REMOTE SITE Sprint - K7SS

[Danny Eskenazi]

        What an adventure....like jumping into the fast lane on the freeway
with a pedal car.
I could think of no better test, than the CW sprint, to try out the remote
system in a contest.

REMOTE HF STATION at K7XX summer home on Vashon Island, TS 850s, ALPHA 87A, and
HF2V GP on the beach in front of his home.  Computer, and interface box, and
voice/data modem.

MY QTH at K7SS, laptop and voice/data modem, and speaker phone on the
kitchen table. Hand logging on paper.

Software by KG7GA with a graphic W95  "radio" front.  Hardware by N0AX (who
has to suffer thru the local QRM from the box he built...sorry OM)  Station
by K7XX.

2358 take a minute to wipe the keyboard for clean surface keys.     program
crashes.. reboot
takes 3 minutes....0003 first QSO with neighbor N0AX, also on the island.
luckily the ALpha stays warmed up thru the crash, and doesnt require "the
longest three minutes in radio"

Cant run with a GP antenna....even with KW and salt water, so have to find
em,  A little different
using a mouse to tune in 40 wpm thrill-seekers.  

Rate stinks, so settle into a 45/hr rate for the first hour. W1-3 very
wattery and answering the 5s and 8s and 0s and even 6s, who get them on the
first try. 

Got to try 40, at least I'll be on an even footing with half the guys, the
half that dont have yagis.
Rate immediately improves.

Very hard getting used to the sidetone that they call on...no RIT on the
program yet, and cant
use the split VFOs when you have to QSY after each Q.  Audio is coming out
of a speakerphone
on the table. very high pitched.  

Suddenly in the middle of a Q, the audio quits....just plain
disappears....and just as mysteriously
reappears.!  two Qs later the same thing...just dead silence for about 3 or
4 seconds...very 
spooky....you have to really depend on a whole string of things going
right..from the keyboard,
thru the program, thru the modem, on the phone line, thru the other modem,
into the computer, off the the radio which is amped by the ALpha, and all
running thru the coax to the beach vertical.

Other than those two brief scares, the system worked flawlessly.  There are
improvements
coming down the line, the RIT, a set of headphones, a paddle , etc, which
will make the experience
even closer to the "real" thing,

Hit 40 pretty hard and it was the money band. Usually leave 80 for the last
half hour, but thought the KW might allow more run time than 30 mins. Yep,
the band was fast and furious for a full
50 minutes, with east coast calling in on CQs.

Ended with 232 by 43, which is very close to what I have done barefoot from
home with a 
TH7/G5RV at 100watts.  KW at home could have yielded another 50Qs. I expect a 
20 meter yagi at the beach would have added another 40 or so on 20.  

So the experiment showed that the remote is a viable contest tool. Not as
fast as the real deal at home, but not that far behind, especially for the
first time out. The breakdown could have been
total disaster, but wasnt. At home one can adapt, remotely one cannot. This
was 4 hours, and 
I would guess the reliability over a 48 hour test would be questionable
(just a guess)

Finally, I must profusely apologize to all those who had to endure a
misplaced letter or number from my typing. Add proficiency in typing and the
system plays even better. 

This was a great trial run for the system. 

73

de Danny K7SS
---------------------------
Danny Eskenazi
k7ss at wolfenet.com
---------------------------


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