CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY
Call: K0HB
Operator(s): K0HB
Station: K0HB
Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Minnestoa
Operating Time (hrs): 8
Summary:
Band QSOs Pts State/Prov DX Zones
----------------------------------------
80: 47 60 5 6 28
40: 169 217 10 17 41
20: 186 434 16 44 28
15:
10:
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Total: 402 711 31 67 97 Total Score = 138,645
Club: Minnesota Wireless Association
Comments:
This was my first RTTY contest ever. In fact, prior to this weekend my K0HB
log going back to 1977 contained exactly two (2) RTTY QSO's. One with A35RK
in 1994, and more recent one with VK0IR in 1997.
My last serious RTTY involvement (not contest) before that was in 1967 when
I built a TU to drive an old Model 15 machine. Used 88mh toroidal loading
coils to tune the discriminator, rectified the audio, and overdrove some
triods to get 60ma loop current.
So it was a learning experience! After several broken engagements Friday
evening, I was finally able to convince WriteLog to accept the hand of MMTTY
in marriage, and get them to talk through my microKEYER-II to the radio. By
mid evening I was making my first QSO's, and not embarrassing myself too bad
on the air.
Set a goal of 100 Q's as a "good training session".
After about 25 tentative S&P Q's on 20, I switched to 40M and found it
completely covered by s9+40 noise, cycling on and off at about 3 minute
intervals. Nothing in the house cycling like that, and it sounded like a
welder! But only on 40M --- or wait a minute, it's on 20M too, if I leave
my 40M inverted V hooked up. Switch to the beam, and it goes away. Leave
the beam hooked up and QSY to 40M --- No noise! Switch to a different 40M
antenna (GAP vertical), no noise. Switch back to the 40M inverted V ---
monster noise!
Well, to make a long story short, my fishing boat has a 36VDC positioning
motor, and Friday afternoon I had plugged in the 36V charger to top-off the
battery bank in prep for a Monday fishing trip. The boat is parked within
inches of one leg of the 40M V. Unplug the charger, and all is well, but
the night was pretty much shot and I wasn't ready to jump off the porch and
play with the big dogs.
Saturday, played around a little again on 20M learning the software, and
felt I could at least S&P up a small score for the club. Once you "get
over" the kludgey WriteLog/MMTTY mess on the screen, the combination plays
pretty well. Between Saturday night and Sunday I put in about another 6 or
7 hours. Still haven't gotten a "smooth" pattern of entering calls from the
RTTY screen up to the logging window (I hate mice in contesting, comes from
growing up on CT), but was able to make some acceptable runs. Not smooth,
but acceptable.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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