[3830] SS CW K5NA Single Op HP

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                    ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW

Call: K5NA
Operator(s): K5NA
Station: K5NA

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: STX
Operating Time (hrs): 17

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:   17
   40:  448
   20:  551
   15:   19
   10:    0
------------
Total: 1035  Sections = 82  Total Score = 169,740

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Comments:

After a great start, Murphy attacked me with vigor.

The second radio K3 in the SO2R setup went wacky and started having a multitude
of problems, losing audio, DSE errors, and ALC jumping to 127 watts output that
would take the second amp off line. I continued using that radio anyway. It seem
to work better when it was the run radio but failed often as the S/P radio.

I had started the contest on 20M with over 300 QSOs the first 3 hours. That's
about as good as I have ever started this contest. My hopes were high at that
point. Then I switched to 40M and other problems began. 

The main 40M antenna system started arcing and taking the (first radio) amp
off-line. I tried a back-up low 40M yagi on another tower with different coax
cabling but my QSO rate suffered with the low antenna.

So I took a break from the contest about 0100Z and pulled out the old
trustworthy AL-1500 amp and installed it with the working K3 on the 40M stack.
This is an amplifier that ignores arcing problems. It ran for a while then it
decided it didn't want to have power output anymore. It was still powered on
with with high voltage on and the fans running, but no PTT activation and no
power output. I had to take another break and re-install the sensitive amplifier
back on-line.

A little later I decided that I would try 80M with the other (wacky) radio and
discovered that band was very noisy. A quick check of the weather revealed a
line of thunder storms southeast of us. So back to 40M.

About 0600Z I realized that I had stopped having fun and threw in the towel. I
went to bed for about 7 hours. 

The rest of Sunday was just low-key SS operating between watching parts of NFL
Football.

That's my SS excuse.

73, Richard - K5NA


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