Today marked the beginning of a new CW contest geared towards the intermediate CW operator. I’ll put myself in that bucket. The Medium Speed Contest is geared for operators aiming to work at speeds of 20-25 words per minute. The exchange is your name and a serial number. My goal is to use this contest for practice. That means I’m sending by hand with my Bench BY-1 paddle and I’m not using spots. I’ve been participating regularly in the K1USN Slow Speed conTest (SST), and I’ll likely add this contest to the rotation.
I like this new contest for a couple reasons. First, I get sending practice at a higher speed than the SST contests. Second, I get to practice copying numbers, and since the contest is only an hour, 2 digit numbers primarily. When the big contests start and 4-digit numbers are flying at 30+ WPM, I’m relegated to search and pounce mode. I’m hopeful that more numbers practice will allow to me run (albeit at WPM in the mid-20’s) for some of the larger contests.
Third, the other stations on the air tonight were economical with the exchange. Only once or twice did I hear a signal report given. No one sent my call sign back to me, nor did I hear break «BK» sent. Some 73’s were exchanged from time to time, but for the most part, exchanges were kept brief. Fourth, I worked stations that are new to me. Over the past 2 years, most stations I work during the SST are familiar to me. The MST today had unfamiliar calls, forcing me to listen carefully for the name, which I might have subconsciously memorized for a station I work frequently in the SST.
One of the downsides of the contest is that for an operator on the east coast of the USA, all contest times are either during the work day, or at 11PM. If you’re using the contest to learn and practice, 11PM can be rough. I’m a night owl, but my brain can’t be pushed to copy fast code past 10PM.
How did I do? Ok, I think. I started nice and easy, set my keyer to 23 WPM, and made several search and pounce QSOs on 40m. Easy enough. Propagation was great, no isssues there. After searching through most of the 40m band, and having 15 minutes left, I decided I should try running. This is normally how I operate during the SST contests, but I wasn’t sure my 11PM brain could keep up. Regardless, I gave it my best effort, and worked more stations in 15 minutes running than I did in 30 minutes of search and pounce. I did ask for (what seemed like) a lot of repeats. Some stations give their name first, then number, some vice-versa. This confused me a few times, so I wound up typing whatever I heard into N1MM and then placing information in it’s proper field at the conclusion of the QSO.
At the conclusion of the contest, I uploaded my score to 3830. Overall, I was pleased with my 29 QSOs and look forward to jumping into the next MST contest.
From N1MM
Here’s my Score Summary:
Band QSOs Pts Cll Pt/Q
7 29 29 29 1.0
Total 29 29 29 1.0
Score: 841
1 Mult = 1.0 Q's
Here’s my Runs summary:
ICWC MST - 2022-04-30 0000Z to 2022-05-02 0000Z - 29 QSOs
K4CBW Runs >10 QSOs: for computer named: WIN11-HAM
2022-05-03 0344Z - 0400, 7039 kHz, 15 Qs, 59.5/hr