[3830] NAQP SSB K4RO Single Op LP

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                    North American QSO Party, SSB - January

Call: K4RO
Operator(s): K4RO
Station: K4RO

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: TN
Operating Time (hrs): 9
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   97    34
   80:  183    41
   40:   71    34
   20:  218    47
   15:   67    31
   10:  109    22
-------------------
Total:  745   209  Total Score = 155,705

Club: Tennessee Contest Group

Team: 

Comments:

I had only planned a few hours of operation at best, but some time freed
up when another engagement cancelled and I wound up operating most of the
contest. I would have prepared better had I known that the day was going 
to open up like it did.

The best thing that came out of this contest was that I finally solved 
my long-standing SSB DVK audio problem. It turns out that the sound card 
built into the motherboard (SoundMax) just would not record through the
microphone jack properly. Regardless of the method used, the recorded audio 
was always terrible. I went years without a DVK, and only casually operated
SSB contests now and then, thinking that I would solve this problem someday.

About two hours into the contest, I decided that I really wanted a DVK 
that worked, and was determined to fix it one way or another. I went to
the computer junk box in the basement and found an old Sound Blaster Live
PCI card. I disabled the on-board SoundMax audio, and installed the new card.
After a quick re-configure of N1MM Logger for the new Sound Blaster, voila!

I now have a DVK that sounds good. I don't know if it will really increase
the amount of phone contesting that I do, but it sure makes it less tiring.
While the radio's internal DVK works OK and sounds great, nothing really 
beats the flexibility of the computer sound card based DVK.

Once I got the DVK working, I had a blast. The best highlights were all of
the folks willing to QSY for new multipliers. I must have requested dozens 
of moves. I would say 90% were happy to try, and many were very pleasantly 
surprised when we were successful. Strategy-wise, I kind of blew it by 
taking all of the off-time early on. That worked great for CW, but was a
disaster for SSB. Not sure what happened to 40 meters. I spent very little
time on that band, and most of the mults were moved there from 160 or 80.
The other thing that was a disaster was using my real name.

I must have said the phrase "Kirk, like Captain Kirk" at least 300 times.
It was twice as fast as saying "Kilo India Romeo Kilo" which usually required
a second repeat anyway. When I said "Captain Kirk" people got it immediately.
While it may be amusing, it just slows things down tremendously to have to
repeat the exchange literally every other QSO. Next time for NAQP SSB I'll 
be very tempted to use an easier name. It doesn't seem to matter nearly as 
much on CW for some reason.

Always fun to hear the voices of the mostly CW guys who get on for this one.
Thanks again for all the QSYs. And thanks for supporting the NAQP contests.

Log submitted. Confirmation No.: a0dba33988b673f1

73, Kirk K4RO


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