North American QSO Party, RTTY - July
Call: KD5DD
Operator(s): NN5O
Station: KD5DD
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: Tupelo, MS
Operating Time (hrs): 9:16
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
80: 74 28
40: 238 39
20: 217 44
15: 47 22
10: 0 0
-------------------
Total: 576 133 Total Score = 76,608
Club: Deep Dixie Contest Club
Team: Deep Dixie CC Team Magnolia
Comments:
Well, THAT was different!!
Several times, the virtual wheels came off of this wagon. Yet, I was determined
to 'persist until I succeed.' The infamous 'Murphy' was trying to interrupt
what I *thought* was going to be a really good effort, but Murphy's lure could
not distract me from working to overcome him.
First obstacle: I came out of the gate immediately when the opening bell rang.
20 was the band I picked to begin on, then somewhere along in hour #2, I decided
to jump to 15 to get some multipliers. I did so, then something seemed weird.
I heard loud stations I had worked on 20, but they were grayed out and showing
as dupes. Huh? I guess I didn't read the rules closely enough. Did this mean
that we really weren't going to get credit for working those same stations on
multiple bands? Hmmm. What was I to do?
First of all, I opened the rules page and began looking at information on
exchanges and multipliers. Nope -- not a peep about getting credit only once
for working each station. I began scratching my head -- THEN, I SPOTTED THE BIG
PROBLEM! You've got to be kidding me!
100% of the 144 stations I had worked (on both 20 and 15)so far were showing
in the log window as having come from FORTY meters. Huh? I opened my bandmap
window in N1MM+ to see what frequency was showing. Surely enough, it showed
7.08627!!!! What the ....??
This meant that I had to jump out of the contest to fix this mess so I could
continue. Another option was to drop out completely and not submit a log. But,
I kept thinking about the stations who I had worked and how their contest logs
would not show the QSO we had. That was not fair -- and I was not ready to give
up. Besides, I thought I could hear 'Murphy' chuckling over there. So, what
was I to do?
I began by editing each QSO to show a 'corrected' frequency. I knew the
EXACT freq would be wrong, but at least, I could enter the band I was on. For
the 15 meter QSOs, I entered 21.084 and for the 20 meter Qs, I entered 14.084.
After 10-15 Qs, I thought there just must be a better way. So...
I was chatting (via Facebook Messenger) occasionally with a fellow member of
our Deep Dixie Contest Club, Ron Koenig WV4P (Ron and his wife, Trina, were
doing the M/2 operation from their contest station, NJ4P, in Savannah, TN),
because we both were watching the contestonlinescore.com site to monitor how our
two DDCC team members were doing. Ron noticed that my numbers quit updating, so
he asked me 'what was up?' When I told him, he said, Export ADIF 'Change All'
.... Make new log, Import fixed ADIF. Shoot! Why hadn't I thought of that? I
guess I was too distracted by Murphy, plus I kept wondering where that anomaly
had been caused by N1MM, the Flex radio (6600M), or something else. Regardless,
it all had to be fixed if I were to move forward.
So, that process of 'repairing' the log, followed by troubleshooting the
culprit, took about one hour. No problem, because I knew I had a couple of
hours of break in the contest--and this 'break' would just be one of them.
Mind you, although I have taught technology classes at the university for
several years during my past, I remain a dedicated Mac user. But, here I sat,
beckoning to Notepad so I could make those search/replace functions work
properly. Then, it became a very slight problem to import the 'fixed' file into
a new N1MM log, because Notepad doesn't export files as ADIF. Not to be
conquered, I made it work.
Then came the process of examining the log in the new file, making sure that
the 'rescore' procedure gave me desirable results and the Qs in the new log
appeared to be somewhat accurate. I was not POSITIVE that I had determined
exactly which QSO was the first one I made when I switched from 20 to 15,
originally, but based upon times between Qs and my feeble memory, I think I got
it right. If not, the log checker at NCJ simply won't give me credit for those
Qs. This meant that, when I got back to operating, it just HAD to be 'pedal to
the metal' to try to make up for any issues. But, wait...
Although it seemed that I was ready to go, the frequency showing in the
bandmap (which I still needed to close, since we're unassisted) showed the wrong
band than my radio was actually tuned to. Huh? What did I do?
I had to quit N1MM and reboot the computer, plus shut down and restart the
Flex. Magically, when I got started, afresh, things seemed to be working
desirably.
Whew! Glad I got all that fixed!
2) Hold off there, Old Viceroy! Stuff ain't 'fixed,' after all. I learned
that, each time I changed bands, the freq of the radio was not the same as the
freq entered into the log. What the...?? The 'solution' was to quit N1MM and
restart. Yep, that seemed to do it. I'm so glad I checked after the first QSO
I made on a new band, because that meant that I would have only one QSO to edit
in the log before moving forward.
3) What's that noise? Oh, that's THUNDER! I knew that my NOAA radio indicated
that rain and thunderstorms were forecast for Saturday afternoon and evening,
but WHY??? I had a contest to work, so 'rain, rain go away and come again some
OTHER day,' please. Please?? Well, I don't enjoy lightning when I'm operating,
so I opened a new browser window and check the 'lightningmaps.org' web site and
zoomed in to see my locale. Yeah, a few strikes were popping, but nothing so
close that it seemed problematic. I knew then that 80 meters was gonna be loud
with QRN.
4) My wife has been ill for a while and so I had to be very alert to any text
message she would send that she needs help. No need to explain her issue, but
there are many things that she just cannot do, so I believe strongly in
priorities. Family definitely comes 2nd in my life (God first; family second;
career and hobbies third), and Kathy knows that. She had to call on my help
only 4-5 times, and I was delighted that I could help her. I had explained
that, if I don't come immediately, it's because I'm calling 'CQ' and might have
several responders on the line...but, I'll drop everything if she gives me that
secret word in the text. Then, I'll dash to help her. (Radio stuff is in a
corner of our garage, so it takes a bit to get back inside the house. But,
that's something we just deal with.]
OK, overall, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I was able to spend on the
air, connecting with so many good friends I've made during my 50-year radio
escapades. Occasionally, I couldn't resist hitting the CTRL-K switch and typing
a word or two to my buddies. That was more important to me than absolute
contesting.
I did operate as KD5DD (our club call sign for the Deep Dixie Contest Club), so
some folks I QSOed wouldn't know that the operator was 'Lackluster Larry,' so I
had to just shoot out a virtual tip of the hat to 3-4 folks.
Here's hoping that everybody enjoyed this RTTY exercise and will be back for the
CW throw-down. I don't do SSB (my mic is still in the cardboard box from when I
bought this Flex around 3 years ago), and besides, the NAQP SSB conflicts with
the Huntsville (AL) Hamfest weekend. C'est la vie.
***I realize, fully, that NOBODY is still reading this long monologue, but I'll
just spew out a 'Happy Day' in case somebody happens to stumble across this
drivel.****
Visit our Deep Dixie Contest Club web site -- http://deepdixiecc.org
And, our YouTube channel -- http://tinyurl.com/DDCCYouTube -- some good stuff
there!
73 all,
--Dr. Larry S. Anderson, NN5O (ex-WB5EIN)
Tupelo, MS (birthplace of Elvis)
Flex 6600M - 100w into horizontal loop up 35 ft (average)
Ameritron AL-800H used very seldom
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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