NA Sprint RTTY Contest - October
Call: W6YX
Operator(s): N7MH
Station: W6YX
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 3:06
Summary:
Band QSOs Op Time
---------------------
80: 16 0:44
40: 49 1:20
20: 37 1:02
---------------------
Total: 102 Mults = 33 Total Score = 3,366
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Team: NCCC #1
Comments:
I missed the first 50 minutes of this contest, my first RTTY Sprint, because I
wasn't getting any diddles when transmitting. After some futile web searching
to solve this issue I finally called Dean, N6DE, who helped me figure out that
the serial port cabling had been rearranged since CQWW RTTY.
I had hoped to go SO2R but my second radio had a receiver problem so I stuck
with the one radio after finally getting it to transmit more than a solid
tone.
20 and 40 meters were both open well to most of the continent. I missed a few
stations on these bands by being off for most of the first hour.
80 meters was very tough with mostly 6's, 7's and 0's. N2EIK and KE8M both had
nice signals on 80 and N0XR was booming in on all bands. Stations to the east
that I was copying were working others on 80 that I could neither hear nor
print even though I was giving the beverage switch a good workout.
I lost jump balls calling VE2 on 20 and 40 and never got the QC mult. Also
heard W7WHY on 80 but in wrong sequence so no OR mult.
The big surprise was all the Cuban stations - 6 Cuba QSOs from 4 different
callsigns. I don't remember ever working Cuba in CW or SSB sprints.
3 or 4 QSOs were lost because I needed a fill and the station disappeared after
sending the exchange. Several didn't understand the sprint format and continued
running on the same frequency or left an inherited frequency while other
stations and I called. This rarely happens in other sprint modes.
Another club member stopped by the shack and got the second radio working and
was DXing and making a few Q's in the Oceania and SAC contests. As he left, 5
minutes before the end of RTTY sprint, he reflexively turned off the master
power switch in the shack which shut off my computer and radio. By the time
the computer rebooted there was hardly any time left. I discovered that I had
forgotten to save the updated serial port configuration and time ran out as I
tried to get diddling again. I probably didn't lose any Q's, given the rate at
the time, but that's only the second time in my contesting experience that
another operator has turned off the power to my computer and radio.
73,
-Mike, N7MH
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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