[3830] ARRLDX SSB N4TZ/9 SOAB LP

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Mon Mar 9 20:35:12 EDT 2015


                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB

Call: N4TZ/9
Operator(s): N4TZ
Station: N4TZ

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: IN
Operating Time (hrs): 38:20

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   19    15
   80:   89    54
   40:  145    62
   20:  258    84
   15:  315    81
   10:  600    84
-------------------
Total: 1426   380  Total Score = 1,624,500

Club: 

Comments:

Conditions not up to last year, but pretty good. Tougher
to get and keep a run going on 10m than last year; guess
my signal must have been weaker.

Had another computer problem this time.  Near the end
of the ARRL CW, my faithfull logging computer turned itself
off; upon turning it back on, it gave a cryptic error
message about a fatal error.  I acquired a newer used
computer this past week and fevereshly worked to get 
it set up to handle a bunch of LPT ports to handle
my station switching, downloading countless updates and
drivers, moving all the programs off the old computer
(which only has USB 1.0 speed so took a very long time)
and moving the files to the newer computer.  Everything
seemed to be working Friday afternoon.

However, very early in the contest it became apparent
that there was something seriously wrong.  I use TR4W's
DVK 100% of the time because of very weak vocal cords.
But, every minute the newer computer would stumble -
that is, it would halt playback in the middle of a 
recorded message, and complete the message from 1 to
as late as 10 seconds later!  I kept at it for six
hours while trying to figure out what I was doing
wrong.  After six hours, I decided to tear down the
newer computer and put the necessary I/O and video
cards back in the older computer.  I got it back up
and running perfectly in 30 minutes.  The old 
computer worked ok through the end of the contest.

Both Saturday and Sunday underproduced last year,
by about equal amounts of QSOs and mults. Part of the
before contest time was spent in trying to get my new 
Eagle's speech processor to work to my satisfaction.
(i.e., similar to the Orion's).  Couldn't get it to
work to that lofty standard, so just listened
on the Eagle; if I found something good, put in in
the Bandmap for when I changed bands. 


I spent most of Monday trouble shooting the newer
computer wIth it stripped down (still without my
I/O and video cards), no radios connected, etc.
I was able to reproduce the error while looping
CQs from TR4W.  I observed on Task Manager that the
CPU usage went from 2% to 100% every minute or two
and when that happened, the audio hung up again.
I found some system error logs using Event Viewer
and found a problem "Device did not respond within
the timeout period." The device was IdePort1.
I couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like the
IdePorts were pointing to the DVD/CD drives, so
I unplugged the data cables to the DVD/CD drives,
and the problem went away.  Put all the cards 
back in and it's been playing away all afternoon.
Interestingly, my old computer shows CPU Usage
between 80% and 100% all the time while running
TR4W and N4PY rig control program but no operational
problems.  The new computer (with the drives installed)
runs CPU 2 to 10% but those spikes to 100% coincided
with the problem. 

Anyway, I have nearly two weeks to make sure it's 
ok for the next contest.  Never worked a mixed mode
event by myself, so should be interesting experience.



                              2015 ARRL-DX-SSB N4TZ
                                 Continent List

                    160    80    40    20    15    10   ALL
                    ---   ---   ---   ---   ---   ---   ---
       NA calls =    15    26    24    34    38    41   178
       SA calls =     3     9    13    40    35    75   175
     Euro calls =     1    49    96   147   187   466   946
  African calls =     0     2     3     8     8     7    28
    Asian calls =     0     0     2    11     8    12    33
    Japan calls =     0     1     6     8    38     1    54
    Ocean calls =     0     3     5    11     3     4    26

    Total calls =    19    90   149   259   317   607  1440


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