[3830] CQWW SSB KE3X(@N3HBX) SOAB(A) LP

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CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

Call: KE3X
Operator(s): KE3X
Station: N3HBX

Class: SOAB(A) LP
QTH: Poolesville, MD
Operating Time (hrs): 42
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:   33     7       16
   80:  113    18       53
   40:  185    23       65
   20:  436    28      106
   15:  412    25       90
   10:  209    16       50
------------------------------
Total: 1388   117      380  Total Score = 1,882,139

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

Many thanks to John N3HBX for hosting and his ongoing quest for excellence in
hardware engineering at The Farm.   Tower 2 was stuck on Europe, but it did not
impact the score.  Also thanks to Rich NN3W and Jon KL2A for splitting our
original Multi-Single plan into 3 Single-Ops, and to Mark KD4D for help with
setup.

After a visit from Mr. Murphy during Worked All Germany, I hoped he was done
visiting Maryland for a while.   He was not.   Last week I had read some
reflector posts about 'Denial of Service' attacks on Telnet posing a risk to
cluster connectivity.   Operating Assisted, I would be a dead duck.   In fact,
exactly that began 2 hours before the contest, when the VE7CC node began
dropping out.  Switching to other 'reliable' nodes like W3LPL, WR3L, W4ML, K3NC
and K1TTT had no effect.    

So for the first 24 hours of the contest, I sprinted repeatedly from the
operating position around to the internet computer server every 15-minutes to
re-set the Telnet connection.   So who says Radio Contesting is not a physical
sport?   In desperation late Saturday I tried the K3WW packet node, which
mercifully delivered a stable connection until 2000Z on Sunday, whereupon
during the final 4 hours it was back to sprinting and resetting Telnet again.  
I have no explanation why K3WW would have worked and the other nodes not.

Note:  For a 'wireless' hobby like ham radio, it seems the skill sets required
now are 'software engineer', 'networking expert' and 'hardware integrator'. 
See K1LZ's post which speaks to this.   As one who received a 'C-' in Assembler
Language Programming in college, I find the current trend quite discomforting
...

The actual error message was:

"A Telnet Communications Error Occurred."
"Error 11001.  Authoritative answer : Host not found."
"Telnet failed.  Winsock State = 4"

Has anyone else experienced this and knows the solution?  If so, please shoot
me an email.  Our configuration is N1MM Classic across a network which has
worked reliably for many years.

As for the contest itself, I had been disappointed in my CQWW results in 2015,
so I went back to basics, including reviewing an old K5ZD recommendation to
start the contest S&P'ing 20 and 40.   I am sure this is a sound strategy
under normal conditions, but this weekend it resulted in a whopping 36 QSO's in
the first hour.   A long weekend of tuning and clicking followed, with 99%
S&P overall.   I tried running at 11AM Sunday on 15 meters, but after only
7 stations called me in an hour I went back to tuning and clicking again.

Although 42 hours were spent sitting in front of the radio, the 'Off Times'
window showed only 37 hours of actual operating.   Yikes.   To quote the motto
of many Multi-Single teams at The Farm from years past under similarly horrible
propagation ... "We're too stupid to quit!"    I can't say it better
than that.

73,

Ken


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