[3830] cqww rtty

[K1TTT]

    CallSign Used : K1TTT
      Operator(s) : K1MK, K1SFA, K1TTT, K2BB, KB1OEV, KC2PNE, KC2PNN, KM1P,
N1FJ, W1EQO, W1TO

Operator Category : MULTI-MULTI
             Band : ALL
            Power : HIGH
             Mode : RTTY
 Default Exchange : MA 05
       Gridsquare : FN32

        Band    QSOs    Pts  Cty   ZN    Sec
         3.5     694    1235   65   20   52
           7    1128    2435   91   30   56
          14    1300    3186  100   34   53
          21     279     563   58   22   39
          28      53      81    8    7   14
       Total    3454    7500  322  113  214


            Score : 4,867,500
  
What a crazy weekend....  a perfect way to top off a crazy month  This month
found me modifying and repairing amps, something I hate to do.  It found me
on a tower on top of a high school sealing their fm station antenna to stop
the rain from taking them down.  I had carpets cleaned, this was about the
only thing that went as planned.  I took the car in for an oil change and
inspection and walk out with $1800 bill.  Monday before the contest I had to
take off from work to replace the well pump that failed Sunday morning in
the middle of a load of wash, a $1500 bill for that one.  Plus the dog's
electronic collar died, the light over the kitchen sink died, the bear
revisited the sw beverage termination, the wind from one of those storms
broke some trees and one day I had to drive around through 3 other towns to
get home, a tree came done on some of the 80m 4-square radials, a roofing
filter died, one of the logging computers refused to start the 2nd di, WHAT
ELSE COULD GO WRONG!?!?!  Another hurricane during the contest maybe??  A
power failure during the contest like 2 years ago?  How about 48 hours of
100% humidity, almost no wind, and 2 box fans going just to keep the
temperature in the shack under 80 degrees.  It felt more like a summer
contest than the end of September.

We did have a nice turnout of operators.... Everyone showed up when promised
and was enthusiastic, which definitely helps.  The crew included 4 operators
who were only in their 2nd rtty contest, 3 who were in their first rtty
contest... so 7 out of 11 ops were new to rtty contesting.  So lots of
training and coaching was going on all weekend. Two operators were here for
the first time ever, so had to learn antennas and rotors as well as fit into
the m/m operation.  KC2PNE and KC2PNN drove 4.5 hours to come and try out
m/m contesting, they are a pair of interested young contesters who did a
great job learning the new mode and helping out... and by Sunday morning
took turns running 20m just like pros.  And another first I think, when
K1SFA sat down I think that was the first time I have had 2 women operators
in one weekend.

We also had visits from a neighbor, one of the operator's father who used to
be a ham, and couple who literally walked in off the street to see what was
going on.  Anyone who has been here knows that is a LONG walk.  

Except for 10m that came up 4 qso's short of last year, every other band
exceeded last year's results nicely.  It was rather annoying to hear a
couple Italians on 10m and not being able to get their attention, the same
with an ea8.  They were printing fine and running Europe, so just couldn't
get them to listen south west for the backscatter path.  But the low bands
more than made up for that with vk6 on 40m and 80m long path, lots of JA's
on 40m, and a pretty good run of JA on 20m even.  There was just a bit of
rain static Sunday, but the Beverages and low Yagi's seemed to do their job
and it didn't slow us down much.


David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net