[3830] KK7A SS from Oregon (LONG)
Jim - KK7A
kk7a at micron.net
Wed Nov 19 00:18:58 EST 1997
First off, let me thank Joe, NK7U for the use of his superb station
for SS! It was a pleasure to operate from such a well thought out and
equipped station.
Secondly, yes I was in Oregon and I will be going back to Idaho. I
was suprised at the number of times I was asked if I had moved.
I arrived in Baker City about 3.5 hours before the start of the
contest so I could be briefed on station operation. The layout of the
station had changed quite a bit from my previous trips. Joe has
installed a great operating console for two station positions with
access to the back. You'll all have to see it to appreciate it. Joe
and Robby were there the night before I arrived until 1:30 (local
time) getting everything working.
As Scott K7ZO said to me a couple of times, "You will probably be
fixing things until the start of the contest." Well, he was right.
TR was installed and talking to both radios so I could do the two
radio thing that everyone has been talking about. The DVP was tested
and seemed to be working okay. Okay that is until I turned on the
amp. Appears that there is some RF getting back into the audio. Just
keying the mic caused 1500 watts of white noise to appear on 15
meters! Crud! Oh well, we can figure out this one before the start
of the test. Tried different cables for the mic and DVP, different
mics, etc. Even moved the computer from 2 inches beneath the amp to
down on the floor. Nothing seemed to help and there was only 5
minutes before the start of the contest. Again, oh well, I'm young
(after all, I just turned 40) and I'll just pretend there isn't such a
thing as DVP and do the entire contest "live." Joe was very
apologetic about the DVP being unusable. It turned out that this was
the only thing that did not work after an entire internal station
rebuild. You guys did a great job!
15 meters was the band of choice to start on and I was feeling pretty
pumped after the first 3 hours. Hour 1 netted me 156 Qs, followed by
145 and 110. This sure beat anything I had every experienced in SS
from home! I moved to 20 during the 2nd hour and found that it was
extremely hard to find a place to camp. The band was packed with CQ
SS all the way up to 14.350! S&Ped for a few Qs while searching for
that magical CQ frequency. During the 3rd hour Ken, operating from
VY1JA called me. One tough one down!
Even though I had 422 Qs on 40 meters, these did not come as easy as I
had expected. 3.5 over 4 should have been a real killer! It wasn't
until about half way through the contest that I discovered received
signals were much better if I just used the single lower antenna
instead of the stack. From that point on, I started paying more
attention to what I was hearing better on for each band and found it
does make a big difference. One big learning experience for me! The
20 meter stack was not as noticeably different (single antenna
vs. stack) except for a few signals on the band.
I went to bed at 01:00 Baker time, 12 hours into the test. It was
then I realized that I didn't bring an alarm clock and was a bit
concerned about waking up in time in the morning. I rolled the
sleeping bag out on the floor and closed my eyes and was promptly made
aware of why an alarm clock isn't necessary while operating at NK7U.
The sound of 50 mph freight trains 300 feet from the shack woke me up
about every 30 to 45 minutes. About 4 hours of this and I decided to
get up and get the day started. My sleep break was 4.5 hours which
meant I was going to have to take another 1.5 hours off between now
and the end of the contest. I should have stayed off the full 6 and
finish it at 0300z like most everyone else. On Sunday mornings it is
always kind of hard to get the rate up to a good level.
The slowness of the morning gave me a good chance to play with the
"two radio thing". Well, with no DVP it is quite interesting. Have
you ever tried to copy a callsign while talking, listening to your own
voice in the left headphone and to another radio in the right one? It
wasn't easy for this guy. I think if the DVP had of been CQing for
me, it could have worked very well. Something to try again in the
future. Any ideas on how one could practice this during non contest
times?
Sunday morning brought a familiar sound to me. S5 to S7 powerline
noise, just like at home in Boise! It was a bit difficult at times to
pull out the weak ones but did okay except for a half dozen or so.
Later on in the day the noise quieted down to about S3.
The highlight of the day came with 4.5 hours to go. I worked the new
NL section for my 2nd ever clean sweep! The first one was back in 91.
Guess I'll send in my $10 for the mug!
One thing I need to work on is being a little more persistent about my
CQing on Sunday when things get a bit slow. There were several times
when things just were not happening and I would move to another
frequency or band only to find it slow there as well, or having
difficulty finding a clear frequency. I learned from experience and
just stayed put when the going got slow and it paid off. 2 minutes of
no calls, followed by 2 minutes with 5 or 6 calls. Then back into the
doldrums again. This is where the 2 radio technique would really pay
off.
I didn't take any breaks and ended up ending the contest at 01:30 zulu
which was okay anyway, since I had a 2 hour drive back home to Boise.
All in all, I had a great time. Much was learned about the station
along with operating technique changes I need to make. B class is a
totally different ball game. The best of the best, both hardware and
operators compete here and they are good! This weekend has given me a
new respect for the "big guns!"
73, Jim - KK7A (Back in Idaho)
-------------------
Callsign Used : KK7A
Operator : KK7A
Category : Single Op - High Power
Hours of Operation : 24
BAND Raw QSOs Valid QSOs Points Mults
__________________________________________________
160SSB 2 2 4 0
80SSB 129 129 258 7
40SSB 422 422 840 14
20SSB 553 553 1104 19
15SSB 516 516 1030 39
__________________________________________________
Totals 1622 1622 3236 79 (Sweep!!!)
Final Score = 255,644 points.
-------------------
SS Phone - KK7A
HOUR 160SSB 80SSB 40SSB 20SSB 15SSB TOTAL ACCUM
---- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ----- -----
21 0 0 0 0 156 156 156
22 0 0 0 57 88 145 301
23 0 0 0 110 0 110 411
0 0 0 91 1 0 92 503
1 0 0 9 74 0 83 586
2 0 0 51 14 0 65 651
3 0 56 18 0 0 74 725
4 2 8 47 0 0 57 782
5 0 0 69 0 0 69 851
6 0 32 15 0 0 47 898
7 0 19 28 0 0 47 945
8 0 14 31 0 0 45 990
9 0 0 0 0 0 0 990
10 0 0 0 0 0 0 990
11 0 0 0 0 0 0 990
12 0 0 0 0 0 0 990
13 0 0 5 3 0 8 998
14 0 0 4 20 0 24 1022
15 0 0 0 52 0 52 1074
16 0 0 0 32 17 49 1123
17 0 0 0 0 68 68 1191
18 0 0 0 6 58 64 1255
19 0 0 0 41 10 51 1306
20 0 0 0 4 71 75 1381
21 0 0 0 48 2 50 1431
22 0 0 3 0 46 49 1480
23 0 0 0 70 0 70 1550
0 0 0 16 21 0 37 1587
1 0 0 35 0 0 35 1622
TOTAL 2 129 422 553 516
---------------------------------------------
Jim Larson - KK7A - <><
Boise, Idaho
http://netnow.micron.net/~kk7a/
---------------------------------------------
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