Contest excuse #13: I was gonnado a fulleffort but wassick most of the week!
(see my syntax is still off)
Got sleep both nights and now know I missed great openings late Sat. night
but the mind was strong but the body weaker.
Score: 687 Qs,1782 Qpts,52 staes/prov, 27 countries
final score=140,778 (50% better than last year.
Ft1000mp impressions:
I got my mp just 8 days before the test and all the filters didnt arrive
till several days later. Easy to install and configure. The mp is a GEM
on 160. The filters and EDSP make a Thomas's muffin of the band-full of
nooks and cranies of dx and weaker stations to work. I was able to sit on a
frequency for several hours next to (all snuggly and warm like) W3BGN and the
filtering was a brick wall. A local a mile down the road ran a kw and nary
the key click till I was within a few kilohertz. The second receiver proved
to be worth while by allowing me to spot in the window and check for JA
opening on Sat/Sun while still monitoring the run freq. The stereo mix
is superb and easy to tell what your hearing. Have a weaker ear? -punch the
audio switch and reverse the channels. The radio put out 70- watts to drive
the amp and the internal fan cycled on and off with nary a noise. The amp
keying relay is built in making hookup a plug and play deal.(The radio puts
out a full 100+ but only needed 70 to drive amp) Its rock solid,quiet
(the EDSP has a bandpass filter that makes cw jump out of the air!)
I am still learning about the many capabilities but am VERY impressed
by my choice of radio. I did notice the following:
The internal keyer needed my paddles wiring to be reversed and if the keyer
is ON then CT keys and you you get gibberish. If the two key ones can be
split so one runs the keyer an the other is just keyed by CT then life will
be almost perfect. This may be a software switch but I havent checked yet.
Also, the bandpass filters appear to handoff at about 1803 with a little
'click' in the headphone-I would prefer this to be at 1797 but a minor point.
CU for phone!
Dan W8CAR
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* W8CAR pems_st_dk@noeca.ohio.gov *
* Dan Kovatch *
* Antennas are the key - BUT an ALPHA sure doesn't hurt! *
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