[3830] IARU N3BB SO Mixed HP

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                    IARU HF World Championship

Call: N3BB
Operator(s): N3BB
Station: N3BB

Class: SO Mixed HP
QTH: Austin, TX
Operating Time (hrs): 23
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Zones  HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
  160:    22     0      4       2
   80:   144     0     12      11
   40:   650     0     32      28
   20:   420   671     28      23
   15:   246    73     18       6
   10:    25    37      6       2
-------------------------------------
Total:  1507   781    100      72  Total Score = 1,140,704

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Comments:

No EU on 15 (other than a handful) or 10. No JAs on 15 (actually one). Few on
20. It was like a high rate W/VW contest with a good dose of JAs on 40 early
Sunday morning.

We had a nasty rain and lightning cell come over at about 1900Z. I shut down
and disconnected everything and took from 1909-1942 off, but operated with S-9
rain static before and after; it probably cost me an hour overall. That
occurred right in the middle of a pretty high rate run on 20 SSB. I tried hard,
and had pretty high rates.

Because wife had taken ill with a serious chest cold and serious cough, I was
pre-occupied the day before the contest, and started a couple of minutes late
getting on the radio. I took no sleep breaks (see an unplanned rain break below
that was very non-relaxing). As you can see, I had unusually low multiplier
numbers. That pretty well cost me 15-20% on the score. Why? 

Look no further than between my ears! My biggest problem was a stupid cockpit
error with TR-all my fault. My TR Elmer, K5PI, had handed me two special
"config files," one called "standard" and one called "so2r." As I gained
experience, I had modified them, but still used both. Then in the last couple
of months, I got "smart" and consolidated evereything into one file called
"standard" but didn't notice that it lacked the critical instruction to make
"TWO RADIO MODE = TRUE." Since I have been honing my TR moves on the Sprint and
the wonderful NS on Thursday nights, I had not noticed the problem since these
automatically put the setup into SO2R mode when one selects the Sprint. But for
a "regular" contest like this, one has to tell TR to go into the SO2R mode.
Well, dumb ole' me had forgotten, and in the brief practice sessions before the
contest, I tried the set-up files, and it seemed to be OK, but I was not uusing
the SO2R capability. So you can imagine my surprise when I tried to CQ on the
active radio and S&P another band to pick off mults and other unworked
stations, and TR balked. it would not call the station I had lined up on the
second radio. I sort of freaked out. With all the other things going on, I
simply tried for "rate" and was SO1R. That went on during most of the daylight
hours, until at 2133Z I was looking at the manual and discovered the
instruction that must be used for SO2R. I then edited the config file and
VOILA!, all was well in TR-Land. That error cost me the mults (mostly the HQ
stations which do not come through CQing) on 20-15-10 meters and that was a
fatal problem, even though my QSO rates were pretty good. 

Other than the N3BB mental problem, the station seeemed to work well.

Some observations, many of which have been mentioned by others.

1. The CW portion of the contest is disciplined and the operators are crisp and
savvy. Nary a person did not know his zone, etc. Operating on SSB is an entirely
different contest, with many 2x3 calls and many, many people having no clue what
was going on. I had to inquire where the operator was, as many people simply
gave me "599 One" as the report. That was fine, as things are fast on phone. I
actually really enjoy phone contesting and for some strange reason seem to do
better there than on CW.

2. The 6F75A group (Mexico) really had a terrible time with an ill-advised
call. They sent it by paddle, not by computer, five or ten times to me and I
think they sent "6F75A" one time. mostly it was "6F7HA" and other assorted
variations. I found the document prepared by K0RC which listed the HQ stations
very valuable. If it was not for that, that one QSO could have taken five
minutes the way they were having trouble sending. Over all, the K0RC document
was terrific.

3. It was a thrill to wotk a Russian polar station on Zone 75. He was a super
operator, with just the right touch and speed. 

4. The JA run on 40 meters was really good. I worked about 125 assorted JA-HL
stations plus a few others in BV-BY-9V-YB in the final three and a half hours.
The band was excellent to that part of the world.

5. I worked one weak JA on 15 meters. He was calling CQ.

6. 160 meters was pretty useless here due to QR-November.

Congrats to all the great scores. 

Jim N3BB


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