I participated in the ARI International DX contest / 2016-05-08

yfktest in ARI-DX contest screen

I participated in the ARI International DX contest 2016, organized by the Associazione Radioamatori Italiani. And this time I even did some voice contesting (phone) too!

As mentioned before phone contesting with Linux is available. I gave yfktest a spin and noticed it did not support the ARI-DX contest. With copying and modifying the Hungarian DX contest I think I found what was needed to support this contest enough to allow me to enter valid exchanges including Italian provinces. Getting the current claimed score right would take a lot more work.

So I gave it all a try and answered a number of CQ contest calls.

With the headset interface for my FT-857 radio connected and the footswitch in use both hands are available to type callsigns and serial numbers. I decided I need a better place to put at least the front of my radio: when I work in voice mode I need to spin the big dial a lot more so it should be easier to reach, it is currently on a high shelf above the monitor. Getting a sore shoulder from just a while on the radio is not a good thing. Given earlier experiences with RF interference in computers it may be the best to separate the front from the radio so the dial is not to far but the radio signals are.

When the time to play with the radio in the afternoon was finished I took a pause and later in the evening I continued in RTTY mode which was also an option in this multimode contest.

Conditions for HF contesting were bad since there seems to be a new source of noise on the HF bands. Where I was used to noise being S7/S8 level it is now constantly at the S9+10dB or S9+20dB level.

The results:

Total number of QSO in your log is 25, Including 0 QSO with errors, Valid QSO - 25
Band  QSOs Dupes Points Mults
160      0     0      0     0
80       0     0      0     0
40       9     0     54     9
20      16     0     70    10
15       0     0      0     0
10       0     0      0     0
======================================
Total   25     0    124    19
Claimed score is 2356 points

Update 2017-01-06:
And the results are in, I guess it takes the italians a while to check the logs.

        ARI International DX CONTEST 2016
           Band     QSOs    Pts  Mul

           160m        0      0    0
            80m        0      0    0
            40m        9     54    9
            20m       16     70    9
            15m        0      0    0
            10m        0      0    0

           Total      25    124   18 ==>     2232

The only thing changed is the number of multipliers in the 20 meter band.