ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW
Call: W5AC
Operator(s): UA0OFF
Station: W5AC
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: STX
Operating Time (hrs): 23.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
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160:
80:
40: 212
20: 225
15: 279
10: 149
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Total: 865 Sections = 77 Total Score = 133,210
Club:
Comments:
Texas A&M University Radio Club is one of the oldest in this country,
founded in 1912. Thus it was a privilege and fun sending the check of 12
even despite very numerous fills, but also got many WOWs and HIHIs (though
it's no joke, guys).
Lots of firsts for me in this effort: first SS, first attempt at SO2R, first
encounter with aftermaths of a lightning strike.
Saturday morning after a club member pointed out that the 2m vertical above
the
tri-bander is shredded, I also noticed that one leg of a 160m dipole is
missing,
few other quirks hinted we may have taken a hit. The tri-bander tuned and
even the rotator worked -- except for the direction indicator -- so we
decided
to look into it later since we usually have to notify campus police before
climbing the roof or the tower. Hindsight is 20/20 and now the fact is
obvious -- the tri-bander was not alright. On Saturday I did have
intermittent
RF problems that I attributed to everything from bad patch cables to the new
SO2R box, and even wrote off my IC706II as a contest rig. The rig would just
click and reboot right in the middle of sending an exchange! So, frantically
I
tried to troubleshoot, hooked up tuners, swapped in a TS930 (no CW filters),
re-soldered a few SO2R connecting cables putting ferrite beads on them, all
the
while trying to maintain a run frequency. Finally gave up on the 2 rig idea
and
went home to sleep with 441/77 at 0700. The next morning, the tri-bander
showed
high SWR and refused to tune even on the TS940, and I realized it was the
culprit of the RF plague, albeit too late: for the rest of the Sunday I
was stuck with one vertical for 20-15-10, a dipole for 40, and a prospect
of a boring Sunday, which it turned out to be.
Sweep was not a goal, and I didn't even feel up to fighting in the pile-ups
for
the last mults. I finally figured a way to run on 10m and S&P on 15m and made
about 25 second radio QSOs (5% of Sunday's total).
Notes to myself:
- Lightnings are bad.
- SO2R setups are a must on Sunday.
- Run rates go up when football games end (e.g. 2100Z).
- Sending check of 12 is definately worth the trouble.
- QSOs with "real" QRP statons ;-) are a good way to loose a run frequency
in
this contest.
Thanks to everyone for a fun time. I enjoyed it. Lots of great CW ops
to learn from.
Dennis
UA0OFF, KD5KQN
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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