North American QSO Party, RTTY - February
Call: K3FIV
Operator(s): K3FIV
Station: K3FIV
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 9
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
80: 49 18
40: 133 42
20: 78 31
15: 96 36
10: 25 12
-------------------
Total: 381 139 Total Score = 54,483
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Team:
Comments:
Nice contest! Lots of stations but there always was room somewhere to grab a
frequency. I think I like the NAQP formats - long enough for a serious effort
but short enough to not require a week in rehab afterwards. With (almost!)
everyone at 100W or less, signals were pretty uniform.
As usual, daytime on the high bands is a bit of a challenge for my dipole.
After dark, 40 was great - open from here on the edge of the Pacific all the
way to the East Coast and most places in between. I spent some time on 80, but
kept coming back to 40 as most productive. S&Ping up the band with the
Panadapter on the Flex-3000 was a blast - better rate than running.
Halfway through, I was having trouble making contacts, and one station said
"SRI NO DECODE". Then I noticed I was only transmitting about 6 watts. SWR
had also gone to 2:1. So I went outside to check the antenna - it's been windy
today. Nope, still up there at 35 feet. So I put a dummy load on and tried
again. No change, still doesn't work. I figured the constant RTTY probably
blew an output transistor. I noticed that I could run fine anwhere from 0 to
40 watts, but going above that would drop the power back down to 10 or less.
So, looked like dead radio, end of contest.
Then I brought up the voltage/temperature window and noticed that, when I
transmitted above 40 watts, the voltage dropped from 13 to 5. Not good.
Further investigation... the bad news is that the power supply has died; the
good news is that the radio didn't. It just acts a little weird when you choke
off its oxygen-volts.
Rummaging around in the barn loft turned up another power supply, and a few
minutes of rewiring and it all worked again.
So, back to 40. Lots of fun, even got a CQ answered by a CO2.
73,
/Jack de K3FIV
Rig: Flex-3000
Antenna: 135' Carolina Windom at 35', all bands
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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