Mexico RTTY International Contest
Call: W4PK
Operator(s): W4PK
Station: W4PK
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: VA
Operating Time (hrs): 5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
80: 19
40: 62
20: 137
15: 35
10: 7
-------------------
Total: 260 62 Total Score = 41,230
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
I participated in this contest to see if everything still worked in anticipation
of next weekend's CQWPX RTTY contest. It is a good thing that I did as I had 3
hardware failures and some occasional weirdness in the way my logging software
worked.
Hardware failure #1 was that my homebrew interface that I use to emulate the
bandmap voltage of an Icom radio from my K3 was off by one higher band. I use
the bandmap voltage to control my two Top Ten Band Decoders. What I found was
that the supply voltage from my Icom 7800 to my interface had dropped to around
12.2VDC, and this was enough to cause my K3 BCD decoder to decode incorrectly.
This was easily fixed by rewiring my interface box to use an external +13.8VDC
regulated supply.
Failure #2 was that an open-collector driver (an ancient 7406) had failed
shorted in my homebrew SO2R control box, thereby selecting both of my
amplifiers at the same time. This was also easily fixed.
Failure #3 was that I monitor the power being dissipated in a dummy load at my
80M Comtek-controlled four-square. I use this to make sure the power is being
radiated rather than dissipated in the dummy load. The problem lies somewhere
between the RF monitor output at the dummy load and my house, which is about
275' away. Given the current weather situation, I am going to chance it and
not fix this one until spring.
I use SO2R, and the software issue was that occasionally (2-5% of the time)
when sending a report the software would suddenly switch in the middle of that
message to the other radio's DI window. It would stop the first radio from
transmitting when this happened but did not key up the other radio. I solved
this problem by going back to an earlier version of the logging software.
Needless to say I spent a lot of time fixing these problems and not enough time
operating. My apologies to those of you who had my report to you suddenly
truncated.
Thanks for all the Q's, and I do hope everything still works next weekend.
73, Sam W4PK
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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