CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY - 2023
Call: NP3Y
Operator(s): NP3Y
Station: WP3C
Class: SO(A)AB LP
QTH: PR
Operating Time (hrs): 16
OpMode: 2BSIQ
Summary:
Band QSOs State/Prov DX Zones
------------------------------------
80: 43 19 13 8
40: 247 40 53 19
20: 361 47 64 20
15: 187 48 60 22
10: 480 50 59 20
------------------------------------
Total: 1318 204 249 89 Total Score = 1,792,394
Club:
Comments:
I had big plans for this contest. I prepared and had great sleep before the
contest and was rocking and rolling when the contest started. I prepped twice
with NAQP RTTY in my 2B SIQ skills and SO2R. It was even better because I was
not remote and in person this time. I decided to take a risk and start on 10 and
15M, which paid off. I started the first four hours of the contest with 108, 96,
111, 69, and 95, so just under 500 contacts in the first five hours LP. It
continued during the early morning hours and even had a good run of 78 from
3-4AM. All things were going as planned until a sudden error message on the Flex
Radio at around 445AM. The error message read as "An Error has occurred -
Operating Temperature Exceeded, Reboot Required", let's just say the reboot
did not work and the 6600 radio was out of commission. The radio was not hot to
the touch either, which had me perplexed. I moved the antennas to the 6400, but
the limitations of being the 6400 was evident. Instead of sleeping from 5-6/7AM,
I tried getting the other radio back up in replace of sleep. I was unsuccessful
for 3 hours, I decided at 8AM I needed to sleep. I powered everything down in
hope both radios would be back up and running later. The sleep was not great as
I was thinking about it too much. I woke up at 10AM, tried again and was
unsuccessful. I posted on the FLEX community and Al submitted a help ticket on
my behalf. I was really down and kind of lost motivation with only one radio
operating. It is just not the same as doing two radios at once. Just looking at
one screen, for me, was a little too slow and boring, especially when it comes
to working 2 radios with the productivity and efficiency. From about 10AM on, I
decided to operate the 2nd radio and try to fix the other radio at the same
time. It was a different kind of "fun" between trying many different
things for the 6600 and while going back and working stations on the other
radio. Nonetheless, by 4PM I was unsuccessful in getting the 2nd radio back up
and decided I was going to leave the shack and return home that night. I
departed the shack around 7PM tired and mentally exhausted.
It is a shame, the band conditions were absolutely amazing and wonderful for the
first 24 hours it seemed. I truly feel the SOAB(A) record was in play if I had
the 2nd radio up and running for the whole contest. I was 2B SIQ for the first 8
hours of the contest, and then the next 16 hours was "2R1W" (2 Radios,
1 Working). It is a shame the situation with Flex Radio in the past few weeks
and difficult year for us between having and requiring a new SD card in the
middle of a contest, to having to send the radio for repair work earlier in the
year, this error message which could not be resolved, and the Flex Smart SDR
Remote problems, we are all wondering if Flex will be in our future. The reason
I operated in person was to avoid some of these recent malfunctions, but still
no luck.
Let's see what we get back from Flex radio with our ticket. The station was
already without the GXP Antenna, so the contest year was already very bleak, but
more so now.
It seems the contest had great participation that yielded very nice runs and
DXCC. Special thanks for those rare DX stations for getting on the air in RTTY
and making this contest even more fun VK9LAA, 4U1UN, ZL7IO, 6W, etc.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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