2015-02-15
I played in the CQ WPX RTTY contest 5 years ago
Sunday I noticed a distinct lack of replies to my calls in PSK31 mode on the standard places in the 10 and 20 meter amateur bands. So I spun the dial and noticed a lot of RTTY traffic. This turned out to be the CQ WPX RTTY contest. So I answered a number of CQ TEST calls and exchanged the stunning number of 13 QSOs. The fun part is that this is a way to make contacts in new places. Normally I don't get through to the US or Canada easily but now I made several contacts there. And I had contacts in Cyprus and Aruba. Now to see which ones I can get confirmed. One new and puzzling thing to me was receiving EYR as a serial. This confused me but the other side was quite convinced it was a valid serial. But the logrobot for the contest did not accept it so I googled and found out in RTTY numbers can be written as letters. The simple way is to look at a US keyboard for transposing: 1=Q, 2=W, 3=E, 4=R, 5=T, 6=Y, 7=U, 8=I, 9=O, 0=P. So EYR translates to 364. And a lot later I noticed the results were published: 12 valid QSOs, 12 prefixes, 360 points. In the 'Single operator low power all bands' (SO LP ALL) category I scored #31 in the Netherlands, #643 in Europe and #1167 in the World. In 'Rookie operator low power all bands' I scored #2 in the Netherlands, #30 in Europe and #45 in the World.