[3830] CQ WW RTTY NW6P(W9KKN) SO(A)AB HP

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                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, RTTY

Call: NW6P
Operator(s): W9KKN
Station: NW6P

Class: SO(A)AB HP
QTH: Cupertino, CA
Operating Time (hrs): 37.16

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  State/Prov  DX   Zones
------------------------------------
   80:  131       38      10    11
   40:  504       52      33    24
   20:  634       52      68    29
   15:   10        2       7     7
   10:                            
------------------------------------
Total: 1279      144     118    71  Total Score = 703,296

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

As always, thanks to Tom/NW6P for the hospitality and use of his station!

So originally, this was going to be a multi-op effort, but the other operator
wasn't feeling well and didn't make it.

But on a secondary note, I happened to be about 650,000 points away from an NCCC
5-meg point award, so I decided to go for it, and go for it I did. 

I would describe the propagation as inconsistent. I was having a lot of trouble
getting into Europe early into the openings, but when I finally did make it, it
seemed to last longer than I thought it would. There were not as many JAs as I
expected to work, but I always had a few alternative choices. 

15 meters was, as expected, super weak, 20 wasn't magic, but 40 and 80 held
their own. A few times, long paths into Europe turned out better than short
paths (I suspect that the local interference sources may have something to do
with that more than anything else.)

In the ever going quest to renovate the NW6P shack, we had just installed a new
computer (a fully loaded Intel NUC), a new ultrawide monitor, and I had been
trying to get it configured to operate this contest. Unfortunately, the Windows
10 1809 update took quite a few hours to apply and didn't finish until around 3
am Saturday. I ended up using my own Mac running parallels, but had some
problems on it Friday night during prime-time 40 meters and lost an important
hour to that. Early in the morning, while dealing with the slower rates and
configuring things between QSOs, I eventually was able to network N1MM+
instances and migrate to the new machine during the contest. I got a few other
entertaining functions working like automatic rotor control and control of the
amplifier from the operating keyboard. It is *really* nice to be able to keep
your hands on the keyboard and not have to mess with other devices (rotors,
etc.) around the shack to operate and I can see why this is such a huge priority
for some of the best in the business. 

Next project is adding SO2R/2BSIQ capabilities to the station (and the operator
too, to be fair =P) in time for some of the upcoming NCCC projects. 

Thanks for the Q's everyone! It's CQP next week, look for me on the air as K6EI
in SIER county. Will also have my good friend Max/W6BG operating NW6P in SCLA.
Make sure you give us all a call and remember: you've got to get all 58 to tune
your stations up for CQWW SSB in a week, and it's bad luck if you don't!

73 & Thanks for the Q's everyone!

-- Bill/W9KKN


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