PSK 31/63 To The Death ... Match

Well I had every intention of working the ARRL 10 meter contest this evening. Unfortunately, upon arriving at dad's (KU4ME) house, I quickly learned that 10 meters was pretty much deader than a door nail. I heard a couple of stations in there but no sooner than I would hear them, they'd fade right back out again. So after a few calls, I gave it up.

It was at this point that my lovely XYL Robin (AJ4IJ) suggested checking the digital modes. So I fired up Ham Radio Deluxe and launched DM 780. We tuned to 3.580 and found a nice strong waterfall coming in. Within seconds we picked up that there was a PSK Contest going on. CQ PSK31/63 DeathMatch ran across the screen. Of course Google is our friend and we rapidly found out that the Annual Michigan DX Association's PSK 31/63 Death Match contest was on tap for this weekend.

Happy that Robin found me a contest, I quickly set up some macros and dad walked me through tuning up the radio, setting my power on the USB Signal Link, and testing our power output. Within mere minutes I was calling CQ PSK31/63 DeathMatch de AJ4JD. I worked 80 meters for quite a while using PSK 31. After almost 20 contacts, I jumped over to 40 and worked a handful there. After a few of no one coming back to me, I decided to check 20 but it was completely dead so back to 80 I went.

On 80 for the second time of the evening, I switched modes to PSK 63 and continued calling CQ. I picked up a few more contacts and a couple of those were previous contact from earlier on PSK 31. It was around 2:30 a.m. when I wasn't getting any more takers and I decided that I was done for the night. I had been run through and gave in.

It was definitely a fun evening, and I look forward to working more of the contest throughout the weekend. That's right, the Death Match runs all weekend so I have more of a chance to push up the totals. If I remember correctly, I've made around 35 contacts in 17 different states and one Canadian province.

Well it's late now and I must go recuperate from the evening's battle. So with that I will say 73 to all, good DX, and happy contesting.

AJ4JD - Tim

ARRL 10 Meter Contest

This coming weekend is ARRL's 10 meter contest. Ever since the November Sweepstakes I've been waiting for this one. There hasn't been any phone contests to speak of or at least that I've known about. Anyway, I've mentioned it to the XYL (AJ4IJ) and to Dad (KU4ME). I don't know if either one of them have any interest in working it but I sure do look forward to working it. I don't think I'll be any count but I will definitely have fun trying.
Anyway for those wandering, the contest runs from 0000 UTC Saturday; ends 2359 UTC Sunday (December 13 – 14, 2008). The only thing required for the exchange is ARRL/RAC Section (state or province) and signal report. For DX stations (including KH2, KP4, etc) transmit signal report and sequential serial number starting with 001. For Maritime Mobile stations send signal report and ITU Region (R1, R2 or R3).
To all the HAMs that will be working the contest good luck and catch ya on the band.

73 de AJ4JD
Tim