568 x 79 = 89,744 wtx, lp, multi
I wasn't going to be in town this weekend. Had tickets to the Jaguars
game but the plans fell through at the last minute.
I had a pretty good Saturday night. I took my 1000mp to the office
where my tower is (stacked F12's at 45' and 75' with a WX0B stack
match). I ended the night around 1:30am local time. Things got real
slow. So I decided to take my off time all at once.
Got back to the office around 7:00am to get things setup/warmed up.
Turned the receiver back on at 7:30am. 40 was going pretty well and 80
was full of static. I stuck it out until noon. Then my wife called.
She said the chicken wings were all most done (we do it every Sunday
along with football). So I decided I best get my sweep, so I turned on
packet to speed things up (hence multi-op). That helped nail down all
the mults accept for NL and MAR. VO1MP was on 15 but was not very loud.
Not wanting to be late for the wings I hooked up the coax to my Kachina
505DSP which is setup for remote control via the phone. I got home,
fired up packet (actually telnet), dialed up the 505 and there was
VO1MP. I brought up the keyboard keyer and within a few minutes I had
NL in the log. After a few wings, VE9XB was spotted and he was in the
log for the sweep.
I'm pleased with the 505DSP. Its a great rig when not in remote control
and works pretty well via the phone line. It sure is nice to chase dx
via remote control but so far it has not been the best for cw
contesting. But remote control contesting with the 505DSP is not too
far off. The main reason is compatible contesting software. I used ct
in a windows environment which cannot communicate with the 505dsp. To
tune, I had to click on the 505 control software. To send cw I had to
click on the keyer window and to log I had to click again on the ct
window. It was ok for a few q's but it certainly would not due for
serious contesting. SSB on the other hand would be much easier to manage
and would probably work fb. I may try it for the SSB portion in two
weeks.
The CW problem deserves a better explanation. When using the on board
cw keyer provided with the 505dsp any speed is available. However,
when using an external keyer such as the one from the LPT port driven by
CT the speed is limited and a delay is involved. With a connect speed
of 24kb (which is about the best you can do unless the remote site is
within the same exchange your dialing from) the best one can do is 20
wpm due to the limited bandwidth of the phone lines. Not nearly fast
enough for contesting. So the keyboard cw is a must as any speed is
available with no delay. But then your bouncing around from window to
window things get slowed down which is not acceptable. As I said
earlier, ssb is a different story and works very well. I ran a few q's
during cqww a few weeks ago and it worked well. Almost like being
there.
By the way I can control my antenna switch and rotor via remote so its
very flexible.
See you in ssb. My favorite contest.
--
73,
Richard Thorne - N5ZC (ex KA2DSY, N2BHP, WB5M)
Amarillo, TX
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