[3830] ARRL 10 W1TJL SO SSB LP

[webform at b41h.net]

                    ARRL 10-Meter Contest

Call: W1TJL
Operator(s): W1TJL
Station: W1TJL

Class: SO SSB LP
QTH: East Hartland, CT
Operating Time (hrs): 22.12

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW:    0     0
  SSB:  873   137
-------------------
Total:  873   137  Total Score = 239,202

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

This was the first contest (heck it was the first real operating other than some
testing) I've done from my new QTH up here in East Hartland.  I decided to go
with low power, unassisted.  Since we built the house last summer and moved in
at the end of October of last year it has been constant "things" that needed to
be done most of which were not radio related.  But I convinced my lovely XYL
that I HAD to have an antenna or antennas up for the contest season this year.

(A short history - you can skip this if not interested).  My wife and I bought
land in East Hartland for two reasons.  The first was my desire to find a HIGH
location away from city noises, traffic, etc.  About 5 years ago I found 8.5
acres of land at 1284 ft in East Hartland, CT - the highest point in the area. 
At night I can see Holyoke, Hartford, Springfield and Bradley Airport.  The
other way is pretty good too but there are many more trees…  The 2nd reason
was the quiet.  Other than some occasional construction machinery I seldom hear
much noise other than planes.  Electrically it is just as quiet (so far).  So
it’s ideal for radio.  My wife’s pet name for this place is “The Middle
of Friggin’ Nowhere”.  :-)  This year I got both of my towers up (a 50 ft
Texas Towers tubular and a Rohn 25 hinged tower which is 65 ft tall).  The Rohn
is still unoccupied.  The tubular has a Force C-4XLD 10 to 40 meter 5 bander) on
it.  Finally an HF antenna!  80 and 160 to come shortly, weather permitting.

I was NOT totally ready for this contest.  Though the antennas were up and the
coax was into the shack through temporary access, I only had one of my radios
set up.  No key, computer was there but unwired and no connection to the radio.
 So all week I was scrambling to get things done.  Started the contest on time
on Friday but immediately had problems.  Murphy came home to roost.

The first problem was the RigBlaster Pro induced a loud hum into the radio
transmitted audio that was not there when the headset was plugged directly into
the radio.  Checked cabling, grounds, etc. to no avail.  So ran without computer
audio the whole contest.  Then my beloved Kenwood TS-950SDX began giving me
problems.  Receive was down, transmit was working but no one was coming back to
me.  SWR on the antenna was all over the place!  Thought it was an antenna
problem but after an hour of scratching my head decided to exchange the 950
with my other 950 (yes, I have 2 of them) and all was well!  So back to
contesting.

Then an MFJ antenna switch became intermittent!  No problem, then no antenna
and back and forth.  New antenna switch fixed it.  Finally a computer problem
where it would be a few seconds up to 30 or 45 seconds for keyboard input to be
acted upon.  Reboot did not cure it but at least that was intermittent.  So
while Chet, N8RA and Dave K1NYK had a Murphy free contest, it was due to the
fact Murphy had come to stay with me.  Saving everything on the PC and
upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 this week.  It’s a good PC but something is
wrong and it’s just not worth diagnosing.

As others have said, band conditions were great, even with 150 Watts I ran a
great deal and when conditions were good to Europe, signals were loud and
strong.  It was harder working the stateside contacts than Europe.  Lots of
skewed path â€" many South American stations were louder to the west than to
the south.  Yet VK and ZL were right in the direction they were supposed to be.
 And fairly loud on Sunday afternoon / evening.

In summary, had a great time, have really missed not having a functioning
station and so happy to have one working again!  And now I can’t wait to get
the rest of this done…

73, Tom W1TJL


Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/