[3830] NAQP RTTY KE1FO Single Op LP

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                    North American QSO Party, RTTY

Call: KE1FO
Operator(s): KE1FO
Station: KE1FO

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: VT
Operating Time (hrs): 8
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   80:   64    30
   40:   86    31
   20:   89    27
   15:    4     2
   10:    0     0
-------------------
Total:  243    90  Total Score = 21,870

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Team: Winter Boys 1 YCCC

Comments:

Participated in this one pretty seriously.  Even joined a team!  I would not
have stuck with this one anywhere near as long if I didn't have the SO2R setup.
 Most of the contest was spent CQing on 2 bands at once, which made my slow
rates tolerable.  Had fun, made some q's, and found some station issues that
will hopefully be resolved this summer.

I had not seriously worked a RTTY contest in some time.  As I started,
RTTYWrite from Writelog was doing a fine job of copying signals, but I was
going crazy listening to all the noise.  I use AFSK unfortunately, but found
that adjusting the SSB Slope Tune on my 940s made a huge difference.  What
seemed to work was putting the low cut all the way clockwise, and then putting
the high cut counterclockwise to about 1 or 2 o'clock.  This would cut out
everything below my frequency, and most stuff above my frequency.  While
RTTYWrite didn't care much, it made things easier for me.

Started out the event on 15M and worked the two stations I heard, K7ON and
WN6K.  Then went to 20M and worked my way up the band until I hit a clear spot
at 14094 and started a "run".  Tried listening on 15, but had what sounded like
phase noise from the radio on 20M - this was new.  It was only about s1 noise,
however the signals on 15M were covered up by it, making 15M useless as long as
I was on the 2nd radio.  I did some fiddling with the ICE bandpass filters, and
in the process ended up unknowingly disconnecting the rig interface for the 2nd
radio.  When it was clear that this was not a filter issue, but rather a "yagi
pointed right at the 15M dipole which also has a 20M element to pickup noise"
issue, I gave up on 15 and went to 40.

Well, for some reason WriteLog was telling me there was "no rig" connected for
the 2nd radio.  WHAT!?!  This was working when I started the contest less than
an hour ago!  I had lost 14094 during this troubleshooting excursion, so I
s&P'd up to 14098, then 099 and started running again.  Had a decent run going,
but slow, so I manually set the 2nd radio on 40M and started dueling CQ's. 
Started running on 14099 at 1922z, and then on 40 at 1945z and stayed put there
until 2016z when I felt compelled to stop and figure out why my rig interface
quit.  I found the problem after several minutes of tracing cables through the
rats nest.  While fiddling with the bandpass filter, I had knocked the RS232
cable out of the back of the level converter.  Plugged that back in and was in
business.  

Checked 15M again, and found two more stations, surprisingly neither was a new
mult (CA and AZ)!  Back to running on 14100 and 7083, then 7094, then 7095. 
Kept working guys on 20 and 40 mainly running until 2239, when I intended to
take my 2 hours off to do dinner with the family.  I was fairly happy, 134 q's
in the log.  Not stellar, nothing earth shattering with the running, but I was
happy that I was able to keep frequencies, and that I was able to generate
calls.

Returned to the radio at 0032z and quickly started working stations.  See the
problem?  I only took 1 hour and 53 minutes off.  DRAT!  I'll need to take
another 30 minutes off at some point, so I won't make exactly 10 hours.  Oh
well.  Check of 80 shows it's workable, and I make a few q's there as I S&P my
way to a run frequency.  Meanwhile, I'm running on 7086 (or is it walking with
a rate of .2q/min?).  Settle in at 3573 (then 3568) and 7040 for another stint
of dueling CQ's.  I found it very interesting that a qso seemed to generate
more response than a cq.  1/2 of the time when I would finish a qso, I'd get a
2nd caller immediately.  I'd CQ for minutes on end with no response.  The other
interesting thing is how often both radios would go active at the same time.  By
this I mean I'd CQ for minutes on end with no response, and suddenly I'd have
callers on both rigs at the same time.  Stayed put until 0316z on 40 and 80
when I took my second break to stay under 10 hours.  By this point I had 233
q's in the log.

Came back to the radios at 0352z to find things had really slowed down. 
Between 0352z and 0448z I made another 23 q's, very slowly.  Running was not
working as well any longer, and somehow I had developed S9+20 noise on 80M.  My
neighbor must have turned something on!  80 was still workable, but it was
painfully slow.  I also have the disadvantage of having a nice DX antenna on
80, so as it got later into the evening, 80M went long for me.  OL6X was
booming, but NE3H in PA needed several fills to get me in his log.  

At 0448 I called it a night, even though I didn't have my full 10 hours in. 
Fatigue was getting the best of me, and I was no longer having that much fun. 
One note, my qso numbers are off in this writeup because I"m referencing the
sequence number in Writelog, and frequently when moving between rigs it will
"burn" a sequence number for one reason or another.  I ended up with 243 q's
and 90 mults.  

Notes for future:

* Work out phase noise issue between 15/20 when beaming west.  I had not
noticed 
     that before (Maybe a RTTY issue, had not done RTTY SO2R before this 
     contest), however with the sunspots as they are I haven't often tried that

     combo with this current setup.  This may get fixed by the summer plans to

     install a quad with independent feeds on each band so I can use it on 2
and 
     the same time.  

* Writelog was allowing both rigs to TX at the same time.  Don't know why -
will 
     have to ask on the Writelog reflector.

* I think I need something different for the domestic contests on 80M (higher 
     radiation angle), but converting my 40M dipole at 25 feet to cover 80M
does 
     not seem like the answer (too high angle).

* Find some sunspots.

Had fun, and I hope to see everyone in the summer NAQP events. 

73 de Al, KE1FO


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