSOs.

(Incidentally, conditions into Europe over Xmas/New Year at Oz sunset have been a mere shadow of the last few years, with only one or two decent openings over the last couple of weeks. In recent years, 160 has been wide open virtually every day to Eu at this time of year.)

Back on the band at sunset, there were no distinct signals, but I could hear those tell-tale 'pings' that can often precede good conditions. First station in the log was KL7RA at 1158, when North American signals quickly appeared all over the band. After some 15 minutes of calling stations with no luck, N4OO called me at 1217Z. After that, all hell broke loose...

Signals initally came in from the NY/NJ/FL/VA areas - no W1s heard at all - and propagation started to move across the country in a westerly direction. At 1439Z I worked Earl K6SE for my last QSO, with a total of 48 stations worked over the second three hour-ish period. This included T88JA and H44IO, from the Pacific. My best QSO was K2XA at 18,498 km.

I love the concept of this contest, enjoyed working out the distances (thanks to some FB software from VK3KWA) and think winkling out the Maidenhead locators is a good test of 160m operating techniques. As VK6 is so far from any large centres of population, the distance-orientated scoring system at least gives us a bit of chance (and the time of year is much better than the CQ 160m Test one).

Thanks to Tree, Lew and the gang who got this one off the ground - it is the best 160m contest in the calendar.

73 Steve VK6VZ

My observations on the contest in general... I like the format and the scoring criteria, the 24 hour period is appealing too. If I had a vote, either the ARRL or CQWW 160 contests should use that scoring format. IMHO, N6TR et al have come up with a real winner. :)

Happy New Year to all

-- Dick Bodine Amateur Radio Call: WJ0M Duluth, MN 55804

I was on the air for just under 8 hours. Yesterday I worked from 1647z to 2026 and had 21 QSOs with EU - the best distance was RV1CC in KP50.

Today I got up at 0500z and had 31 QSOs by 0804 of which 12 were USA (including K0HA !) I also reached W1,2,3,4,8 so am well pleased with my efforts, Thanks for your help and encouragement.

Rx noise was very bad till 0600. The EUs were working USA but giving S5 and my Rx noise was up to S7 so I could not hear the US. When daylight came to EU before me, the noise dropped and I started to work US. I worked about half of those I heard and called.

Thoroughly enjoyed my stint and hope more of the EUs send in logs than happened last year.

Cheers for now, David G6QQ (QRP)

> Many thanks for the Stew Perry Contest you organized, a great idea and a > successful formula, but it will work until you are able to keep it within > the Topbanders partecipation. > When the rules will be spread out on the contest columns of all the > magazines and the radio-clubs than, be sure, our narrow band will be > invaded by all those "War contest machines" running at least a 2x8877 > amplifier but some of them even over 10 KWs (yes Ten kilowatts on 160). > These people don't know and don't love 160 meters at all; they just want to > win a competition, and the only way is to keep calling and calling on the > same frequency from the beginning to the end, with such a strong signal to > keep far away the other partecipants and to be able than to hear the DX > signals: that's really a winning technique but, with a 20 khz wide band, > there is no place left for others... > All the others have to call CQ and CQ, one above the other, wall to > wall...rather than in a DX contest it seems to be in an "Alligator > meeting", all mouths and no ears ! > The Stew Perry Contest with its original rules, giving a prize not to the > multipliers but only to the long distance contacts, does away with the big > pile-ups on the rare stations and lets everybody enjoy what this beatiful > and mysterious band is offering: this year the real thrill of WestCoast to > Europe contacts without worrying about the rare ones. > > Tree, this year I did'nt have any plan to partecipate seriously but I got a > lot of fun, I hope to do better next year. > I try to send you my log on an ASCII file "IV3PRK.BIN" from my old version > of "CT7" working as in a CQ 160 contest; if it fails please let me know. > > 73 and HNY de Luis IV3PRK <luisprk@tin.it>

Utterly fantastic opening to EU. I have gone an entire weekend calling some of these same stations at a KW.. this time, some of them CALLED ME! at 100W!

Started by heard S58A CQing... with slow rate.. Have tried Boris in the past at KW - no luck. Tried anyway at 100W. HE answered! In complete shock I completed the qso... and in the next 20 minutes had a half dozen more eu in the log. 15 EU in one night is extremely rare, at the KW level. at 100W it is simply NOT DONE! Incredible.

Now you think thats good, read this!

I was so amazed at the signal levels, GM3POI at S9 over a S0 noise floor, that I called some of the local city folks on the phone and played it to them... one made a successful qso with him.. While listening to his QSO, I turned the power on the TS940 to minimum, 5W. Then I called GM3POI using my own call, WA6CDR.

HE ANSWERED!- with a witness on the phone listening, I completed the QSO, and later went on to work DF0KW... also at 5W.

I hereby award the best EU ears award to GM3POI and DF0KW! Utterly AMAZING! So Cal to EU with 5W? IMPOSSIBLE!

Thank you both!

73, robin critchell WA6CDR & OP of N6LL

The 1BB is certainly catching on well although I thought the eu activity was down a little. The format for the contest works very well and of course we have had good condx for the contest so far. At this latitude which is just about 59N i find that a few days of low geomagnetic activity with strings of Ks at 0 or 1 will make the band really good. Having said that Boulder as an indicator here is pretty worthless, i find that watching the NOAA map of auroral activity is a far more sensitive way of judging likely condx. A few days of it being small size and light yellow in colour is a good omen.

For those who may be interested I'm using an FT1000D with a Titan amp feeding a vertically polarized delta loop, with the help of 5 Beverages most of them not very long but still useful. The location here is 200ft ASL with a slope of about 25 deg in front of the antenna towards the states with the sea 500 yards away. It's pretty ideal for RF but takes a lot of antenna maintenance, i regularly have January winds @ 120mph so all my antennas are built to the POI spec as i have found that no amateur commercial antenna will take the pressure. I could go on. !! Lets hope condx keep going for this contest as i can see it becoming a very well supported one.

73 Clive GM3POI

Score Listings