[3830] 432SprngSprnt K2EZ/R Rover LP

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                    432 MHz Spring Sprint

Call: K2EZ/R
Operator(s): 
Station: K2EZ/R

Class: Rover LP
QTH: 
Operating Time (hrs): 4

Summary:
Total:  QSOs = 44  Mults = 27  Total Score = 1,188

Club: 

Comments:

My best 70cm sprint, but in a word UGH. A secong UGH and more UGHs. Not what I
would call a good sprint. Some people were saying conditions were on the good
side while others said they were rough. 

My biggest problem was my IC-7000 and this is not my first frustration with this
radio. First issue is poor frequency stability. I can petty much count on having
to dial 500 Hz to 1.5 kHz low and it drifts.

Second problem it is automatically switches to a narrow CW filter when going
from SSB to CW. I don't need narrower CW filter on 70cm, I like it wider to make
searching easier, and I can hear the signals better on the wider filter setting
than the narrow one. This has been a long term annoyance and I spent time trying
to dig up the filter settings the day before, but found CW can only be set to
250 Hz, 500 Hz or 1 kHz. If it could go wider, I can't find it. So working with
1 Khz is better than 500 Hz, but it is still not as good as just operating CW.
Oh and remember that frequency stability issue (much less frequency stability of
others), finding people even on a sched contact is easier with wide filter.

Next problem is the switching from SSB to CW. This rig shifts the passband
between SSB and CW so, even when I find someone on CW listening in SSB mode,
when switching to CW I lose them and have to re-tune. When signals are weak it
can be hard to re-acquire.

And the absolute taking the cake for the night, apparently in my poking at the
settings the night before I managed to enable 1Hz tuning steps. The fast rate
tuning that I could access with a button was 1 kHz steps. One waaaaaay to
sloooooooow,,,,and the other way too fast! I know the fast rate can be adjusted,
but it is buried in a menu. I have usually left it fast because during the major
contests people often want to jump up 50 kc or so from where I am tuned. It is
okay when I have a normal tune rate, but with 1Hz steps, this was simply batty.
As a practical matter I had to use 1kC steps for searching and with steps that
big I had to have the wider SSB filter for sure, but even that became sketchy
for finding CW signals. Too often I would find a CW signal, switch to CW and
then go to adjust to find them forgetting I was in 1kc steps and then be 10 kc
away before I realize it and then lose them. 

It was simply maddening. It required too much looking at the radio which pretty
much knocked out on the move operation. 

More mundane stuff that didn't help was heavy fog. I was in pea soup thru most
of my run thru FN30 behind a truck. It was hard to find the spots that I
typically pull over and couldn't even spot the armstrong tower which is a big
landmark of where I know it is good to pull over. 

The operational difficulties chewed up lots of time. The fog also made for very
slow going for 50% of my drive distance. I had almost no time to get on KST and
after the first couple hours there aren't many randomly calling or listening
anymore.

I see significant room for improvement. The IC-7000 needs to be completely
relegated to a backup rig.


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