CQ WW RTTY WPX Contest
Call: AD7JP
Operator(s): K2PO
Station: K2PO
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: Oregon
Operating Time (hrs): 30
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
80: 99
40: 290
20: 525
15: 511
10: 219
------------
Total: 1644 Prefixes = 3690 Total Score = 616
Club: Willamette Valley DX Club
Comments:
The contest got off to a frustrating start. I left work on Friday afternoon
later than I should have, and found: the FSK interface cable I'd ordered on
EBay for the new radio had the wrong connector, both SO2R decoders would decode
only the right radio, and I couldn't get the left radio to diddle. All turned
out to be operator error (naturally...) but it made for an aggravating first 6
hours. At that point I was more than 100 QSOs behind last year.
It got better, and I ended up beating last year's score by 15+%.
I expect propagation gets the credit. Only 58% of my contacts this year were
North Americans, vs. 64% last year; I made 219 contacts on 10m, vs 110 last
year, etc.
For the first time, I set up multiple decode windows, and tried 2Tone. The
MMTTY-2Tone combination is a small improvement, but over the course of the
weekend it is well worth the effort.
Now that skimmer-like software is spreading for RTTY, I wonder if the contest
sponsors should consider a non-assisted class, for the "boy and his radio"
crowd of operators.
Even after fixing my initial snafus, I was bothered by a couple other gotchas
during the weekend. The 2Tone decode window for the right radio insisted on
color-coding the decoded callsigns (i.e., worked, fresh, new-multiplier) based
on the band to which the left radio was tuned. And on a dozen random
occasions, N1MM transmitted 0 as my serial number (although the correct number
was displayed in the screen interface). Never a dull moment...
Thanks to all the ops who got one to hand out a few dozen QSOs, and to the
contest support staff for all their upcoming work.
73,
/Bill, K2PO
Oregon
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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