[3830] CQ160 SSB ON9CC Single Op Assisted HP

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                    CQ 160-Meter Contest, SSB

Call: ON9CC
Operator(s): ON9CC
Station: ON9CC

Class: Single Op Assisted HP
QTH: Voeren
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 501  State/Prov = 2  Countries = 42  Total Score = 109,692

Club: 

Comments:

After putting up 2 beverages about 1,5 months ago and using them succesfully in
the CQ160CW, I decided to give it a shot in the CQ160SSB. 

I recently bought an Orion 2 but didnÂ't have the time to properly set it up in
the shack due to QRL. So I planned to do some preparation work before the
contest on friday and took a day off ... until 10:30 when my boss called and I
was gone for QRL untill 17:00. 

So plan B had to be pulled out the drawer: use the Â'oldÂ' setup: IC-7800. I
only had to reconnect the ICOM CT-17 CAT interface to the power supply since I
used itÂ's power cable for something else, but when I did, it went up in smoke
:-( ... Luckily I had a spare: one of these cheap $15 USB china things, but OK,
it saved the day. I had N1MM up and running with my good-old IC-7800 (what a joy
to use!), Signalink USB for the voicekeying and ETO 91b for the table-top 
dBÂ's.

The contest started and I found the conditions to be very poor. I could only
work K1LZ and VY2ZM over the pond, nothing else from NA heared. Even from the
East the offer of stations was marginal. At about 04:00 in the morning, I
noticed my amp (ETO 91b) started to do it's own thing and sometimes the power
would shoot up to max unwillingly and drop back ... IP showed the same
behaviour ... so I switched over to my ACOM1000 which worked flawlessly the
rest of the night. At 04:30 I decided to go to bed because the rate dropped to
10 and my eyelids were getting very heavy.

The second night was a bad as the first regarding the conditions. There was
even little to hear from the east, compared to normal conditions and due to low
rates I went to bed at 01:30 am local time. I woke up at 05:00 to go to the
bathroom .. quickly checked the cluster from my iPod on my nighttable (nifty 
little thing) and due to the lack of NA being spotted from EU, I went back to
bed :-)

Sunday evening I worked another 50 stations or so to end with 502 QSO's in the
log. That's about 100 less than last year and is somewhat disappointing. But if
there are no conditions, that's that way it is. Let's hope for better conditions
next year!

Station: IC-7800, ETA91b/ACOM 1000
Antennas: 160m dipole, 2 beverages (240m WNW-ESE, 150m NNE-SSW)
Software: N1MM

73 
Frank
ON9CC


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