[3830] CQWW CW VE3GFN SOAB LP

[mgold at interlog.com]

                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: VE3GFN
Operator(s): VE3GFN
Station: VE3GFN

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: TORONTO
Operating Time (hrs): 16.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:   25               
   40:   40               
   20:  119               
   15:  173               
   10:  187               
------------------------------
Total:  544    68       75  Total Score = 385,434

Club: 

Comments:

This was the contest from Hell! The bands were awful on Friday night, and I had
39 contacts in total, for 3.5 hours of work. 

At the 250 QSO mark, I smelled something bad close to the rig, and my power
output was down to almost nil. Must have been a capacitor shorting in the
ALC/power control ciruitry of the TS850, as I could restore full power by fully
advancing my carrier level control, and within an hour, rig operation had
returned to normal. The capacitor short must have dissipated,  and the bad smell
vanished as well. That cost me 2 hours.

1.5 hour before the end of the contest, my logging program refused to send CW.
It turned out to be a corrupted data file in the program (RESTART.BIN), as
removing that file restored normal operation, with my logging info intact, and I
could still avoid dupe contacts. Lost a half hour on that one!

The good news was that my beam rotator, which had been acting up in the week
prior to the test, worked like a trooper all through the contest.

Contesting is stressful enough, without all these mini heart attacks! Haven't
had a contest like that in 25 years! 73 Mike


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/