North America QSO Party - CW
Call: W6YX
Operator(s): N7MH
Station:
Class: SO LP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 10
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
----------------------
160: 28 10
80: 59 23
40: 186 42
20: 229 49
15: 187 46
10: 45 17
----------------------
Total: 734 187 = 137,258
Club/Team: NCCC #2
Comments:
Equipment:
FT1000MP, IC761, 6 el Telrex 10, 6 el Telrex 15, 155CA, 6 el KLM 20, KT34XA,
PRO67A, 4 el KLM 40, 402BA, 80 Inv. Vee, 160 Inv. Vee, TR-Log 6.58
Spent Friday evening trying to build a serial keying interface for the second
radio. Finished it at 11 PM and it didn't work, so I fell back to plan B which
was to use separate networked computers to key the two rigs. I tried this once
before in a CW Sprint with little success so I wasn't expecting much out of the
second radio. This time I managed 136 second-radio QSOs. I still hope to get
the second keying interface on a single computer so that I can use TR-Log's
built-in SO2R support, but I now appreciate SO2R and hope to do it more in the
future. My biggest advice for other SO2R novices is to turn the monitor tones
WAY down - even though I'd read to do this I hadn't turned it down far enough
in my earlier efforts and my own keying was interfering with listening on the
other radio.
I want to thank Ken, N6RO, for some sage advice on time-offs in this contest.
He said that from the west coast you need to take off all 2 hours early in the
contest, possibly all of it before the halfway point, so that there is enough
time left to work multipliers on the low bands in the last few hours.
It's very hard to put down the headphones when you think you're in the middle
of a good run, so it was fortunate that one of our other club members showed up
for a sked with his father at 2000Z on 15 phone. This took away my second
radio so I decided to take a half hour break then. I got back on at 2030 for a
little more than a half hour, just with one radio, when he had another sked on
20 phone with a friend sailing to Tonga who was near the Cook Is. It was a
pleasant break to talk a bit with Tony in the South Pacific about his antenna
system and rig on a 42-foot sailboat (not to mention the problems he was having
with the john :-).
Fortunately Dave, WZ6E, is one of our Field Day stalwarts and generally
supportive of contesting so when Tony faded a bit they said their 73's and I
got to switch the rig back from phone to CW. It took several unanswered calls
to realize that 1) I hadn't hit the CW button on the ICOM so I wasn't really
transmitting and 2) I hadn't hit the VOX button which is also necessary in our
setup.
These first two breaks inspired me to take my other two half-hours off before
0000Z during some slow times. I even managed to drive to a local fast-food
joint during one of these breaks to get something to eat.
I still need to figure out how to move stations to other bands. I either
figure out too late that I need somebody on another open band, or rationalize
that the other band probably isn't open, or speculate that the other guy
probably doesn't want to move just to work another California station. I only
attempted two moves - WD0T was successfully moved to 20 for SD, but the KS
station I tried moving to 15 wasn't heard. I did move for the few stations
that asked - I could even briefly hear K9TM when we moved to 10, but wasn't
sure if he heard me.
I probably spent too much time hunting alligators on 160. I worked a few, but
most of the 8's and 9's I heard didn't hear me. I assume I'm equally guilty in
missing weak stations that were calling me - one of these years we will put up
some sort of receiving antenna like a beverage or loop.
Congratulations to all those with high scores. I'm a bit disappointed that we
couldn't muster up the crew for a M/2 effort since it looks like the
competition was fierce. On the other hand it gave me a chance to try out SO2R
so that I'm now inspired to get the interfaces working and tested well before
the next contest weekend.
On a final note, I'm sure that I was asked to repeat my name many times because
people were frantically deleting an old name that came from the MASTER.DTA
file. In the past we've used club members' names (Mike, John, Dean, etc.),
Stan (for Stanford) and Leland (more obscure - Leland Stanford Junior
University). Just to keep everyone on their toes, since I'll be out of town
for the next couple of weekends, you're likely to receive a different name in
NAQP Phone.
-Mike, N7MH
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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