[3830] NewEngQP K1XM Single Op QRP

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                    New England QSO Party

Call: K1XM
Operator(s): K1XM
Station: K1XM

Class: Single Op QRP
QTH: MA
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:
 Band  CW-Dig Qs  Ph Qs
------------------------
   80:     17        
   40:    171        
   20:    168        
   15:     23        
   10:      4        
------------------------
Total:    383       0  Mults = 74  Total Score = 56,684

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Last year I entered the NEQP low power.  I didn't win but
I had the high Massachusetts score.  A few weeks ago a
humongous plaque arrived.  This thing was bigger than
my radio.  I thought about winning a few more and
building a doghouse out of them but I don't have a
dog and no self-respecting cat would live in such a thing. 

Also I was busy Saturday evening so this wouldn't be a
full-time effort.

I had been working on a low-end SO2R box project and I
decided I would use it for the NEQP.  I cabled it in and
then realized that unlike my regular SO2R box this one
doesn't have a keyer.  The only WinKey I have is part of
the traveling station gear.  It has dedicated cables and
nothing matched what was in my home station.  Eventually
I connected it using headphone splitters as male-male
barrels and lots of adapters.

The WinKey is built into a four port USB serial adapter
which combined with my home station adapter and the SO2R
box adapter resulted in thirteen serial ports on my
computer.  Several of them had the same COM port numbers
and, no surprise, nothing worked.  Eventually I disabled
a some ports, renamed a couple more, and a few reboots
later I was good to go.

Meanwhile I had missed the first hour and a half of the
contest.

I didn't want to go low power again, and with all the
ungrounded and unshielded cable and adapters I didn't
think it was a good idea to run the amp.  A quick check
of the NEQP website showed that there was no plaque for
top QRP in Massachusetts so I decided to go that route.

The K3 is easy to set for five watts output but the
FT-1000mp needs an external wattmeter, so after all
that trouble I only transmitted on the K3 and used
the FT-1000mp to check bands.

I had about a half-hour Saturday evening before I
had to leave.  When I got home late Saturday night I
got back on the air for a while.  Then the computer
overheated and shut down and I went to bed.

The next morning I opened the computer and removed the
dust bunnies and then fired everything up.

Conditions seemed down from last year.  I didn't hear
as much interesting stuff on 20 and there was very
little Europe on 15.  I only made a few QSOs on 10 but
two of them were South American  multipliers.

The SWR on the lower tribander was a bit high and the
SWR on the 80 meter wire was very high, which made me
think the wire antenna was touching the tribander.  I
am surprised I was able to work anyone on 80.

Near the end of the contest I realized I was going to
break the NE QRP record.  I was concerned that I might
win the category and get a plaque.

Fortunately, after the contest I learned that W1XX had
done a serious QRP effort - he even operated QRP phone,
which I was not able to convince myself to do.  John,
if you are reading this, PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR LOG.


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