[3830] SS SSB K4XD SO Unlimited HP

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ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB

Call: K4XD
Operator(s): K4XD
Station: K4XD

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:  120
   40:  135
   20:  120
   15:   26
   10:    0
------------
Total:  401  Sections = 83  Total Score = 66,566

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

I'm coming out of the closet on this one guys and gals... I actually enjoyed SS
SSB.  There, I said it.  I know the coolest kids don't even own a microphone
'cuz keys and keyboards are where it's at, and yes, I do love a good CW or RTTY
test, but despite wanting to hate it, I found myself enjoying SS SSB.  I hope I
won't be ostracized now :-) !

How'd dat happen?!  Good question.  I had to look in the virtual mirror and ask
myself, "when did this start?"  I then realized a familar pattern...
weeks of dread leading up to the contest, the anticipation of endless repeats,
straining to hear signals barely flirting with the noise level, raspy vocal
cords and ringing ears... argh!  Why do we have to have phone contests?  But
then sometime in the second or third hour, when the interminably long SS
exchange becomes second nature, and I start really digging the thrill of a new
section multiplier and the countdown and hunt from 83 to zero... a wee bit of
guilty pleasure starts creeping over me.  When I take a break from the radio,
after ten or fifteen minutes I start feeling drawn back to get "just 50
more Q's..."  I wake up with a surge of adrenaline from a nap... did the
elusive PR mult get spotted while I snoozed?  Gotta go check!

And so it went in 2016 SS SSB.  I had fun.  I wanted more.  And now if I can
just remember this feeling until SS SSB 2017...

I started the setup and shakedown process early... well, early for me at least,
it was before noon on Saturday.  Why is it that N1MM+, MK2R+ and my radios
secretly file divorce papers in between contests?  #$%&!! it, that worked
last time!  Saturday's mystery was why my N1MM+ voice file function key macros
refused to make it to the radios.  Troubleshooting 101, start at one end of the
chain and keep probing until the signal disappears.  I could get N1MM+ wav files
to come out my PC speakers, so N1MM+ was off the hook.  Digging into the MK2R+
microHam USB Device Router, I loaded the N1MM+ profile and nada.  I tried the
USB Device Router's own DVK, and it didn't send any sound to the radio either. 
OK, something's messed up with the config here.  On to the audio settings panel.
 Looks fine.  Long boring story short, switching from CmCmA to ABA made the DVK
start working.  I'm sure if I pored over the manual I could learn why, but
honestly, this thing is a bit too all-singing all-dancing for me.  I appreciate
configurability, but OMG, sometimes there are just too many options and they all
have to line up perfectly.  I've threatened to toss it and go with something
simpler a hundred times, but after pounding my forehead flat against the
tabletop, I eventually get it working and move on to the next problem.

Next, tuning up the N1MM+ macros.  In another one of those "how does this
happen?" scenarios, my macros all seemed to point to the wrong directory
to find the wav files.  The error message seemed to say "nothing found in
directory X" but when I looked in that directory, the wav files where
there.  I ended up copying the files into four different places and then it all
magically* started working.  

*magically = I somehow stumbled on the solution as in 'even a blind squirrel
occasionally finds an acorn'

Never one to leave well enough alone, I started wondering if I could get N1MM+
to voice serial numbers.  Yeah, I know it can sound obnoxious and off-putting
to have a Q with what sounds like an IVR system (hmmm, that might be cool...
next contest my macros will start with "thanks for contacting K4XD. 
Please pay attention as our menus have changed..."), but the tinkerer in
me just had to see if I could get it working.  More head-scratching and
puzzling error messages.  I spent an embarrassing amount of time fiddling with
it until it dawned on me that the {OPERATOR]/ string was part of the filename
and I was breaking it by sticking #, in between the / and the filename. 
D'oh!!!

OK, that's working, now what?  Prefills... another hotly contested (bad pun,
sri) topic, but it saves some typing and yes, I log what I hear not what it
says.  I load the prefill file and enter my own call to check it out.  Wha..? 
I tab to the exchange entry field and it's blank... but the message area
beneath, where the bearing shows up, has my check and section showing.  I try
it again, and again... lots of Google searches for "N1MM prefill no
worky" but nothing.  Oh well, I'll just read the fine print under the
exchange box although it kind of defeats the purpose of saving on typing.

OK, N1MM+ seems happy other than prefills, it's 2035, time to check the bands. 
Lots of guys "warming things up" on 20M, hey, is there a contest
starting in half an hour?  I had no idea, I just felt like calling CQ here on
20M and talking about the weather... maybe I'll join the fun later and see what
it's all about!

