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need help

Subject: need help
From: pp5jr@pp5jr-2.ampr.org (pp5jr@pp5jr-2.ampr.org)
Date: Tue Jul 16 21:28:54 1996
Hi everyboby,
i have a friend ( pp5ua) that have a big problem with computer interference, 
in his station.  The interference is much important in 40 and 80m band. 
He has the antennas very near to his house and when he turns on the computer 
the reception on 40 and 80m are blocked.
He tried many things but the interference is there.
I would like to ask for some help because i don't know how to help him!!!
Best regards,
Sergio PP5JR also PQ0MM ZX5J

>From psoper@encore.com (Pete Soper)  Wed Jul 17 01:50:29 1996
From: psoper@encore.com (Pete Soper) (Pete Soper)
Subject: Headphone suggestions needed
Message-ID: <29770.9607170050@earl.encore.com>


> Hi Dave and All, I was going through radio shack yesterday and noticed
> they have a "head set" similair to heil pro, but fer 59.95 ... big
> S O F T ear muffs and yes it had a boom mic attached...I wasn't they
> were busy, so I didn't inquire...

I've been using that for six months. Audio is bass-city and headphones will
make you wish for a guillotine after eight hours.  Other than that it's 
just like a Heil Pro. I think there's soft, and then there's downy soft.

Sorry for attributing the "Ohhhh
                                hhhh" to W6O when it was of course K6O.

Pete
KS4XG

>From km9p@contesting.com (Bill Fisher, KM9P)  Wed Jul 17 02:19:12 1996
From: km9p@contesting.com (Bill Fisher, KM9P) (Bill Fisher, KM9P)
Subject: WRTC notes from me... Long.
Message-ID: <199607170119.VAA14874@paris.akorn.net>

I thought I would write a few words about my WRTC experience.  I hope this
is of interest...

I arrived Wednesday evening after the days WRTC festivities.  I ate dinner
with my partner John Lehney, K4BAI at the hotel bar.  We discussed a few
things about the event, but nothing meaning full.  After dinner, the gang
came back from the BBQ and I got my first chance to meet many famous
contesters.  Most people collected around the pool area and shared beers and
stories with others.  I had a very interesting conversation with the boys
from Russia and Ukraine.  It was very interesting hearing stories about
antennas and contesting from their perspective.  I retired early after a
long day and got to meet my roomy - DL1IAO (Stefan).  We talked some about
160 meter contesting.  It seems Stefan has his hands on a nice site in DL
for the top band.

Thursday we split in to two groups.  My group went on the tour of San
Francisco.  We had a great time seeing many of the sites.  Lunch was in
China Town.  I sat next to Trey (KKN) on the bus and across the isle from
K3ZO.  Trey told us about his latest award chasing.  It's a WAZ of sorts.
He and Rusty (I think it was Rusty), try to see how many WAZ zones they can
eat at in the bay area.   Sushi = Zone 25.  Taco Bell = Zone 6.  China Town
= Zone 24.  You get the picture.  Sounded kind of interesting and we all got
a chuckle out of the idea.  Behind me on the bus were the group from 9A1A.
K4XU (Dick) was kind enough to introduce me to the group and I got to hear
some very interesting stories about their contest club and things they go
through to get on the air.  Like helping a school teacher get running water
(among other things) so that they could use the school as a contest site.  I
asked them why they (9A1A) were always the first on the band and the last to
leave.  It seems their QTH is one of those "magic" locations.  I also got a
chance to speak with Terry Gordon (NS0Z - Mrs K4VX).  It was nice to catch
up with her after not being back to Missouri for a couple of years.  Terry's
cooking is the secret weapon at K4VX BTW.  Thursday night I spent a lot more
time meeting people.  I wish I had more time getting to know more people.

Friday we started the day waiting for the judges and referees to finish a
long meeting.  The competitors meeting was thankfully short.  Not too many
rules questions (demonstrating the great planning that went in to making the
rules).  We finished the meeting by drawing stations in alphabetical order.
After meeting our team referee, Charlie - W6UM, we were off to our station.
John and I were fortunate to pick the station of Bob Wilson, NQ6Z.  Bob has
up a TH7 on a crank up tower in San Jose.  Bob really went out of his was to
help John and I get comfortable.  We basically tore up his station for him.
He told us he was planning to rearrange things anyway, so it wasn't a
problem.  I'm still not sure if he wasn't just being nice.  After clearing
everything out of the way, I proceeded to set everything up.  I decided to
take the computer I use at my station in Atlanta and my FT1000MP.  I bought
a 9" VGA color monitor for contesting recently and it sure was the ticket
for WRTC.  I also bought a Heil Proset for this contest.  I'm glad I did.
Very comfortable.  We fired up the rigs to make sure everything was working.
We compared signals with several other WRTC competitors with NA4K and K7SV
on the east coast.  They both told us we were all about the same.  That made
us happy.  Unfortunately we did find that we had S7 line noise to the
east/northeast on 10 and 15 meters.  We figured there was nothing to do
about it now, and that we do the best we could with it.  Bob said it
normally went away at night, but that doesn't help much on 10 and 15.  

After everything was confirmed to work, we went out to eat with Bob and his
mother.  John and I didn't get an opportunity to eat all day, so when Bob
suggested a buffet near his house we happily agreed.  After dinner, Charlie
took John and I to the grocery store for our contest rations.  I got my
usual Diet Dr Pepper, grapes, turkey, and fruit roll ups.

