[CQ-Contest] NAQP RTTY

[dennis o'connor <k8do@mailblocks.com>]

Just a couple notes to help out your effort.

1. everyone is low power in this one
2. you don't have to stay up all night, its only 12 hours total
3. you have to take 2 hours off in 1/2 hour or longer periods, plenty of
time to whiz and do anything else necessary.
4. no 160m, so the rustiest of wires isn't needed.
5. if you can't convert that 5 1/4" floppy they will take paper log.


David Robbins K1TTT
*************************************************************

Thanks Dave...
I got around to reading the rules so that was no problem...  Larry did 
assign me to a team, Top Forty's...  I got on promptly at 1800Z and 
worked until 2200Z... Took the xyl to supper and got back on at 2330Z 
and knocked off at 0200Z...  That was the easy part....

The hard part was everything else...  First the keyboard on the old 
DX66 went belly up after the first half hour with some keys 
mechanically freezing up... So I had to whiz back to the office and 
grab a new keyboard off one of the work stations in the spanking new, 
wireless, server/ remote work stations / software package, I just had 
installed... Back at the ranch everything seems reasonable, I'm making 
Q's but WF1B is acting strangely... Sometimes it calls CQ and logs the 
contact just fine... Same key stroke sequence each time...  Next Q it 
starts telling the new contact  "qsl and qrz contest" instead of giving 
 his exchange (for those who put up with me during those moments - no I 
was not drunk, insane, or totally whacked - and thanks for hanging in 
there)... Thinking it's me I'm bent over watching my fingers to be sure 
I am hitting the proper keys.. It takes me most of the contest before I 
realize the new keyboard is truly erratic - jeeezzzzz
(I just checked it here at the office this morning and it is erratic - 
I remember one of my people saying she was having a problem with one of 
the work stations, but I assumed is was just the new software fighting 
her and blew it off - doh!)
So, I have a log full of typos, arbitrary band changes (not real ones), 
and truncated names, and probably brought disgrace to my other team 
members... I will parse the log as best I can and submit, since I made 
a commitment, but if I don't get DQ'd it will be a miracle...

OTOH, I had fun... First contest in years...  First RTTY contest in 
nearly a decade... It was a thrash getting SOMETHING that I could 
actually connect together and run... I went through three computers, an 
extra keyboard (also bad), gave up on a soundcard TU becausee I would 
have had to make three more harnesses for a different radio, 
resurrected a lightning damaged PK-232... Made a new fsk harness for 
the Yaesu's for that, and went through three transceivers before I 
finally ended up with good filters, etc...  Hung a bunch of wires as 
all my beams are DOA after nearly ten years with no maintenance...  
Looking forward to the next rtty run (hopefully with a reliable 
keyboard)...  The good part is that when the keyboard wasn't entering 
the wrong characters (no it was not RF - the kbd is erratic), the 
station actually played well and I had runs going...

Cheers  ...  Denny  - still grinning

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