[3830] CQ WW RTTY N1IXF SOAB LP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

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

Class: SOAB LP
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 40:44

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  State/Prov  DX   Zones
------------------------------------
   80:   93       28      14     7
   40:  252       43      51    13
   20:  437       30      67    20
   15:  488       21      74    21
   10:   31        6      11     9
------------------------------------
Total: 1301      128     217    70  Total Score = 1,320,115

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Second year trying to make a serious effort in this contest from my "Little
Pistol" home station.  My expectation were high when I saw the relatively
higher solar flux and the much lower A-index than we've had recently. Had fun
but it was much more work this year.

Before the contest, I had set up my YCCC SO2R box using the AUX port and EXTFSK
to drive the radios.  Had tested it out in advance but hours before the contest
I encountered timing problems generating FSK that way.  Instead of taking the
long nap that I planned to have before the contest, I had to abandon SO2R and
reconfigure my station back to my old home-brew com port interface.  Argh! 
I'll figure this out yet.

As others have noted, 10M was dead and I really missed the additional 317 Q's I
had there last year.  With 10M out of the picture, it that meant that everyone
was squeezed into the RTTY contest sub-bands on 20 & 15 during the day. 
This made for wall-to-wall signals and very few spots for a LP station to find
a run frequency.  Whenever I did find a hole and established a run I would
quickly be squeezed out by HP stations moving in to either side.  That was
challenging to say the least and meant that I spent more time than I would have
liked in S&P mode.  As I swept the bands looking for new stations and a
place to call, it seemed I had no trouble finding stations engaged in frequency
"wars".  Maybe it was my mindset but this seemed to be more of a
problem than past contests.

To keep things interesting I found myself setting little goals like trying for
WAS even though they were one-pointers.  Never heard ND, SD, VT and while I
kept running into other run stations working UT I wasn't able to work them
myself.  Tried to generate some action with SA but no such luck.  I also made
an effort to look for openings to Asia but only managed to work 1 JA yet it was
a highlight to have YB1UUN call me as I was working EU on 15.

Used MMTTY and 2Tone to decode and, for the first time at my station, 2Tone
seemed to provide a bunch of decodes that MMTTY never pulled out.  I think this
combination is good but do want to try GRITTY as well.

Station:
FT1000MP, N1MM, MMTTY & 2Tone
SteppIR 3el @ 55'
Inverted Vees on 40M & 80M

Thanks for the Q's and I'm really looking forward to CQWW SSB from W1TJL... MS
HP is way more civilized than SOAB LP: good company, fewer hallucinations,
better rest and dining room meals.

73,
Rich N1IXF


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