2009 Jan NAQP SSB M/2 Shootout
During the 2009 North American QSO party NK7U and K7ZSD were competing in the same multi-operator-two-transmitters category. NK7U was operated by NK7U, K7MK, K7ZO, KL2A, N7WR and W7ZRC. K7ZSD was manned by K7ZSD, K7GK, KR7X and W7ZB. It was a rare occasion when K7ZSD crew edged out NK7U's team in a head-to-head competition. Scott, K7ZO provided an interesting post-contest analysis,.which may have contributed to NK7U's victory in the rematch during the 2010 event.
OK time to look into the logs and figure out where and how K7ZSD beat us last weekend.
Before getting into it -- here is a fun “What if”. The final difference in our scores was
31 QSOs and 4 mults. Thus…
* If NK7U had not had the 80M 4 square switch fail and made another 29 QSO’s and two mults
on 80 in the last 40 minutes of the contest.
* And, if K7ZSD had made 2 less 15M QSO’s that were also mults during the 2100 hour opening
we missed.
* We would have been in a dead tie.
That is how close it really was.
First -- lets look at the final by band QSO and Mult totals to see how each band played out
and our performance on it contributed to our score and difference with K7ZSD. As a way to
compare the impact of each band I created a “Band Strength Factor” that is made of two parts:
1. The QSOs on that band multiplied by our total mults for the contest.
2. The Mults on that band multiplied by our total QSO’s for the contest.
I then added these together and divided by two to create the Band Strength Factor. This represents
the portion of our final score that is attributable to our performance just on this band.
These numbers for K7ZSD and us are as follows:
NK7U
160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Score
QSO 135 198 352 688 63 3 1,439
Mults 38 48 51 52 16 1 206 296,434
QSO Factor 27,810 40,788 72,512 141,728 12,978 618 296,434
Mult Factor 54,682 69,072 73,389 74,828 23,024 1,439 296,434
Total(Q+M/2) 41,246 54,930 72,951 108,278 18,001 1,029 296,434
K7ZSD
QSO 81 258 374 635 121 1 1,470
Mults 28 48 45 58 30 1 210 308,700
QSO Factor 17,010 54,180 78,540 133,350 25,410 210 308,700
Mult Factor 41,160 70,560 66,150 85,260 44,100 1,470 308,700
Total(Q+M/2) 29,085 62,370 72,345 109,305 34,755 840 308,700
NK7U Advantage 12,161 -7,440 606 -1,027 -16,754 189 -12,266
At this fairly high level you can see 10M and 40M were essentially a wash. On 40M our
higher mults were compensated for by K7ZSD’s higher QSO’s. (As far as 40M mults go NK7U
had: HI, MA, XE, NH, NJ, WV, and CO8 that K7ZSD didn’t have. K7ZSD had DE and MS that
NK7U didn’t have.) Even 20M was pretty close to a draw. In this case our higher QSO’s
were made up for by K7ZSD’s higher mults. (As far as 20M mults go NK7U had: HR, KP4,
and XE that K7ZSD didn’t. K7ZSD had ME, ND, NWT, OR, QC, SK, UT, WA, and WY that NK7U
didn’t.) The bands where the big differences came were 160M, 80M, and 15M. We had the
clear advantage on 160M in both QSO’s and Mults to the tune of a 12K+ point advantage
over K7ZSD. As we are finding NK7U’s 160M antenna’s are world class. However the
weakness we have on 80M in domestic contests showed up with K7ZSD gaining about a 7K+
point advantage here based on QSO’s -- we tied in mults. Also, having us off the air
on 80M for 30 minutes right at the end of the contest when the switchbox failed sure
didn’t help. In hindsight we should have had someone jump on 40M just to keep something
going. Another 30 qso’s during this period would have cut ZSD’s lead in half. ZSD’s
huge advantage though was on 15M and this is probably where they really beat us. They
almost doubled our QSO’s and Mults and created close to a 17K point advantage over us
just on 15M.
Second -- we can drill into this further by looking at the breakout of qsos and mults
on each band by hour. (These tables are at the end of this document.)