I kidded John on Friday that he could wake me up after the first hour of the
contest for my turn to operate.  He didn't go for it however.  John finally
dragged me out of bed at 4:30AM.  I set up the computer with our callsign
(K6T) after Charlie gave us the news.  We were pretty happy to get a short -
short call.  I started the contest by John's insistence.  I was very
relaxed.  I didn't get uptight about the contest beforehand, and did very
little preparation.  I think it helped.  I had no trouble sleeping the night
before and felt normal at the start.

We started on 40M CW, as I'm sure did the rest of the competitors.   My
thought was to stay on 40M CW as long as we could stand it.  In the Sprint,
I know that an early QSY to 40M from 20M is synonymous with a low score.  I
figured we would beat 20M to death during the day.  John agreed. 

After 2 hours + on 40M CW, John told me the other WRTCers were going very
strong on 20M CW.  His timing was perfect as I was starting to feel like it
was time to move.  Our complicated system for switching antennas between
stations was a pair of quick disconnect PL259 connectors.  We moved the coax
between the two rigs and I was off to 20M.  The rate instantly went through
the roof.  I was sending at 44 wpm for much of the first hour on 20M CW.   A
few didn't recognize their calls when I sent it back to them, but for the
most part it went well.  

During the contest the rates never slipped below 100 per hour on CW
(according to NA).  I figured it would be very difficult to do much better
than 200/hr on SSB for extended periods of time.  200/hr was our low water
mark on SSB.  If we went below 200/hr on the NA screen, we went back to CW.  

We did not ever S&P on the Radio-A (The TXing rig).  If we found a
multiplier, it was found on Radio-B.  The interference was fairly bad on
most bands from Radio-A.  The 40M dipole didn't even work all that well on
15M.  I disconnected the shield on it for 20M and 10M.  It seemed to help
some.  I didn't find the ICE filters to be of any assistance at all.  I'm
not sure why.  We only used them on Radio-B.  We were able to find mults by
hearing other WRTC stations calling the DX.  We would only go attempt to
work a DX multiplier if we heard other WRTC stations working the mult.  I
heard several WRTC types wasting precious time in pile ups for DX in which
the DX never did work a WRTC station. 

During our time on 10 and 15 meters we were forced to point our yagi a bit
south of east.  The QRN was too high if we pointed it directly at the east
coast.  I also figured we might stand a better chance at having some SA
mults call in with the antenna that way  (Well it's better to be
optimistic!).  I believe the real area that it hurt us is in working the
guys up the coast from us.   When we turned the antenna to work JA's in the
afternoon we also had a large pile up of W6's calling that I'm sure couldn't
hear us before.  10M was a surprise in that everyone was on CW and not on
SSB.  When we did go to 10M SSB, the rates were not as good as the other
bands.  I managed to move two mults to 10M in the afternoon, XE and KH6.  

We worked our first EU on 20M around 1900Z.  This was earlier than I thought
we would work it.  Near sunset and after we started working more EU.  A few
called in while CQing on CW.  Mostly we found them on the 2nd radio while
CQing on 40M CW.  We tried very hard to work an S7 OT6T and another S5 EU
station on SSB.  They both CQed in our face.  Our referee (Charlie, W6UM)
mumbled something like "Welcome to the west coast".  On CW we had fairly
good luck working the mults we called.  We didn't waste any time in pileups
however.  If we didn't get through quickly, we left.  

John was a great partner for the event.  He kept a very close eye on the F9
check call window in NA for discrepancies in zones copied.  He also kept me
straight on several occasions for zones I simply didn't change from the
default in NA.   The mistakes were mostly made when the rates were very
high.  It was nice operating with someone, that when he took over, the rate
meter either went up or stayed the same.  

The only mistake I believe we made, was by me.  John passed me a list of 4
mults we needed on 40M CW the 2nd to last hour of the contest.  I was on 20M
SSB with the rate meter in the 400/hr range.  In hind site I should have
gone to get those mults.  But as John said on the phone last night, even if
we had worked those mults and every other mult we heard but did not work...
we still would have been beaten by Jeff and Dan.  I guess that puts things
in perspective.  

After the contest we tore down the station and packed the many boxes that
needed to be shipped back to the KM9P station in Georgia.  After many thanks
to Bob we were on our way back to the motel.  We were a long way from the
motel and most of the competitors were gathered swapping scores.  After
swapping claimed scores with the gang, I was off to bed.  I had to leave in
the morning at 6:30AM.  I had an idea that we did well, but didn't actually
get the news that we had finished 2nd until Monday when I called the motel
from O hare airport in Chicago.  

I feel really good about being 2nd, but I would like to echo something that
Trey said before this competition to me on the phone:  In baseball terms,
this competition was more like the All star game than the World Series.  In
my opinion every one of the operators were first class.  It was a great
experience more that it was a decisive competition (except for maybe Dan &
Jeff).  The real winners were all the attendees of the WRTC activities.
Meeting the other competitors was a rare opportunity that I'm sure will not
be duplicated.

Anyway...  Thanks to everyone involved with WRTC for the great work.  And
thanks to John for picking me as a partner.

73

Bill, KM9P





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