ARRL DX Contest, SSB
Call: W1UE
Operator(s): W1UE
Station: W1KM
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: ma
Operating Time (hrs): 30
Remote Operation
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 51 40
80: 136 61
40: 193 67
20: 352 97
15: 802 97
10: 1054 111
-------------------
Total: 2588 473 Total Score = 3,672,372
Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club
Comments:
I went into this weekend not knowing how much physical effort I wanted to put
into this contest. After all, it is just SSB, I knew I would be pretty much
finished by noon on Sunday due to family commitments, and I am still recovering
from recent surgery. So, wanting to operate but not make a big commitment, I
decided to operate the W1KM remote station in Single Op Unlimited entry.
The current state of the remote station does not allow antennas on 40 and 20M
to be rotated, so I chose to leave the 40M antenna on Europe and the 20M stack
on Europe. I could remotely rotate the top antennas on 10/15, and the 4-square
on 80M, but nothing on 40/80m.
The station is operated remotely using the Remote Rig units, and a VPN to
control the linear and antenna changes. Unfortunately, I ran into a lot of
problems this weekend with a flaky internet connection, bad enough that I had
to shut down several times. The audio, for no apparent reason (it wasn't
connected to RF, as I wasn't transmitting at the time and it affected all
bands), would start breaking up. Sometimes the xmit audio would break up,
sometimes the rx audio would break up. I had numerous requests for fills, I'm
guessing that the xmit audio was breaking up (I couldn't hear it). When the Rx
audio broke up, it made me send numerous requests for fills. It was frustrating
to work through. The audio would be great for long stretches, then suddenly
severely break up. I don't think it was connected to Internet traffic, as the
worst stretch was about midnight-2AM Sat to Sun where I had to shut down
entirely it was so bad. Even the VPN connection crashed during this time.
Yes, I had turned all the automatic updating programs and scans on both
computers off, so I'm sure that wasn't it.
To summarize the contest, it was great! I only wish it was CW or RTTY! My
precontest goal of 2Meg was exceeded in the first 24 hours, and my substitute
goals of 2500 Qs and 3Meg were both exceeded in the last few hours of the
contest. The low bands were noisy Friday night, but much quieter Sat night.
10/15M were great both days; I missed the early morning 20M SSB run into Europe
Sat morning; by the time I woke up, 15M was already wide open and I chose to go
straight there. Even with the antennas on Europe, I did manage to work 1 JA on
40M and 1 JA on 20M.
So, my quest to add 2Meg to the club score turned into the reality of adding
3.6Meg to the club score. Worked 27 stations on 6 bands, and 41 stations on 5
bands. Best clock hour was a 221 on 10M Sat morning.
Thanks to Greg W1KM for the use of his great station.
Dennis W1UE
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|