North American QSO Party, SSB
Call: K4RO
Operator(s): K4RO
Station: K4RO
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: TN
Operating Time (hrs): 9:45
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 136 33
80: 313 50
40: 183 40
20: 84 26
15: 71 12
10: 9 2
-------------------
Total: 796 163 Total Score = 129,748
Club: Tennessee Contest Group
Team: TCG-Cold Sweat
Comments:
This was my first single op phone effort in three years.
I think I'm a little rusty at SSB single op. Neither the
station nor the operator are optimized for phone.
I found out AFTER the contest that I could have had another
6-12 dB of mic gain, if I'd paid more attention to all of the
gain stages. I'm still figuring out the nuances of soundcard
SSB interfacing. K3NA's articles in the NCJ were very helpful,
but I still managed to miss one trim pot that needed tweaking.
I need to fix the antenna tuner on the IC-765 so that I can
get more than 40 watts out on phone with my CW-tuned antennas.
Any pointers to tuner repair for the IC-765 would be gratefully
accepted.
N1MM Logger worked very well. I didn't have a single computer
crash the entire contest. I finally figured out what the Backslash
and the Pause key do, about six hours into the contest! I didn't
use those keys at all on RTTY, and didn't even know they were available.
(I was just using the mouse on RTTY.) Those keys are essential for SSB
SO2R operation (and probably CW too, but I use TR-Log on CW.)
I decided to go ahead and use my real name, although I had to
repeat it a gazillion times as usual. I was surprised how many
folks called me "BOB." Careful using those databases folks!
Perhaps over the next few NAQP phone contests, I'll populate
all those databases with my real name, and it will decrease
the amount of repeats. Or maybe I'll just start using
"Rumplestiltskin" again. :-)
I fell flat on my face on 20 meters through serious time mis-
management. I also managed to cheat myself out of some operating
time through just not paying attention. After full-blown efforts
in the RTTY Roundup and NAQP CW, my intensity wasn't really present
this weekend. I just played friendly, and said hello to a lot of
folks whose voices I haven't heard in years. I didn't push the
second radio hard at all.
The highlight was moving KO7X successfully all the way to Ten
Meters, my only out-of-state QSO. Decent signal too! Great to
work several Nashville-area hams on six bands, some of whom are
fairly new to contesting.
The extra room on 75 meters was really great. It seemed everyone
still tried to pile in just above 3800. The only frequency fight
I had was with another contester at 3843. You know, the old "I'll
just park here 1kc away until you move" kind of LID. I moved to
36xx, and the last ten rate meter went from 100 to 200 for quite
a long while. Lots of room to breathe down there, and plenty of
stations to work.
Good to bump into KU8E for a nice ragchew after the contest was over.
Congratulations to the K4JNY crew for a fine showing on
their first NAQP multi-op effort, and to N4ZZ who will
surely have the highest Tennessee score.
Thanks for the QSOs, and see you next time.
73
-Kirk K4RO
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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