[3830] SS CW WA2MNO SO Unlimited HP

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                    ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW

Call: WA2MNO
Operator(s): WA2MNO
Station: WA2MNO

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: MN
Operating Time (hrs): 22:48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:  347
   40:  113
   20:  451
   15:   35
   10:    0
------------
Total:  946  Sections = 78  Total Score = 147,576

Club: Minnesota Wireless Association

Comments:

This year I concentrated on getting Q's and very occassionally did S&P for
multipliers. I heard NL and MB but there were too many stations and I didn't
want to spend the time for a sweep when it wouldn't have added that much to my
score. I beat my previous high score this year which was 865 Q's a couple of
years ago (pre-log scrub) and when I made it over 900 Q's this year. I had
wished I hadn't mis-calculated my time left to operate which was just over an
hour. But, even with an extra hour at the end I probably wouldn't have made the
1,000 Q mark.

I put up a new Buckmaster's Off-Center-Fed dipole which I think really worked
well but I think it introduced RFI in the shack which caused either my computer
or WL to occassionally cause CW studder (sorry to everyone that had to put up
with my hanging characters). I hit the escape key to stop the transmission when
that happened but it delayed the QSO and drove me and the other end frustration.
KT0R/Dave is going to let me try his RG8 RFI Line Isolator to see if that fixes
the problem (Thanks Dave!). 

Then on Friday, when I was getting ready to setup TR which is my trusted CW
logging friend and operates under Win98 I found problems where one of the TR
files had become corrupted and gave a strange error message. I re-installed TR
Friday night and got it working thinking that everything would be easy to get
going an hour before the contest. Well, that procrastination cost me a 1/2 hour
loss into the beginning of the contest because I couldn't get the PCI COMM ports
(any of them including the standard Port 1 and 2 to talk to the radio). So, I
went back to WL which if it hadn't been for the studdering CW would have worked
out quite well although I would probably still would use TR for CW contests if I
can get the radio to talk to the computer again.

Most operators I came across were polite enough to ask if the freq was in use
and if they moved in on my freq when I was trying to pulll out a weak station
and I would tell them to pse QSY they would move. Thank you!

I enjoyed myself in this one and always wonder if the SSB contest will be as
much fun ;)

73 - Bob
WA2MNO


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