Briefly for each hour:
1800-1859: We both started on 15 and 20 and spent the first hour there. At the end we
had a nice 41 qso advantage, leading on both bands. ZSD though amazingly had 45 mults
on 20M vs our 27. During this hour K7ZSD worked their only 20M QC, UT, and WY stations
which were 3 of the 7 mults they worked that we never worked. In both cases each station
ran the whole time so this many more mults called in to ZSD. At the end of the hour ZSD
was in the lead by 1.4K points.
1900-1959: We bailed on 15M went to 40M somewhere around 20 minutes after the hour.
This might have been a mistake that cost us beating ZSD. We managed 12/8 (qsos/mults)
that hour on 40M. Meanwhile ZSD stuck it our on 15M and had a 21/5 hour. They did have
a very poor hour on 20M though with a 81/7 vs our 150/11. By the end of the hour we
had a 312 to 229 lead in QSO’s but they were still up on mults by 52 to 38 and overall
we were in the lead by 4K points.
2000-2059: We stayed on 40 and 20 the whole hour having a pretty weak hour with only 93
qso’s overall. 40M was not really open and on 20M we kept getting squeezed off our run
frequencies after 5-10 QSO’s. Meanwhile ZSD had a great hour on 20M with a 117/2 total.
They did spend some time on 40M and 15M as well. For both of us a tough hour. NK7U still
had a 2K point lead at the end of the hour.
2100-2159: This is the hour that probably gave ZSD the advantage that lead to their win.
We were in our second of essentially four hours exclusively on 40M and 20M. We had
another weak hour on 40M but a fairly good one on 20M as we found a good run frequency
at 14156 and were off to the races. K7ZSD spent the hour on 20M and 15M. They were close
to our 20M total but on 15M they had an amazing 52/9 hour, somehow finding a late opening
that we missed. During this time they worked as new mults: NY, ND, IA, MI, Il, RI, OH, AK,
CT all of which we missed. The time we spent on 40M up to this point resulted in 19 mults
by the end of the hour. But every single one of them we worked later. So there was no real
multiplier advantage for us spending time on 40M to this point. Our lead at the end of the
hour was down to 300 points.
2200-2259: Our third straight hour on 40M & 20M. 40M started picking up toward the end of
the hour and we gained some east coast mults while 20M was starting to thin out. About the
same as the prior hour for us overall. ZSD managed to work another 19 Q’s on 15M as well
as one more mult before moving on to 40M around 2235. They also appear to have gotten off
to a slow start on 40M. Because our advantage in mults that hour we extended our lead to
about 1.5K points.
2300-2359: This was our fourth hour on 40M & 20M though we made our first 80M qso right at
the end of the hour when we threw in the towel on 20M. ZSD spend the hour on 40M and 20M as
well. We had essentially the same hour on 40M while we able to hold our rate on 20M longer
with 74 QSO’s vs 47 QSO’s for ZSD. This difference on the band closing made up about 75%
of our 20M QSO advantage over ZSD. At the end of this hour our lead over ZSD grew to 5K points.
0000-0059: This is the hour that 40M finally popped for both of us. ZSD had a better QSO hour
with 143 vs our 120 and 15 mults vs our 4 based on they still being new meat on the band. For
ZSD the 143 was their second best band/hour and for us our 120 was our fourth best. We actually
had a mult lead on 40M of 50 to 44 at the end of the hour We both spent considerable portions
of the hour on 80M but with equally mediocre results. It was still to early. ZSD out q’d and
out multed us this hour and they pulled into a 4K point lead at the end of the hour.
0100-0159: Mostly a 40M & 80M hour for both of us though we moved to 160M at about 1:45. ZSD
more than doubled our 40M QSO’s this hour with 76 vs our 32. They also outdid us on 80M with
46 vs. our 39. What saved us was the quick 12 mults we grabbed on 160M. This mult advantage
would only live until ZSD moved to 160M later. However, for the hour we were 83/25 vs ZSD at
122/16 and ZSD’s lead was cut to 200 points at the end of the hour.
0200-0259: We spend the hour dedicated to 80M and time shared another station on 160M and 40M -
making a return trip to 40M to work a mult and finding the band wide open but no one to work.
ZSD meanwhile spend the whole hour on 40M & 80M and had yet to venture to 160M. They had their
second weakest QSO hour at 64 with only 7 new mults. Meanwhile because we were still new on
160M we racked up a 76/18 hour and moved back into the lead with a 15K point advantage with
the lead in overall QSO’s and overall Multipliers.
