Hello fellow contesters. I have read many messages concerning receivers,
antennas, linear amplifiers, etc. that are used to generate your contest
score.
The one thing that I notice is that there complaints such as "I ran out of
RAM"
etc. No one is addressing the problem of the Contest Computer.
It is obvious that there are many contesters who have only one computer.
The
one computer may have to do many duties such as : 1: be the Contest Computer,
2: be the family computer, 3: be the business computer, etc. The
possibilities
are endless. What I am about to describe is a method to turn your single
computer into any number of computers that you want to have. Those of you
who work for the government and do classified work on a computer know about
what I am about to describe: That is a device that makes your hard drive
removable
from the front of the computer, i.e. you don't have to tear the computer
apart to
remove the drive. Each different hard drive that you have can give your
computer
a unique personalty, i.e.
1. The Contest Drive. A DOS only drive with a carefully configured
CONFIG.SYS
and AUTOEXEC.BAT coupled with a screaming memory manager and your
favorite contest logging software.
2. The Family Drive which probably has Windows and the games for the kids
and Mom's word processor and again a screaming memory manager.
3. I call this the Test Drive. As Frank, W3LPL, commented to me on one
occasion
"I tested it on my test computer". Well with a Test Drive you can join the
elite
group of individuals who have a test computer to try out new software or new
operating systems without trashing the many hours you invested in getting the
family drive to work without crashing.
OK enough said, here is what it is: It is a bracket that fits into a bay
that is the
size of a 5.25" floppy drive. The unit has a "Cartridge" that holds the hard
drive
and the cartridge plugs into the bracket and has mating connectors. What you
need to buy is the bracket which comes with one cartridge. Additional
cartridges
are available and you need a cartridge for each hard drive.
OK Here is the cheapest place to buy this stuff: Dirt Cheap Drives,
phone 800-786-1170. The product is described in their add as Removable Drive
Brackets. Price is $79 for IDE drives. Higher price for SCSI drives. The
additional
"Cartridges" for IDE drives are $39.
The product is a DATA PORT-V and is imported by JNL Computer Products. I
have installed this product in 3 computers and it works. The "Bracket" has a
cooling fan built into it and that can only help extending the life of your
computer.
I mentioned the "screaming memory manager". I use Netroom3. I have used
QEMM in the past but it can't even approach the performance of Netroom3. I am
using Netroom3 on 3 computers including the W3MM PacketCluster Node. I
use CT as my contest logging program. Here is what I see with CT:
1. P5 Pentium with 32 meg of RAM: CT says room for 185000 more qso
2. 486-66VESA with 16 meg RAM: CT says room for 85000 more qso
3. 486-66VESA with 8 meg RAM: CT says room for 30000 more qso
Netroom3 is available from Helix software, Phone 800-451-0551
price is $100 plus shipping.
One more comment on Netroom3. I recomended this product to my good friend
Ron, W3HXO and he bought it. Now to quote Frank, W3LPL, "Ron is the
Engineer's
engineer." Well Ron does not buy anything that does not have a money back
guarantee. Ron flogged, tweaked, tinkered, and in general beat Netroom3
to death. He did not take it back--he said this is a keeper.
OK Here is some more info. In the past 4 weeks hard drive prices have dived
significantly. Also in the past two weeks RAM prices have taken a nose dive.
W3HXO says that this is probably due to supply equals demand.
Well this has become a lenghty post, but it is not complete. If there is
sufficient
interest I will post on the additional important info for the Contest
Computer.
The posts would be as follows:
1: The hard drive and the system BIOS
2: The Monitor and the Video card. (The part on the video card should be
interesting
to all including PacketCluster sysops)
3: The Keyboard (This will let a cat out of the bag that certain FRC guys
such as
K3WW, K2WK, and K2SG have been using since I put them onto what I consider
a superior keyboard).
Vy 73 de Dave, W3MM w3mm@aol.com
.
>From FQWA39A@prodigy.com ( ANTHONY DEBIASI) Wed Nov 29 06:04:27 1995
From: FQWA39A@prodigy.com ( ANTHONY DEBIASI) ( ANTHONY DEBIASI)
Subject: K2SG S/O LP CQWW CW
Message-ID: <013.05694381.FQWA39A@prodigy.com>
-- [ From: Tony DeBiasi * EMC.Ver #2.10P ] --
No excuses this year! Everything worked flawlessly except the op who
somehow managed to gain 2 pounds over the weekend. I usually eat very
small amounts of food frequently and avoid all junk food. The xyl said
if operate in both the 160 contest this weekend and the 10 contest the
following weekend she is going to send me to Jenny Craig.
K2SG S/O LP
Band Q's Z C
160 14 7 8 Inv Vee 70' (need more property)
80 75 14 45 Inv Vee 70' (need a Vert here)
40 417 29 92 3 el KLM 75'
20 509 28 86 204BA - 85' / 203BA - 75'
15 477 24 81 155CA - 94' / 153CA - 68'
10 19 7 11 105CA - 62'
______________________________________
Totals 1511 109 323 = 1,882,224
Equip: FT1000D and FT890 (thanks Ken for fixing the 890/CT problem)
Seemed like very few SA stations on 10m this year but it made life
easier and able to work harder on 15 and 20. Was not surprised to see
40 open so early in the afternoon but really struggled on 160 and 80.
