ARRL June VHF Contest
Call: W3SO
Operator(s): WA3TTS WR3Z W3BC W3BTX W3IDT W3SF W3XOX W3YOZ
Station: W3SO
Class: Limited Multi-Op HP
QTH: WPA
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
6: 474 159
2: 205 050
222: 040 021
432: 083 037
903:
1.2:
2.3:
3.4:
5.7:
10G:
24G:
-------------------
Total: 802 267 Total Score = 246,975
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
Wow. That was, well, fun, anxious, exhilarating, frustrating, fabulous, and
more, all at the same time. Oh, and there was a contest to operate, too.
We - the W3SO, Wopsononock Mountaintop Operators Contest Team:
+ Did massive hardware and software upgrades in the past few weeks:
> Installed 5 New PCs, KBs, and Monitors,
one for each of 50, 144, 222, 432, and one spare.
> Installed the N1MM Logger+ on each PC.
> Build the Logger+ network.
> Set up appropriate spot distribution
with a very slow internet connection on our mountaintop.
> Interfaced each Logger+ to its radio.
> Interfaced 3 PCs to its radio for Digital Voice Keying.
> Installed WSLT-x on the 50Mhz PC (and sort-of on 144Mhz).
+ Did much "human factors" design and implementation:
> Customized Logger+ windows placement for M/M VHF contests.
> Customized Logger+ window contents and order.
> Customized Key combinations and Function Key assignments,
especially for ease of passing contacts to other bands.
> Wrote special W3SO Operators Guide
Most of the work was done by two of the team members, one of whom lives 200
miles from the station, and lots of emails. Much, much tweaking all day Friday,
some Saturday morning, and some on the fly during the contest.
So, at the "starting gun" we "held our breath". What would
break?
Nothing... but propagation was pretty bad.
Not fault of installation team.
222 rotor failed; beam stuck NW, not a good direction for us in WPA!
222 radio failed. Maybe during attempt to get PC dvk working.
222 radio replaced; MFJ dvk used.
Experience / lessons learned.
- Yea, of course this should have been done months ago :-)
- More hand-holding / training of operators than expected.
- Very little reading of the Guide (we have a number of
"part-timers").
- Except for two experienced HF contesters, most ops used the PC DVK for CQ
only; some simply preferred the old way: MFJ stand alone dvk or internal K3
dvk.[*1]
- As noted, some minor tweaks during the contest,
but many, many notes taken for changes for the future:
.. some implementable directly or documented better.
.. some need more study.
.. some may generate Logger+ change requests.
Oh, and as noted, there was a contest.
- Saturday started out slower on the 3 higher bands than expected,
due to too many stations being on 50Mhz JT8.
- 50 bounced between SSB and FT8 on Saturday without really getting anything
going [*2].
- 144, 222, and 432 more-or-less slogged it out slowly,
due to too many stations on 50 FT8.
- Sunday much better on 50: Finally stations on SSB for some decent runs. (Those
in 5-land had very, very good runs.)
- Sunday on 144, 222, and 432 very very slow,
due to too many stations on 50 FT8.
- Always nice to work some rovers in extreme south-west and many in mid-west (on
Sunday on 50).
- Passing mechanism worked very well.
- Our usual gripes: Too much noise on 50; Too far west for the big tropo opening
along the east coast.
[*1] yes, we know, K3 internal dvk can be accessed from Logger+, but only one
bank at a time; the other bank needs to be manually switched.
Our preliminary SSB_K3.mc file used the internal K3 dvk, and was the first one
implemented. Once that worked, we did the full PC dvk implementation and used an
alternate, pre-prepared SSB_PC.mc file.
[*2] The Logger+ and FT8 integration not fully complete.
But we were able to switch to accept passes within 5 - 10 seconds;
and we are able to check FT8 CQs for needed calls fairly well - but that
mechanism needs improved.
Bob, w3idt
For the Wopsononock Mountaintop Operators
Jun8 2018: wa3tts, wr3z, w3bc, w3btx, w3idt, w3sf, w3xox, w3yoz
--
.............................
. Robert F. Teitel, W3IDT .
. .
. W3IDT@arrl.net .
. W3IDT@comcast.net .
.............................
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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