This video is trying to capture the essence of INB (In-Band) contesting operating style.
The video was captured during first hour of our MS effort in 2024 (new EU record was set). The aim was to measure TX idle time and see how it compares to some theoretical estimate.

Few points to better understand what is going on:

• 40m band
• 4 operators (+2 on MULT station, but those two are not relevant here)
  
• two RUN operators (RUN and RUNx), each listening to different RX antenna/direction (RUN on 2Vw and RUNx on 2Ve)
• two INB operators, each listening to different RX antenna
• audio recording is from RUNx position (i.e. all the signals are from 2Ve RX antenna)
  
• all OPS TX on the same, TX-only, antenna (2 phased verticals oriented to North, some 10m from the see front)
• RX antennas are also 2 phased verticals (identical to TX antenna), one oriented toward 310 degrees (2Vw) and the other to 45 degrees (2Ve)
• the directivity of RX antennas is very high between the two main directions, so you can only hear very strong US signals on 2Ve
• you will see RUNx working mainly stations from east and RUN from west
  
• the isolation between TX and the two RX antennas is not the same
• isolation between TX and 2Vw is almost 80dB which is very good and you can only hear the other station TXing when the separation is less than about 3kHz 
• isolation between TX and 2Ve is about 15dB worse and you will notice interference when INB1 or INB2 is TXing (if listening to 2Vw it would be zero interference)
• the QSO entry for INBs is shown when F4 was pressed (i.e. not when the QSO was logged)
  
• the TX ON and IDLE time is shown on the bottom right
• ideally you want your PA to be 100% on TX
• practically the upper limit is somewhere around 80% and we hardly manage to get to 70% during the main pile-up times
• INB is very similar to 2BSIQ with the main difference that 2BSIQ OP is the one that dictates the sequence/rythm on both bands, while here the RUN OP dictates, or at least tries to, its own rythm whild INB OPs need to adjust to the sequence of the station they are calling - these are inveitable gaps beyond the swithcing times and human reaction delays.

Enjoy!


The ping-pong mode graphical representation:


The TK0C 2024 MS shack view:


The TK0C 2024 MS setup: