[3830] RTTY WPX WX5S(@W6YX) M/M HP

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                    CQ/RJ WW RTTY WPX Contest

Call: WX5S
Operator(s): AC6JT, W6ZZZ, W1SRD, K0BEE, NI6T, WX5S, K6UFO, W7SW, W6LD, AE6KU, K6ENT, N6DE
Station: W6YX

Class: M/M HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Pts
-----------------
   80:  184   438
   40:  388  1418
   20:  596   987
   15:  600  1231
   10:  577  1110
-----------------
Total: 2345  5184  Prefixes = 498  Total Score = 2,581,632

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

Station 1:
Yaesu FT-1000MP MkV, Alpha 87A, Hal DXP38, MMTTY
Station 2:
Yaesu FT-1000MP, Acom 2000, Hal P38, MMTTY
Stations 3 and 4:
Kenwood TS-850, Alpha 78, Hal DXP38, MMTTY

Antennas:
10m: Hygain 105CA at 31', Telrex 6-el at 75'
15m: Hygain 155CA at 25', Telrex 6-el at 75'
20m: Hygain 205CA at 36', KLM 6-el at 65'
Tribanders: Force12 C31XR at 60', Mosley Pro67 at 50'
40m: Rotatable dipole at 65'
80m: Inv-V at 55'

Networked Writelog v10.39.

Operators: AC6JT, W6ZZZ, W1SRD, K0BEE, NI6T, WX5S, K6UFO, W7SW, W6LD, AE6KU,
K6ENT, N6DE

Visitors: W6OAT, N7MH, W6KNS, W6GEM, Diana (K6ENT XYL)


What a blast!  We had a tremendous group of extremely talented and enthusiastic
folks join us for the weekend. The experience was a new homecoming for NI6T and
AC6JT, as they were Stanford University grad students years ago, and had not
seen the current W6YX station.

Another well respected Stanford alumnus, Jim Maxwell W6CF (sadly an SK on
February 6), was clearly in our minds during the contest.  Many of us were good
friends with Jim over the years.  Jim was an amazing man in so many ways.  We
already miss him dearly.


THE CONTEST

The stations were set up mainly from the personal equipment of our operators,
which made a four station M/M possible.  K6ENT and I reminded ourselves that it
was a non-trivial task to set up four complete stations for RTTY, and configure
Writelog on all of them. We observed an interesting interaction between one
USB-serial converter and a laptop infrared port.  Thanks to AC6JT for helping to
solve an MMTTY problem on one machine, and also realize my brain fart of having
the slope tune controls on my TS-850 improperly set.

I tried to set up all four stations with the same Writelog window layout and
identical macros.  I configured the macros so that F2-F4 performed the same
functions as what some of us were used to in previous RTTY contests (ala AA5AU's
macro suggestions), but also added CT-like compatibility (Insert and + key
definitions), TR-like functionality (Enter key sent what it supposed to when
TR-mode enabled), and an Fkey window so that macros could be driven entirely by
a mouse.  Everyone could then choose what they liked best.  During the contest,
we realized there were a few macros that I should have included, and will add
them next time.

We had been experiencing an intermittent receive problem on an FT-1000MP in the
days before the contest.  Sure enough, the problem decided to reappear in the
middle of a 20m run at the beginning of the contest. Thanks to Mark K6UFO who
brought his FT-1000MP as a backup in case this happened!  We swapped in his rig
and suddenly heard signals again, but no one was answering our CQ.  This was
until a helpful station told us we were transmitting reversed polarity, which
reminded me that I had forgotten to set the FSK polarity on Mark's rig to
REVERSE.  Upon setting that properly, more stations suddenly started answering
us. Amazing how that works!

Thanks to Matt WX5S for allowing us to use his callsign for the weekend.  On
occasion, we wished we had been operating from 5-land (or even 1-land, for that
matter) to get some more Europeans in the log!  But we gave it a maximum effort
from California, and enjoyed good JA and HL activity.  Our night warriors
(Garry, Matt, Kent) were not overwhelmed with exciting pileups, but those hours
proved valuable for higher point QSOs, particularly on 40m for 6-point QSOs with
Asia.  Surprisingly, even with a wind damaged 40m beam (now a rotatable dipole),
40m was the highest point yielding band for us!

Europe was open for about 2 hours each morning in Northern CA on 10m and 15m. 
20m stayed open a little longer, but the volume of EU there seemed less.  Bryan
had fun working UN, EY, and other good DX on 20m.  We were surprised to work S21
and 9G on three bands.  Thanks to everyone for all the 5-band sweeps.  It was
fun to get VY1JA in the log on all five bands!

We were pleased to see the AE9B/0 and KA4RRU M/M efforts in this contest,
keeping us motivated to push ourselves!  We ended up with more total QSOs, but
fell short on mults and the overall points/QSO ratio.  Our QSO numbers were well
balanced between 10, 15, and 20m.  Our continent QSO distribution is attached
below.

There were a few stations who called in and made our day by telling us it was
their first RTTY QSO.  RTTY activity in contests certainly seems to be rising,
thanks to MMTTY.


OTHER NOTES

We had terrific food all weekend!  Much of it was prepared by Doris K0BEE, who
we owe many, many thanks for all the great entrees!  My favorites were the ribs
and Asian peanut slaw!  Garry pitched in by preparing some tasty chicken wings. 
We had a minor crisis on Friday night, as the rice cooker was not operational. 
Steve and Garry proceeded to take the entire unit apart, finding a blown fuse. 
A look around the shack turned up empty on locating an appropriate fuse
replacement.  Rusty joined the group on the quest to fix the rice cooker.  Time
was running out and a desperate crossroads had been reached.  I started getting
rather nervous when I heard statements through my headphones such as, "It'll be
OK if we use some thick copper wire" and "Maybe we should plug it into an outlet
on a different circuit from the radios."  I turned up the AF gain on my radio,
pressed the headphones against my hears, and hoped for the best.  And "the best"
is what happened, as the rice cooker was back in service with no harm to the
W6YX electrical system!  Good job, team!  Now that is the DXpeditioner
defined!

Delicious looking cream puffs were prepared for dessert.  They were frozen, and
we wanted to avoid a nuking mess in the microwave.  How to solve this problem? 
Ahhhh, the amplifiers seemed to be warming the room quite nicely.  Let's place
them on top of the Alpha 78 and watch them transform into wonderful, lightly
browned masterpieces.  Marc was thereby ordered to keep up the rate for the sake
of the cream puffs!  No excessive CQing without answers, or the cream puffs
would get too mushy.  No S&P, because the cream puffs would never warm.  A
sustained run was required.  One look at the log shows Marc played his cards
perfectly, with a job well done on the radio and the cream puffs!

With apologies to Mel Torme, it wasn't exactly Chestnuts Roasting on an Open
Fire, but rather, Cream Puffs Thawing on an Amplifier!

Although it's Been Said Many Times, Many Ways,
Merry Contest to You!

Thanks for all the Qs!

73...
-Dean - N6DE


           80M    40M    20M    15M    10M   Total      %

    OC       2      7      8      8     12      37     1.6
    AS       9    136     86    191    162     584    24.9
    NA     173    241    425    305    327    1471    62.7
    SA       0      2     17     25     27      71     3.0
    EU       0      1     56     69     44     170     7.2
    AF       0      0      4      3      4      11     0.5


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