0300-0359: We spend the whole hour on 160M and 80M ending up with a 72x10 our second lowest
QSO hour of the contest. ZSD makes their first move to 160M and gets a quick 9 more mults.
They also have their best 80M hour of the contest so far with a 62 hour and also working 9
mults. Gamely they also stuck it out on 40M and made 8 qso’s. ZSD’s 89/19 hour cut our lead
down to about 3K points. At this point things were overall pretty close. NK7U was at 1307/188
vs K7ZSD at 1306/186.
0400-0459: We spend this whole hour on 160M and 80M having our slowest hour of the contest at
58/9 total with only 32 QSO’s on 80M. ZSD pretty much matches the same band pattern though they
have one last QSO on 40M. They have their best 80M hour of the contest at 72/5. They also have
their best 160M hour of the contest at 34/7 whereas we have a relatively poor one at 26/7 as
we have a hard time finding a run frequency. We did settle down at 1918 late in the hour which
helped the final hour’s total. Overall K7ZSD’s hour was 107/12 vs our 58/9 and they powered
into almost an 11K point lead. The battle was over at this point.
0500-0559: We both spent the hour on 160M and 80M. We had a pretty good QSO hour at 45 despite
being intentionally QRM’s on run frequencies. We also picked up 7 more mults for a final total
of 38 mults on the band which I think ties our alltime record. On 80M we had the 4-square
directional switch fail at about 05:18 and only made 5 more QSO’s on 80M for the rest of the
contest. This could have cost us 30 QSO’s and a mult or two. We should have had someone jump
on 40M to try to make some q’s but the two available operators were trying to fix the switch.
K7ZSD had their lowest QSO hour of the contest but managed to pick up 12 new mults on 160M and
extended their lead to the final 12.2K points.
Thus, as noted at the begginning the “what if” territory:
* If we had managed to keep 80M going and made another 29 QSO’s and two mults.
* And, if K7ZSD had made 2 less 15M QSO’s that were also mults during the 2100 hour opening we missed..
* We would have been in dead tie
That is how close it really was.
Scott
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NK7U
QSO/MUL by hour and band
Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm
D1-1800Z - - - 162/27 54/14 - 216/41 216/41
D1-1900Z - - 12/8 150/11 6/1 - 168/20 384/61
D1-2000Z - - 26/7 67/4 - - 93/11 477/72
D1-2100Z - - 29/4 123/7 - - 152/11 629/83
D1-2200Z - - 35/10 112/1 - - 147/11 776/94
D1-2300Z - 1/1 87/17 74/2 - - 162/20 938/114
D2-0000Z --+-- 18/17 120/4 --+-- --+-- --+-- 138/21 1076/135
D2-0100Z 12/11 39/14 32/0 - - - 83/25 1159/160
D2-0200Z 22/6 43/11 11/1 - - - 76/18 1235/178
D2-0300Z 30/7 42/3 - - - - 72/10 1307/188
D2-0400Z 26/7 32/2 - - - - 58/9 1365/197
D2-0500Z 45/7 23/0 - - 3/1 3/1 74/9 1439/206
Total: 135/38 198/48 352/51 688/52 63/16 3/1
K7ZSD
QSO/MUL by hour and band
Hour 160M 80M 40M 20M 15M 10M Total Cumm
D1-1800Z - - - 148/45 27/13 - 175/58 175/58
D1-1900Z - - - 81/7 21/5 - 102/22 277/70
D1-2000Z - - 8/5 117/2 2/2 1/1 128/10 405/80
D1-2100Z - - - 114/2 52/9 - 166/11 571/91
D1-2200Z - - 16/6 123/0 19/1 - 158/7 729/98
D1-2300Z - - 87/18 47/2 - - 135/20 864/118
D2-0000Z --+-- 20/12 143/15 5/0 --+-- --+-- 167/27 1031/145
D2-0100Z - 46/15 76/1 - - - 122/16 1153/161
D2-0200Z - 29/7 35/0 - - - 64/7 1217/168
D2-0300Z 19/9 62/9 8/0 - - - 89/18 1306/186
D2-0400Z 34/7 72/5 1/0 - - - 107/12 1413/198
D2-0500Z 28/12 29/0 - - - - 57/12 1470/210
Total: 81/28 258/48 374/45 635/58 121/30 1/1