[3830] WAE RTTY AA8IA Single Op LP

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                    WAE DX Contest, RTTY

Call: AA8IA
Operator(s): AA8IA
Station: AA8IA

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: Toronto OH EN90QL
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Pts  QTCs  Mults
------------------------------
   80:   11   11    0     36
   40:   34   34    0     39
   20:    5   25   20     10
   15:   68  108   40     66
   10:   14   14    0     14
------------------------------
Total:  132  192   60    165  Total Score = 31,680

Club: Mad River Radio Club

Comments:

I had no intention of putting in a full effort, which is a good thing since
Friday we got a dinner invite for Saturday afternoon at my niece's an hour
away.   Between that and our usual Sunday family gathering, I knew I'd lose
precious daylight hours necessary for 10/15/20 DX.  So my intent was to just
play as much as I could and learn the ropes of RTTY QTC TX/RX in N1MM.

My gut kept telling me to try and do as many hours as possible, but I just
couldn't bear the thought of spending countless hours on 80/40m making
stateside Qs when the whole idea is to pass QTCs.

I hadn't practiced using the N1MM QTC facility with MTTY before the contest.  
Big mistake.    The first time i went to receive QTCs, I was getting them from
DQ4W (who was very strong).   All but one QTC arrived unmangled.  However, I
didn't notice the mangled QTC until after I had already sent ALL OK to DQ4W and
moved off frequency.   Once i realized N1MM wasn't letting me save the QTCs
because of one with an error, I didn't want to go back and take up DQ4Ws time
trying to explain that I needed QTC #8 in batch ##/##.

After that fiasco I was upset with myself and pouted for a while.  I made some
more Qs.  Eventually another DX station asked me if I wanted some QTCs.  I
accepted and took on 10 more.  That one went well, so 3 more times I took QTCs.
  I wanted more, but this afternoon while I was looking I just couldn't find
very much strong DX.  Seemed like the bands on both days weren't great for me,
but especially today.   Maybe I need to really start studying when I should be
on what band to work DX....

I didn't send any QTCs.   Because I rarely heard DX that I felt were
sufficiently strong, I never wanted to suggest to them that I would send them
QTCs.   Last thing I would want is to force somebody to take 5-10 minutes
trying to hear my signal.  Of course, I'm doing all of this under the premise
that my signal is always weaker to the DX than their signal is to me [since I
run low wires and no amp], and that may not always be the case.

Fun contest.  I wish I could have/would have put more time into it.   More
importantly, I need to learn to test / prepare more for a contest instead of
firing up the radio at the last minute and configuring N1MM for the contest.  
I was ill prepared, and that's the only thing I can say to justify my score.  
What QTCs were passed, I enjoyed taking.   QTC traffic is extremely fun.

I was hoping to be competitive with KB3LIX over in PA, but he stomped me good
once again -- Congrats on the nice score, Bill!

Thanks to DARC for sponsoring such a great contest and for making rules that
encourage participation [anyone can work anyone, anyone can send/receive QTCs].
 Also, thanks to those who worked me.  Hopefully next year I'll be wearin my
game face.


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