[3830] NA Sprint CW W6YX(N7MH) HP

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                    NA Sprint CW Contest - February

Call: W6YX
Operator(s): N7MH
Station: W6YX

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 4
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Op Time
---------------------
   80:  106    1:24
   40:  106    1:27
   20:   87    1:09
---------------------
Total:  299    Mults = 41  Total Score = 12,259

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Team: NCCC #1

Comments:

I've been disappointed with my recent Sprint scores so I planned to get to the
station an hour before the contest to make sure everything was set up and ready
to go and I would have a chance to get into a CW groove before the start.

I've had some success with SO2R using simple audio switches in other contests
so I thought I'd try SO2R again in Sprint.  How hard can it be?

My daughter's mid-afternoon visit with a couple of my grandchildren delayed me
by about 15 minutes so I arrived at the shack at 2315, still with plenty of
time to set up.

The radios and computers all turned on and were working.  Then I noticed that
both the 20 and 40 meter antennas were pointed due south, a result of club
members trying to work VP8ORK earlier in the week.  This would not be a problem
except that neither of the rotator limit switches works correctly.  I was able
to rotate the 20/15 stack to point to the east but the 40/10 stack was stuck
and I had to hike up the hill to use manual override switches at the base of
the tower to get it pointed correctly.  This took another 15 minutes of my now
dwindling set-up time.  An ominous note from K6UFO taped to the controller
suggested that the displayed beam headings might not be accurate.

Back in the shack I found that one radio was hooked up to an ACOM 2000A amp
that had been having problems.  I confirmed that it still was not working and
rerouted power and feedlines to the adjacent Alpha 78 which didn't work right
away either since I'd forgotten about the relay line.

By the time I got the log set up for the contest and confirmed that keying
worked from both computers and both paddles there was only 1 minute left.  I
hastily reassigned the CW messages on one computer to a more familiar layout
and was ready just as the clock hit 0000.  I called several stations before I
realized that the radio had been left in Split mode, more fallout from club
members' VP8ORK efforts.

I lost only the first minute but that extra minute could have added the one Q I
needed to hit the 300 Q plateau :(

I was having major problems with key clicks from a nearby station and any time
that I had more than one station calling I had to wait for someone to repeat
their callsign since I couldn't get anything from the pile.  There were also
several stations calling me on 20 that I could barely hear and after 2 or 3
rounds of "?" and trying to listen on other antennas I gave up.  This may have
been a result of the beam heading inaccuracy in K6UFO's note.

When 20 was dying I started listening on 40 on the second radio and tried
calling a couple of stations but the radio briefly transmitted and then
stopped.  I focused on 20 again and probably spent too much time there.  When I
tried 40 again I realized that I hadn't updated the CW messages on the second
computer and instead of sending W6YX it was sending "T".  I quickly reassigned
the keys to match the other computer and after making my first Q on 40 I didn't
work anyone else on 20 even though I tried CQing there a few times.

There were several times low on 40 that I came back to a callsign that I
thought was calling me but ended up being a split caller from a DX pileup
(VP8ORK?) further down in the band.  One CT3 station called with perfect timing
and on my frequency twice.  Dodging RTTY and the DXpedition was a challenge on
40.

I tried listening to the second radio but with all the switching done manually
it was distracting and I wasn't making any Q's on either radio while trying
SO2R.  To answer my earlier question - it is very hard to do SO2R in Sprint
without automatic switching of the audio.

I used the SO2R set-up to switch to 80 by changing radios but my log only shows
2 band changes since I never made any Q's on the original band after my band
changes.

80 meters was great and I could hear both ends of most QSOs, unlike 20 and 40
where skip was long and many stations could not be heard.  I was getting some
receiver overload on 80 every time that Ed, AJ6V, was within about 10 KHz and
ended up mostly listening on a Beverage pointed away from Ed, who is about 2
miles from us.  If I heard someone weak then I'd switch to a different Beverage
or the transmit antenna (an inverted vee) to hear better between Ed's
transmissions.  QSB would wipe out one of the digits of the serial number for
most distant stations so there were a lot of repeat requests on 80.

I heard and missed DE and MO.  I heard N8NA several times on 80 but only once
in sync and lost the jumpball.  I called K0OU several times on 40 and 80 but
always lost out to someone else.  I may have heard a VE3 once or twice but
never worked one.  The only VE station I worked was VE5MX.  I didn't find any
of the non-US stations like C6, XE or KP2.

Lessons learned - arrive 2 hours early for set-up and don't try SO2R without
automated audio switching.  Maybe I should try N6TV's VFO A/B strategy as
repeatedly tuning across the same DXpedition pileup and RTTY signals on 40 got
old real fast.

73,
-Mike, N7MH


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