Operating Multi-Distributed and Picking RTTY Frequencies
The contesting boom continued in March 2021, with a near-record number of logs submitted for the CQ WPX SSB contest. More than 7,270 logs were submitted, an increase of 32% over 2019, and just a few percent behind the 2020 high water mark of 7,605 logs.
A new feature in 2021 for all WPX contests is the Multi-Op Distributed category, where multiple stations can coordinate their usage of a single callsign. Twenty-eight entries were made in the Distributed category for 2021 WPX SSB, making it a more popular category than the 18 stations that entered the traditional Multi-Op Multi-Transmitter category (the number of multi-multi operations continues to be depressed due to COVID-19 restrictions on travel and group gatherings – ed).
A very notable entry into the new Distributed category in WPX SSB was the WW1X team of 26 operators — 10 of them young ops — wielding the power of eight stations distributed across CQ Zone 5 in the U.S., and almost all the operating done remotely. Ray Higgins, W2RE, shows the WW1X team and stations in an online photo gallery at <https://bit.ly/2PxDpyI>.
Connor Black, W4IPC, is shown in in a selfie taken while operating remotely as WW1X. In the month prior to WPX SSB, Connor coordinated the schedules of the 26 WW1X operators using a shared Google spreadsheet that laid out each operator, station, and band time slots on a chart. I also asked Connor about his audio chain while operating SSB remotely. Connor emphasizes, “my whole setup is on a budget.” The bright red Heil Pro 7 headset on his head in is shown in the upper right of as being fed through a mixing console from either or both of two computers, important when operating SO2R remotely. The transmit audio starts with a Heil PR20 microphone. “This mic has lots of lows,” Connor explains, so he uses a Xenyx 502 not only as a pre-amp, but to cut the low frequency response, which “gives me a pretty good equalization.” From there the audio feeds into both computers when operating SO2R.