Signals no different on Beverage than Inv Vee which was unusual.
....Tony K2SG
>From [user unknown]" <cmschonewaldcox@ucdavis.edu Wed Nov 29 06:07:14 1995
From: [user unknown]" <cmschonewaldcox@ucdavis.edu (user unknown)
Subject: /mm
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.951128220521.22832A@chip.ucdavis.edu>
Dear Contesters,
If you worked a /mm (maritime mobile) station on SSB or CW,
could you pass along the CALL and the ZONE that was sent. It will
save the committee time gathering them all together. We need them
for our log checking program.
Thanks in advance
Bob, K3EST
CQ WW Director
Send any mail directly to:
cmschonewaldcox@ucdavis.edu
On another note, if you have not sent in your disk yet, here
is what we want:
If you used CT
Your call.bin example K3EST.bin
Your call.con example K3EST.con
If you used TR
Your call.dat
If you used NA
Your call.QDF
If you used Dbase
Your call.dbf
If you are attributing your score to a club make sure you put
the club on the cover sheet.
If you ran LOW POWER make sure that you say so on the cover
sheet.
If you have already sent in your logs/disks in another way
than above don't worry, we will rename the files correctly for you.
Just make a note for the future that you should name your files
with your call+ extension.
>From mpickard@netcom.com (Mike Pickard) Wed Nov 29 06:06:17 1995
From: mpickard@netcom.com (Mike Pickard) (Mike Pickard)
Subject: CQWW CW Results K7NPN
Message-ID: <199511290606.WAA13295@netcom10.netcom.com>
K7NPN Single Op Assisted Low Power All Band
Hours: 32:10
band QSOs points zones ctys
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
160 4 4 3 3
80 18 35 9 11
40 75 201 24 33
20 156 428 27 49
15 88 221 20 42
10 7 12 4 3
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
TOTAL 348 901 87 141 SCORE: 205,428
Club or Team Name: Western Washington DX Club
Equipment: TS-140, Cushcraft A3S @ 50 ft. Slopers on low bands.
Timewave DSP 9+. Clone running NA Version 9.22
Assisted is the only way to go in Seattle area. We had a ball!
For the most part this represented some of the best operating I
have seen. Just imagine what it must be like at the solar peak!
73 and thanks to all for the fun!
Mike K7NPN mpickard@netcom.com
>From Tony and Celia Becker <becker@shell.portal.com> Wed Nov 29 04:03:34 1995
From: Tony and Celia Becker <becker@shell.portal.com> (Tony and Celia Becker)
Subject: Pileup Manners / greying operators
Message-ID: <199511290702.XAA26245@nova.unix.portal.com>
At 10:10 AM 11/28/95 -0800, Jack Fleming <oolon@eskimo.com> wrote:
>snip<
>KH4/NS6D again sent, "WB8D? WB8D? OK? OK? WB8D ONLY KN". Again
>WB0D tried, but again he was clobbered by (three call signs we have all
worked may times)
>snip<
>This sort of pileup behavior is fine if we're chasing some of the
>heavy hitting expert contesters like ZD8Z or HC8N or TE5T or
>CN2JF(hi). But this guy was an obvious contest novice and was
>sending code at 15wpm!
>
>It's a classic example of why we sometimes have a
>tough time finding new contesters - especially from rare
>locations. This poor guy gets on from Midway to give out a few
>contacts and gets treated like this. It wouldn't surprise me if
>we next hear KH4/NS6D on some DX net and never again giving out
>Midway multipliers in contests.....
I, too, heard KH4/NS6D struggling and felt ashamed of the behavior of the
minority who refused to stand by. Contesting is a _hobby_, and we rely on
the new blood to get addicted before they get discouraged, but contesting is
also a competitive sport, and not all the hot blooded competitors are
farsighted enough in the heat of the battle to back off appropriately for a
newbie. However, for a single transgression they may all be forgiven.
What seems to work even better is the mentoring recently exemplified by
Bruce, AA6KX, during the recent SS contest at VY1JA. I hope the contest
community will acknowledge the service done to our avocation by Bruce and YF
driving from here to the Yukon and back to help Jay improve his ability to
handle the pileups. Hey Bruce, you must have been very proud to have heard
Jay breaking pileups and running them last weekend in the CQWW!
If each of us could undertake to find and develop one new contester each
year the graying and unanswered CQing threads would quickly drop below the
noise!
AE0M, Tony Becker - becker@shell.portal.com - Silicon Valley, U.S.A.
>From Thomas Carlsson <74364.2660@compuserve.com> Wed Nov 29 07:26:56 1995
From: Thomas Carlsson <74364.2660@compuserve.com> (Thomas Carlsson)
Subject: HZ1AB, 7Z1OO Bands
Message-ID: <951129072655_74364.2660_HHG30-1@CompuServe.COM>
Sorry gentlemen, can I blame it on the soon-after-contest-syndrome.
HZ1AB Op SM0CXU SO SB HP 20m Tot 848,426 Pts
7Z0OO Op K3UOC SO AB HP Tot 3,904,810
Thanks to Jim/AD1C and John/ON4UN for reminding me.
However, CORRECTLY listed in "CQWW CW 1995 RAW SCORES" thanks to Jim/WA4ZXA
73 Thomas SM0CXU/AB5CQ
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