I saw VY1AAA spotted, and man, isn't it nice for NT to be a relatively easy
mult?  Thanks guys!  I kinda miss the epic pileups though...

2100 rolled around and I heard the CQer mystically transform into a contester. 
Actually, it was 20:59, but hey, who's keeping track?  At 2100 I started
S&P'ing on 20.  I type in the first call and hit space.  Hey, prefill is
working?!  How'd 'dat happen?!  Then it dawns on me... tab from the callsign
box = no pre-fill, space from it = prefill.  Something else to forget when it
happens to me again in a year or so...

At this point I'm still not sure how many hours I'm going to put into this
thing, but I know I'm good for at least 83 Q's, so I start looking for the red
spots.  My first 15 Q's were all mults, hey, I'm almost 20% of the way to a
sweep!  

---Begin boring introspection---

Another confession - my appetite for the sleep-deprived, 24 hour grind has
lessened in recent years, and the thought of what it was going to take to beat
last year's score was actually de-motivating me.  I had to do some
reflection... did I still love radio?  Yes!  Did I still love making lots of
Q's?  Yes!  So what was bugging me?  I realized that feeling like I had to do a
full contest turned it into a job.  Knowing that I couldn't leave the chair made
me feel almost trapped there.  So I decided this time, I would spend time doing
what was FUN, and get up whenever I felt like it.  Bingo!  Mind games, yes, but
taking the pressure off changed everything.  I focused on enjoyment, and did
what I felt like doing.  I chased mults. I chased The Sweep.  I
"DX'ed" in the pileups.  I S&P'd when I got tired of running.  I
S&P'd when I could't find a run frequency wider than 1 kHZ.  When the guy
2.5 kHz away on 80M complained about splatter, I moved.  When the SSTVers 4 kHz
away jammed me, I moved.  When I hit a technical problem, I stopped to solve it
and didn't worry about my rate. And... it made me happy!  

No, I didn't beat any personal records, win a certificate or earn bragging
rights.  But I probably spent more hours, got more points for PVRC, and am
looking forward to the next one way more than if I had attempted the grind. 
Baby steps.

---End of boring introspection---

In the first 30 minutes I put WTX, CO, SD, SDG, NM, AZ, AB, MAR, MN, SV, VI
STX, NE, NT, NC, and SK in the log.  They were joined in the second 30 minutes
by LA, WWA, IA, SF, UT, MO, WY, KS, WI, MB, RI, and SCV.  All on 20M.  Things
were off to a good start!  Several in there that had defeated sweeps in years
past.  The next hour brought me WMA, BC, NTX, EB, WV, OK, ND, ID SB, PAC and
LAX, the last four on 15M.  The crew at WX0ND was everywhere all weekend - it
was hard to miss ND.  ORG and IN wrapped up my session as we had to go out for
my daughter Elyse's birthday dinner, which kept me away from the dials until we
got home at 0230.  But then my wife felt ill, and I didn't want her to be alone
at the opposite end of the house, so I hung things up for the night and
unfortunately completely missed 80M the first night, and only had 2 Q's on 40.

No alarm set and I found myself waking up at 1115 - whoa!  Made coffee and got
to the radio by 1130, and 80M was in great shape.  Very quiet, plenty of room
to stretch out, and since I hadn't worked anything on 80 yet, plenty of targets
for S&P.  As expected, it was dominated by stations East of the Mississippi
and the new sections included AR, GTA, ENY, MDC, OH, QC, VA, ONS, NH, AL, NFL,
MI, IL, EMA, ME, EPA, TN, NNJ, SC, WNY, ONE, WPA, NLI, and VT.  One westerly
mult snuck in, MT. Yes, no VA or MDC until Sunday morning for me!

At 12:35 I decided to check out 40M and found SNJ and WCF.  40 was open to the
East Coast, one of the few times during the contest I was on the band when it
was not long.  N1MM+ told me there were mults waiting on 80M so I hopped back
down there at 12:45 and picked up KY and DE.  I'm always a bit surprised how
late in the morning 80M is productive.  I never check it out that late unless
there's a contest, but during contests, there's activity long after sunrise. 
Maybe we should all call CQ on a "dead band" more often...

More mult-chasing - around 1300 I grabbed NL, GA, ONN and SJV on 20M, then
spent a couple hours on 40 mixing S&P and running.  40 stayed
"local" the whole time.

