[3830] CQWW CW K1IR M/S HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW

Call: K1IR
Operator(s): W1VE K2WR K1VR KT1D K2TJ K1IR
Station: K1IR

Class: M/S HP
QTH: MA
Operating Time (hrs): 47

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   99    15       56
   80:  461    28      108
   40:  671    36      131
   20: 1245    29      128
   15:  277    23      102
   10:   23    13       22
------------------------------
Total: 2776   144      547  Total Score = 5,425,732

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

This was the shakedown cruise for the freshly rebuilt K1IR station. Starting in
August, I tore the entire station apart - down to an empty room - with the goal
of having a more reliable station with fewer interference problems ready to go
on the air for the fall season.

Just taking the station apart took several days. Man, there were a lot of
cables buried behind the operating tables. I marked everything and stored it
all away. Slowly, I began to put it all back together. Before actually
installing and connecting anything, I had to decide on a variety of basic
infrastructure approaches. I devised a new single-point grounding strategy with
lightning protection. Next was new furniture. Then a cable management strategy
and approaches to AC and DC power distribution.

Mitigation of interstation interference was another major objective of the
rebuild. After many consultations with W1HIS, K9YC and most recently, John,
W1FV, I had all the advice I could stand, so I procured a ton of ferrite and
introduced interference-reduction techniques into the rebuild process. It was
John's recent work at KC1XX on interference issues that bridged the gap from
the theoretical to the practical and allowed me to proceed with a real plan of
action - thanks, John, for sharing what you learned.

None of this happened quickly. I started a new job back in May, and my time 
available for personal projects dropped to zero. I stayed up late during
weekdays and got up early on weekends to invest time in the rebuild. One of the
best decisions I made was to use crimp connectors for all the inside coax cables
and DC power cables. This substantially reduced the time required to build all
the new cables. Yes - the plan was to replace every single old cable in the
shack, making them all the "right" length and standardizing on just one cable
type each for low power RF, high power RF and DC.

The job wasn't finished when CQ WW SSB arrived. The RF wiring was only
partially completed; there were no rotor control cables, and I hadn't even
considered installing a computer yet. So, there was no operation in 2007 WW
SSB. Tim, KT1D, asked if he could operate the station in ARRL SS CW. I thought
this would be a good way to get motivated to finish at least part of the
rebuild. I focused on getting two of the four operating positions ready for
him. I had enough of the station ready in time and Tim did a great job in the
contest.

There was still a lot to do to be ready for WW CW three weeks later, so I
invested many more late night hours in getting the RF and antenna control parts
of the station completed.

Then there were the computers. One computer for each operating position with
software, computer control and cw interface were required. My old computers
were quite varied in processing power, memory size, video capability and
operating system. Gerry, W1VE, our Master Computer Guy, came over a full week
before the contest, and did nothing but configure and install new computers
with me. It took many hours, but we finally ended up with a working
configuration at every operating position. All OS versions are now Windows XP,
and the contest software is N1MM. CW keying is via MicroKeyers at all but one
operating position.

During the last week leading up to the contest, I had several remaining
RF/antenna issues to deal with. I had to wire in the whole receive antenna
switching setup. I had to complete the final station grounding.

Around Thursday night, Gerry called and asked if we had any operators for the
contest. I was still at work, and told him that wasn't one of the areas I had
focused on . . . as a result, the operating team came together at the last
minute. Gerry took on the roles of Anchor Op and Chief Recruiter. He was very
committed, producing the lions share of our QSOs over the weekend. He also
reached out to Rich, K2WR, convincing him that we were the best fit for his
situation. His trip to Europe was cancelled at the last minute and, after
talking to Gerry, he decided to drive up and join us for the weekend,
contributing to the effort around the clock. We are particularly appreciative
of Rich's efforts because he did all this in spite of some medical issues he's
currently dealing with. Many thanks also to K1VR, a member of the K1IR Core
Team. Fred brought stubs from his own station and kept the operation alive and
pressing hard overnight; he made sure a lot of great mults went into the log.

Andy, K2TJ, and Tim, KT1D, came out to the station on Saturday. They spent a
few hours in the chair, but their major contribution to the effort this time
was technical. I've had a persistent arcing problem in the 160M inverted-L. I
did not have time to troubleshoot it before the contest, and it became a
serious problem for us on Friday night at the start of the contest. The problem
was so severe, we were essentially unable to work anybody on that band through
Friday night. So, when Andy and Tim arrived on Saturday, I recruited them to
help find and solve the 160M problem. After quite a few hours and replacing all
of the feedline and rebuilding the entire matching network, we finally found the
problem. The far end of the L had fallen from the supporting tree, and was
laying on the ground, arcing to a radial. The ground in the area was heavily
charred; there is no good reason that our Friday night efforts to put power
into the antenna hadn't ignited a forest fire.

A perennial problem here is the TIC RingRotor that turns the OptiBeam 40M Yagi.
On Saturday morning, I found that something had slipped after heavy use of the
rotor to work all the Asian mults overnight. I climbed the tower and got the
antenna back in alignment. As I write this summary, I am in contact with Carl
at TIC General to figure out how to eliminate this problem for good.

My role in the contest was limited to technical support because of continuing
overload from work. In between fixing antennas, I had to sit at the computer in
my home office and get a ton of work done. So, with my limited availability, and
with K2TJ and KT1D focused on getting the antenna fixed on Saturday, the
operation was fully in the hands of W1VE, K1VR and K2WR, who did a great job of
driving QSOs and mults into the log.

Congrats to our M/S competitors - W3BGN, KT3Y, K8AZ, W3UA, K2LE, K2BA, K2QMF,
W7VJ and any others I may have missed - for their great efforts. For the whole
weekend, we watched Gerry's [W1VE] Real-Time Scoreboard. We were very focused
on the Multi-Single category, of course, but this year, we only saw W3UA on the
scoreboard in M/S. We still had great fun watching K1TTT battling with W2FU and
NQ4I in M/M. It was also great to see K5ZD do his thing as Single-Op. Years
ago, I pushed Gerry hard to build this tool. He finally got it out there! My
observation is that the availability of the scoreboard is something that can
have a real, positive influence on contesting. For the competitors, it raises
the level of competition when you see your rivals in the list. Whether you are
in the position of trying to maintain a lead or knowing you need to come from
behind, having the current standings information in front of you is a great
motivator. Although I spent the past few months working on the technical side
of the K1IR operation, I know that the operator factor has far more impact on
contesting success than any other variable. The scoreboard is a great way to
help get the most from the operating team. It would be great to see everyone up
there banging away for the lead.

Multi-Single competitors - consider the gauntlet to have been thrown down. I'd
like to challenge all of you to be on the scoreboard by the time the ARRL DX
Contests come around in 2008. I know there are some technical challenges for
stations who are using contest software programs that aren't yet able to hook
into the scoreboard. But, I am willing to bet that W1VE will assist anyone who
is motivated to get past those barriers.

73 and see you in February and March!

Jim K1IR


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