[3830] CQ WW RTTY K1LT SOAB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: K1LT
Operator(s): K1LT
Station: K1LT

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: Ohio
Operating Time (hrs): 33

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Pts   State/Prov  DX   Zones
------------------------------------------
   80:  232   305       46      22    12
   40:  347   605       47      54    19
   20:  450  1072       34      67    22
   15:   94   240        6      38    15
   10:                                  
------------------------------------------
Total: 1123  2222      133     181    68  Total Score = 848,804

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

This is my second entry into the CQ World Wide RTTY Contest, the first
being last year.  I had no specific goal other than to beat last
year's score, which is the default goal of any operation.  I also did
no advance planning, or even checking to see if everything (or
anything) works.

Checking might have been useful.  About 45 minutes before the test, I
fired up the equipment, but there is no keying of the radio by the
computer.  After some furious troubleshooting, I replaced the chip
resistor in the RS232 to TTL adapter that I made to interface the
computer to the radio.  If you apply too much heat when soldering the
chip resistors, all of the silver plating boils off and then solder
won't stick for more than a year (apparently).

The lessons I learned last year about "continuous duty" operation
still apply.  Its still amazing how warm and cranky various components
become after CQing for a while.  I think after last year, all of the
famous IC765 wax dribbled all over the BFO trimmer caps, which has
caused the radio to sometimes "passband tune" away from the signal of
interest at random times.  Power cycling the radio temporarily fixes
the problem.  I've become adept at poking the power button between
transmissions.

Last year I blamed a perfectly good Potter and Bumfield relay for some
intermittent high SWR glitches.  Turns out the culprit is me, for
failing to solder the center pin on the PL259 from the 40 meter
vertical.

Since last year, I've built a 20 meter vertical on top of the
pole-barn's metal roof, and reverted the 4-BTV to a full sized ground
mounted 40 meter vertical, which also sort of works on 15 meters.  80
meters is still a bunch of wires forming a cage around the 160 meter
"T" vertical.  The cage wires have 2 lengths, to give a narrow low SWR
band on 80 meters and another on 75.  So, the SWR around the RTTY
frequencies is a little high, which makes the amplifier cranky.  One
of these days, I need to get an antenna tuner.

Also, the SWR on 15 meters is a little high, again making the
amplifier cranky.  One of these days I need to get an antenna tuner.

Surprise last minute multipliers: A61OO on 40 meters in the last hour,
J39BS in the last 15 minutes, and WW3DE for the Delaware multiplier on
80 as my last QSO during the last minute.

Multipliers on 80 were way down this year, 80 versus 107 last year.
But multipliers were up on all the other bands, so the net result is
only down by 5.  Made more than 10% more QSOs, so I'm hoping that I
can squeak into a top ten USA high power single op unassisted category
that I just missed last year.

RTTY contesting is fun!  I'd never be able to do this on CW, even
though I like it better.

elderly IC765, K8ND's ETO 91B (thanks, Jeff)
80/160: 65 foot "T" with extra wires for 80 and 75
40/15: ground mounted full sized vertical with 32 radials
20: full sized vertical on metal pole barn roof
10: beam laying behing the barn (it isn't a vertical)
MMTTY 1.66G, WriteLog 10.54C


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