ARRL RTTY Roundup - 2020
Call: WD6T
Operator(s): WD6T
Station: NW6P
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band RTTY Qs Dig Qs
-----------------------
80: 206 0
40: 496 0
20: 783 0
15: 168 0
10:
-----------------------
Total: 1653 0 State/Prov = 55 Countries = 47 Total Score = 168,606
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
This year, I had an opportunity to do RTTY RU from Tom NW6P's impressive
station, which benefits from farorable topography and Bill W9KKN's engineering.
The Flex 6600M was not available, so we set up an ad hoc SO2R arrangement with
Tom's K3 and Alpha amp, my IC-7610, Bill's RF Kit amp and a P3 on loan from
N6RO. A few audio adapters allowed me to put each radio in a separate ear.
My goal was to beat my score from last year (where we had two simultaneous
operations from W6YX); I also hoped to beat the NW6P score from last year. I
accomplished both. I was on two bands for most of the contest. I operated
"assisted," but RTTY skimmer spots are nowhere near as thorough as CW
spots, so it felt like a hybird between "Search" and
"Click." I decided not do any FT modes because of mysterious serial
port configuration issues that occurred every time the digital window would
re-open. I planned to take one break, but woke up prematurely so operated for
an hour at 1130z, then went back for a bit more sleep. Just before sunrise,
while pointed towards JAs on 40m, I was thrilled to have a few British Isles and
EU stations coming back to me, via a skewed path that seemed to follow the
darkness terminator.
Moreover, this was followed by a decent 20m EU opening. All in all, the bands
were okay, except for 15m, which was only so-so the first day, and abysmal the
second day, with occasional spotlight propagation.
One oddity: occasionally, at the end of a transmit cycle, 2tone would spew huge
amounts of text garbage into its window, with the PTT held until it was done.
This introduced a delay of three or four seconds. This seemed like an eternity
to me, and probably even longer to the stations on the other end. I was tempted
to close 2tone, but it helped to find correct decodes.
Many thanks to Bill and Tom, for expertise and hospitality, and also to Bill and
Dean ND6E for strategy advice.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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