[3830] NAQP CW K7BG Single Op LP

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                    North American QSO Party, CW

Call: K7BG
Operator(s): K7BG
Station: K7BG

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: MT
Operating Time (hrs): 9:53
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   17     8
   80:   68    23
   40:  184    42
   20:  379    48
   15:   61    22
   10:   19     6
-------------------
Total:  728   149  Total Score = 108,472

Club: Please don't make me keep having to type in Northern Rockies DX Association

Team: 

Comments:

This is the first contest I have ever done where I actually had both rigs
interfaced to the computer and so it was an effort to play around with a
“real” two radio setup. There was a multitude of problems that arose
causing me to chuckle in lieu of totally losing my mind.

One particularly interesting phenomenon was when I would work a station that I
had already worked before. For some reason, instead of the software printing
“Bill CA” from the previous QSO with that station, it would instead print
“Fred MI.” This happened no matter whether it was “Mike OH” or “Mable
TN.” I have no idea what the heck was going on, but not only did I have to
copy all the info all over again, I had to make sure to erase the old info or
at least type over it and space out the characters if the previous name was
longer. I finally decided to reboot the computer and all was well again. When
in doubt, reboot.

Another unsavory issue was the death of one of the ICOMs. It started making a
squealing noise from the PA and the meter pegged. The receiver worked fine, but
no power out. OK, throw the old 940 on the desk which I don’t have setup to
talk to the computer. Back to the old way of doing things. Thank goodness the
DX Doubler has the manual mode, but dang it, I was just getting the hang of the
automated way of doing things.

The high bands never really rocked and rolled up here. I could hear lots of
weak stations working each other, but not much to run with. After the one rig
died, I didn’t bother trying to move stations much. I spent an hour and a
half during the best of the Es openings taking the PS out of the Icom and
trying to see what croaked. During this time there was a thunderstorm so I had
disconnected all the ants anyway.

80 and 160 were pretty noisy, but I had some luck hearing stations using the
40m beam to dampen the 60 over S9 static crashes.

Chock this one up to a real learning experience! I’m sure glad they invented
20 meters!

Matt—K7BG


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