ARRL DX Contest, SSB
Call: N4TZ/9
Operator(s): N4TZ/9
Station: N4TZ/9
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: IN
Operating Time (hrs): 36+/-
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 24 19
80: 81 49
40: 103 58
20: 265 85
15: 258 81
10: 106 38
-------------------
Total: 837 330 Total Score = 825,660
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
I'm sure many of you have some boyhood camping experiences.
Some fortunate kids went to summer long camps where they
lived in cabins, had luxurious recreational facilities, and
had real bathrooms. This is the Multi-multi experience.
Others went to Boy Scout camp for a week. Here they lived
in roomy tents pitched by the camp staff, ate in a covered
dining hall and had two-holer privies. This is the Multi-
single experience. Some strapped everyting on their back
and treked into the wilderness. These hardy souls had to
pitch camp every night, carry water from a creek, and
relieve themselves near a fallen tree. This is obviously
the DXpeditioner.
However, some of us were not so fortunate as to be able to
avail ourselves of any of the aforementioned opportunities.
We pitched a surplus pup tent in the back yard and imagined
how the other guys did it. Of course, we couldn't leave the
tent up all summer long because we used the yard for other
purposes as well as having to mow the grass or weeds from
time to time. This is like the experience of the typical
low power contest operator.
Because I only operate during contests, I generally only find
problems during the contest. Boy, did I find a lot of them
this weekend! To start with, the wind was really blowing
most of the week prior to the contest. The 10/15 yagi at
75' had blown to due north. I kept hoping for the winds
to die down, but they kept getting stronger. By Friday,
one of the ring rotors had shifted 30 degrees, which had
never happened before. About one hour before the start of
the contest the winds moderated and I scampered up the tower
to repoint the 10/15 on Europe and check the ring rotor on
the other antenna. Nothing visibly wrong and it still
rotated so slid back down and gobbled supper.
Because my ancient 486 DOS based PC's hard drive is nearly
full, I didn't create a new directory for this contest
as I always have in the past. So, I lost the log for
my 160CQ SSB test. Oops! I had made a few Qs then to
check out the mic wiring from the SO2R box to the new
Orion. Unfortunately, I had failed to check out the
rerouted wiring to the OMNI VI. This develed me all
weekend. Because all previous TenTec radios had wimpy
audio processors, I had used an outboard TenTec RF processor
with great success. When I had used two OMNI VI+s,
I connected the processor between the DVK and the SO2R
box. But with the Orion's great processing, I moved
the box to the other side of the desk to just drive the
OMNI VI+. When I tested this out everything worked fine.
But, in the two radio mode, when the Orion was the "run"
radio, I would notice that the OMNI VI would key itself
every few seconds, which caused the receive audio to
be shut off. The only solution that occured to me
in the heat of battle was to turn of the speech processor
every time I switched rigs back and forth. Needless to
say, about half the time I would forget to turn the
processor back on and wonder why it was even harder than
normal to get through the pileups.
Meanwhile, I was suffering some challenges with the
Orion. For some reason, every time I typed a frequency
into the keyboard, TRLog would send the Orion to the
correct frequency but also open the receive filter
to 3000 Hz. So I would have to grab a knob and reset
things. In all the confusion I may have messed things
up because as the weekend wore on, the receive audio
would get worse and worse until I would have to recycle
the power. Then the receiver would spring back to life
and work fine for a while. With all the SO2R distractions
I still don't know what I did wrong. But just like the
pup tent being packed back up until the next sunny weekend
so that the leaks in the tent are hard to find, it may
take another lost contest or two to find what went wrong
here.
Sunday morning the normally loud signals from the south
on 10m were whisper quiet on the OMNI VI. After a while
I heard a station I needed but on transmitting I found
out why the signals were so weak - the SWR was showing
no antenna connection. So, out the door I head with
my MFJ to troubleshoot the problem. The SWR on the
10m feedline from the tower box was good, so I reseated
the coax connectors and jiggled all of the relay box
wires and ran back inside. Band noise was back!
Shortly thereafter the high point of my weekend occurred
when I worked A45WD. He peaked out of the noise for
about 60 seconds. I also heard 9A7A peak at S4 but
no luck as the EU beacons generally have to be S9 before
I can work them.
I worked 18 stations on six bands, and 5 more were
missing only on 10m. I was never able to find a hole to
CQ (except on 10m where I got no takers) so this was
100% S&P. Like many I certainly enjoyed the fine 160m
conditions. I wonder how many more I could have worked
if I had some beverages? My score on 160 through 15 was
very similar to last year's so the dropoff in 10m was
very notable. It's harder to find a place to CQ on 15 or
20 when the big boys aren't up on 10. I think 1k S&P
S&P QSOs in a weekend is my limit, SSB or CW, domestic
or DX. But there are still 48 hours to have fun. Meanwhile,
the camping gear goes back into the closet.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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