[3830] ARRL 160 N5TW M/S HP

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                    ARRL 160-Meter Contest

Call: N5TW
Operator(s): KE5C W5TA N5TW
Station: N5TW

Class: M/S HP
QTH: STX
Operating Time (hrs): 34

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 1008  Sections = 77  Countries = 12  Total Score = 184,230

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Comments:

KE5C and W5TA did most of the operating and we were trying out John's new Ten
Tec Orion which worked great!  We mostly used my 4-square in OMNI-mode and used
the Orion's diversity capability to listen on Beverages in one ear and the
transmit antenna on the other.   This worked really well and the Orion's front
end really changed the way the bands sound for the better - great job, Ten
Tec!
Thanks to those who worked us!

Tom N5TW

Comments from KE5C:

This was the most in charge I have felt operating the N5TW station.  This
was partly because I've operated N5TW enough to know how and when to use the
4-square and the four bi-directional beverages which give eight choices of
directional gain.  However, using my own radio, a new Orion, also helped me
feel comfortable even though I am still learning the Orion, and the N5TW
station offered a whole new set of conditions and challenges.

The diversity reception is hard to describe to someone who hasn't
experienced it.  With the beverage control box on the main receiver most of
the time, and the 4-square control box on the sub-receiver most of the time,
the diversity feature adds an extra "virtual filter" that is amazing.
Additional, I think the brain sums the main receiver (left earphone) and the
sub-receiver (right earphone) in a way that would be hard to do electrically
(digitally).  When a station was really marginal, with the correct beverage
selected and the 4-square in omni-directional mode (neat feature, btw), I
couldn't quite copy, but when I selected the correct direction for the
4-square, then I could.  This must have happened 25 or more times during the
500-plus QSO's I made.

Compared to past years, I failed to work very few of the weak ones I heard.
I'm sure I didn't hear everyone, but in past years I always left with the
feeling that many went unnecessarily unworked.  I am therefore puzzled why
our score was down slightly this year but I guess that is 160 meters.  The
Orion seemed to hold up perfectly, and no crashes were experienced as some
others have reported on occasion.  The Orion is less intuitive to operate
than the Yaesu FT1000D we used in past years, but once learned, it is far
easier to switch antennas and VFO's around.  When not listening in diversity
mode, I would put the sub-receiver on VFOB and S&P or investigate packet
spots while CQ'ing on VFOA.  When I found someone to work, all I did was put
TRLog into S&P mode, move the Orion transmitter from VFOA to VFOB with the
push of a button, work the station found, and then reverse the first two
steps.  Never did I lose my frequency doing this, although a couple of times
I had to hurry back.

I only ran into one real lid who moved in 70 Hz below and had either such
loud key clicks desensing his own receiver, or such a directional antenna
that he couldn't hear my request to move a bit.  He bothered the
sub-receiver much more, so I shut down the diversity reception for a while
and listened only only on the beverages after cranking the bandwidth down to
200 Hz and using about 50 Hz of passband tuning on the main receiver.  After
about ten QSO's, I checked, and he was gone - guess the band had changed.  I
was very impressed I was able to continue working the frequency under such
conditions.To make diversity mode have a virtual RIT which tunes both receivers
in step, we put the transmitter on VFOA and both receivers on VFOB.  Stations
answering our CQ were fine-tuned using VFOB, then VFOB was synchronized
(equivalent to clearing RIT) with the A>B button which conviently happens to
be the upper and outer-most of the buttons on the VFO/frequency entry pad


73, John


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