I decided it was time for some SO2R and tuned the K3 to 20M.  Whoa, SWR was
99:1!  What was going on?  Some more step-by-step sleuthing narrowed the
problem to my ICE 419B filter.  I took it out of the circuit and the K3 was
happy once more.  Interestingly, I didn't notice any real interference between
my 20M and 40M radios without the 419B in place.  I haven't tested every
permutation of bands, running and S&P'ing without the filters, but if
things hold, I'll just leave them out as simpler is better.  Kind of scratching
my head over that one though...

By 1530 EWA, NV and OR joined the blue boxes in N1MM+'s Multipliers display.  A
couple of calls show NNY in the prefill box, but end up being from other
sections.  Uh-oh, is NNY going to be a bust this year?  Then at 15:48, bang, a
call with no prefill turns out to be from NNY so I sigh with relief as that one
drops into the "been there, done that" pile.

I spend some "DXing" time chasing a SFL mult on 20M and he's just not
hearing me.  Hmmm, wasn't SFL one of the trail of tears sections last year? 
This could be a problem.  Back to 40M and decide to run for a while.  Fifth
caller is from... SFL!  You just gotta have faith...   CT dropped in at 16:16
and now we're getting down to the short strokes on The Sweep.  N1MM+'s
multiplier box is all blue with three blank boxes, AK, MS and PR.  One call
sign keeps showing up as MS but he's not hearing me or he's on a non-contest
band.  Then at 1700, an AK station shows up on 15M.  I pop up from 40 and he's
not busy.  Drop in my call... nothing.  Again... CQ in my face.  Frustrating! 
After five minutes, I notice the yellow 180 degrees light on my SteppIR
controller box is lit.  Another forehead slapper - my rotator is pointed at AK,
but the SteppIR is "reversed" and pointing at the Bahamas!  Push the
Norm button, the stepper motors whir, and then try again.  Bingo!  First call. 
I guess it just wasn't a long path kinda day.

Heeding the PVRC SS gurus advice, I steer clear of the lovely, quiet, wide-open
spaces of 15M and go find a spot on the cramped, noisy, splattery beast that is
20M on a SS day.  I find a not too bad spot and start running.  My callers are
all West of the Mississippi, except for one... Mississippi!  Yay!   Now only PR
eludes me for The Sweep.

I continue running on 20M for another hour, and then decide to hop up to 15M
because that's often where I've found PR on a Sunday afternoon.  Still no red
spots and the PR box is blank in the N1MM+ multiplier box, but hey, what's
this... a station with a KP4/ prefix?  I dial him up, make the call, and bingo,
PR and The Sweep.  Not sure why he didn't show up as "red" in the
spots and mults box, but glad I checked 15!  As much as I enjoy the hunt, it's
fun when it's done and I know another Clean Sweep mug will join the
collection.

What next?  I decided to fire up both radios and put the K3 on 40M and the Icom
756PII on 20M.  I find myself gravitating toward the Icom for two reasons - the
built-in spectrum display and the 1KW amp.  The K3 has 500W so it's more than
enough for a domestic contest, but my confidence is always higher when I'm
pushing a KW down the coax.  Yeah, more head stuff.   But the spectrum display
is a big help when looking for a spot to run, so I decide to fire up the
LP-PAN2 that's hooked to the K3 and run the NaP3 spectrum display.  Naturally,
it's not working.  Now what?  More wire tracing... and the audio cables from
the LP-PAN2 box go ... nowhere!  Oh yeah, I borrowed that sound card box for a
RemoteRig experiment.  A few experiments (was it Mic In or Line In?) and it's
working again.  It's actually a very nice spectrum display, and for the rest of
the contest it provides a very helpful way to see that indeed, there are no
empty spots on 40M to run in.  Isn't technology wonderful?

After a dinner break I head back to the radio, telling my wife that yes, we can
watch another episode of Blue Bloods after I hit 400 Q's, my new "enough is
enough" goal for the contest.  I'm at 362, how long can it take?  What, am
I nuts?  It's the last 90 minutes of the contest and the only people left on
the bands are the guys who have been on all weekend (heard 'em, worked 'em
already) and one or two guys giving out single and low double digit serial
numbers and working a pileup that would put BS7 to shame.   I tried running.  I
tried SO2R and 80 and 40.  I tried S&P on every spot that W3LPL's lovely new
fast cluster node could dish out.  And finally, just before 0200, I worked
number 400 and then 401 for good luck.

Yup, with log checking I'll dip below 400 but I'd remember the wrath of my XYL
for missing "TV Time" far longer than I'll remember that I only
worked 385 good ones in 2016 SS SSB.  

But it was fun.

73,
Rowland K4XD


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