[3830] ARRLDX SSB W1TJL M/S HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB

Call: W1TJL
Operator(s): W1TJL N1IXF
Station: W1TJL

Class: M/S HP
QTH: FN32na
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   36    26
   80:  132    63
   40:  361    87
   20:  836   101
   15:  681   105
   10:  858   108
-------------------
Total: 2904   490  Total Score = 4,233,600

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

After another great contest, we always try to figure out what to say in the
soapbox.  Since only Rich N1IXF and I operated, I asked him if he wanted to
help me with some of this...  He reminded me that the main reason for the
soapbox is to document things about this contest that few will read and even
those that do will likely forget in 20 minutes or so.  So we decided to put
this together with the thought that maybe next year we can learn from it and
not have the same things happen.

For the last several contests everything worked great, no hardware or software
issues (certainly some things needed improvement but nothing failed or didn't
work as expected).  For this contest, Murphy found us.  Nothing serious BUT he
was an annoyance.  So with Rich's input we put together a list of lessons
learned and things to try to avoid in future contests.

First, a 48 hour contest with only 2 ops is tough!  Tom, N1MM was unable to
join us as his time was spent helping Stephanie, (his lovely wife and sometimes
hostess when we work from his house) recover from surgery earlier last week. So
there was little conversation off the air as one of us was always on the air! 
With 3 ops we could each get a reasonable sleep cycle and op changes provided a
"fresh" approach and energy to the game-plan.  Hopefully next contest
our crew will be whole again.  (Plus N1MM is a lot better call than W1TJL from
a call recognition perspective.)

Second, among the list of things that we found, some were just annoyances and
some more than that.  Here are our notes to ourselves to check and resolve
before out next contest, which may be WPX.

1. We did a good job of recording, shaping and cleaning up the wav files but
the sound card volume into the radio was initially set too high resulting in
terrible audio.  Why?  It had been fine previous contest but this time
SOMETHING set it wrong.  Fortunately this was pointed out by a local op as the
audio in the monitor sounded fine. A quick check of the sound card mixer levels
solved that problem - but a note in the pre contest checklist to check that
before contests.

2. Need to do a better job of maximizing band changes and sweeping them to
collect easy points and mults.  Sometimes you're running and the rates are
slowing, and it most likely would have been a faster rate via S&P and
sweeping another band. Too often it felt that we stayed too long on a run when
it would have been more productive to use the available band changes and
generate a better rate S&P.

3. Early Saturday morning we made a point to get to 20M and establish a
frequency low in the band just as EU was opening and had a productive run.
Moving up the bands as each opened maintained our rate and enabled a run during
peak times on each band. This part of our game-plan was one of our best.

4. Band breakdown:

10M has so much room I never had a problem finding a good frequency here with
little QRM.  Had to remember NOT to get fixated on this band.

15M on Sunday was "wall-to-wall" with signals, and as other have
commented the splatter was awful.  Whenever we did find a frequency to run we'd
also have to fight hard to keep others from squeezing in.  Next year we should
have a SteppIR - the bidirectional mode should be really helpful.  However, we
really appreciated the FT5000 and its filter capabilities on this band.  That
radio is quite amazing!

20M was open a LOT.  Middle of the night I had a JA run and worked Hong Kong,
Thailand, etc.  The band that keeps on giving.

40 just didn't seem to work out for getting a run going.  We actually had a run
on Sunday but the noise was TREMENDOUS!  We were loud and got most S&P
contacts first call unless K3LR or whomever was there at the same time.  But
did I mention it was LOUD??  Rich tried running split but it never materialized
into a run despite finding good listening below 7125. It also didn't seem like
there were many EUs running split either, or at least not like found in CQWW.

80 was another band where although we felt loud, a run was tough. Lots of 1
call responses to S&P calls but runs were not forthcoming.

160 - really appreciated the Caribbean and SA mults.  We did get EU stations
also but less than the Caribbean SA.  As you'd expect, if we had always
remembered to move to 160 at about the top of the hour I'd pick up new mults we
might have done better there…

Something that was unexpected was that although we were in an active run it
seemed to take forever to get spotted!  Often we'd find ourselves working
strings of 5 - 10 QRP stations one after another.  Then finally we'd get
spotted and the flood gates would open. Not sure of the cause but maybe the
progression to point and click method of operation rather than tuning the band
has something to do with it?

Issues: (Did I mention Murphy??)

A cable that has been in place since I bought the RigBlaster Pro years ago (it
came with it) decided to become intermittent! Both microphone and computer
audio was not making it to the radio.  If you moved it JUST right all was well.
 It's not fixed yet...

The big Force antenna is on a US Towers where the entire tower rotates.  Most
of the time...  Well at one point on Sunday it stopped.  Ice??  Tangled cable??
 Nope.  didn't see anything wrong so came back in, got a can of WD-40 and
squirted the big main bearing at the top and off it went.  Another thing to
work on when the 4 ft of snow at the tower base finally melts.  

Computer video card - Suddenly decided to make one of the 2 monitors go bonkers
and only show window outlines. No contents, just outlines. RF?? I also was
getting a herringbone pattern on the screen on 160 which never happened before.
 So, another thing to work on...

OK so that's enough. I'll print this out and file it for next contest season.
Hopefully the notes will help it got smoother next year.


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