ARRL 160-Meter Contest
Call: N4GG
Operator(s): N4GG
Station: N4GG
Class: M/S LP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 7:14
Summary:
Total: QSOs = 446 Sections = 70 Countries = 4 Total Score = 66,896
Club: South East Contest Club
Comments:
Not the normal station....mostly a test run for the rig(s) (K3's) and
computer network for an upcoming expedition. Everything played fine; the
network ran 48 hours straight on packet+skimmer without a glitch. The
neighbor next door just bought a new TV. Oh joy! Testing before the
contest, at 1KW I turn their new TV off and on. Very NG at 3AM and no time
to carry a pound of ferrite next door. So I ran it all LP. Life is too
short for LP on 160.
Bands sounded noisy here both nights although worse the first night. Missed
a lot of CA mults despite usually being able to work everything on the band.
This is my first skimmer+RBN experience on 160. You see everything on the
band and one thing I noticed is a lot of West Coast and East Coast stns on
the same QRG. Skimmer can really suck you into dupes via busted spotting.
I watched my own spots - the skimmers out there seem to like "N4GG." There
are some otherwise nice calls that are now problematic due to consistent
busted skimmer spots. Never thought we would be picking callsigns based on
what machines can copy. This is progress?
That's probably it for this year, although maybe a little action in the 10M
contest. QSY to XMAS then to the FL QTH for a few months. TNX for the Qs.
2012 was a good contest year. Nobody sick, nothing blew up or fell down and
the FTdx5000 was a nice addition to the shack.
This outing: K3 loaner (TNX N4HH), "The too tall too short vertical" wire in
the woods on TX, K9AY on RX, WRITELOG. The usual dual rig diversity and
other low band goodies here were all turned off. Even at 100W I felt like
an alligator - the TX antenna really works well, the RX goodies were sorely
missed.
73,
N4GG
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