[3830] NAQP CW NC4KW(@N1LN) M/2 LP

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                    North American QSO Party, CW - January

Call: NC4KW
Operator(s): N1LN, W0UCE, AA4FU, K4QPL
Station: N1LN

Class: M/2 LP
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:  185    45
   80:  408    54
   40:  473    55
   20:  289    51
   15:  167    35
   10:   50    14
-------------------
Total: 1572   254  Total Score = 399,288

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Team: 

Comments:

For us, this was the contest that was not supposed to happen.  

Issue 1 came last Monday evening. My Station 1 computer got hit with Malware.
As it was not cooperating with a removal and cleaning, Tuesday night the
complete rebuild process started.  Of course that four letter word WORK got in
the way, but by Thursday night I had enough of the applications reloaded so it
could be used for NAQP.  Friday night I tested all antennas, networking was
fine, N1MM was configured and we were ready to go.  Saturday afternoon came
around and when the clock on the wall said 1800 UTC off we went. 

Issue 2: This was a very minor issue due to our location.  The bottom 20 meter
beam in the stack decided to develop a high swr.  It is locked on south, and we
have 2 other triband antennas at the same height, so no big deal - yet
aggravating, as it worked on Friday. 

Issue 3: This one was almost a show stopper.  About 19:12 the K3 on station 2
decided to fault with a CHECK 12V in the VFO B display.  To make a long story
short, nothing would get around this.  So, Alan AA4FU, volunteered to go get
his.  That is one short statement for a long 2 hour round trip.  So, the M2
operation was M1 for almost 3 hours. In a 12 hour contest 3 hrs of downtime on
one of the two stations is not a good thing. For those almost 3 hours we moved
between 10, 15, and 20 to try to work as many mults as possible. The clock was
ticking and we were dropping farther behind. None the less, when Alan returned,
his K3 went on-line, and at about 2203 UTC we were back with 2 stations. At that
time we were more than 200 Qs behind last January. 

Final summary:  In the end both our Q total and Mult totals were ahead of last
year.  If we were able to do that, some big M2 scores are going to be turned
in.  

An email is already off to Elecraft Tech Support. Can the K3 be fixed before
NAQP-SSB this coming weekend? If any company will respond quickly, it is
Elecraft. Unfortunately, this is only a 4 day work week that so that is adding
in another challenge.  Option B - already trying to borrow a K3.

Hope to work you next weekend.

73 from the NC4KW team !

Jack - W0UCE
Alan - AA4FU 
Jim - K4QPL
Bruce - N1LN


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