[3830] NAQP SSB W4PK M/2 LP

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                    North American QSO Party, SSB - August

Call: W4PK
Operator(s): W4PK
Station: W4PK

Class: M/2 LP
QTH: VA
Operating Time (hrs): 4:32
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:           
   80:   37    13
   40:   45    22
   20:   28    16
   15:           
   10:           
-------------------
Total:  110    51  Total Score = 5,610

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Team: 

Comments:

What can I say?  I am set up for SO2R and for a change I thought I would give it
a try on this mode.  But I was really mistaken!  

I first started out on 10 & 15M calling CQ sequentially on each band but
there was absolutely no propagation anywhere on either band. After about 15
minutes of this I gave up and went to 20 and 40M and started searching and
pouncing on both bands.  But I was soon told that I had terrible audio on the
20M band, which is my K3.  So I spent the next few hours trying to figure out
what I had not set up right.  I finally solved it by disabling my computer's
speaker output (even though I had its volume control set to zero). Everything
returned to normal once I did this.

The next problem I had was that my response text to give my name and state was
rather "longish" and when I tried to re-record it
"on-the-fly" (N1MM+ ctrl-shift-fcn key) to a shorter version I ended
up with "nothing".  After trying to do this several times I gave up
and restored that function key (F2) wav file using last week's Windows 7
backup.

The only successful run I had was on 80M but after 19 Q's my voice completely
gave out!  And this was using canned fcn-key messages where I only spoke the
caller's call sign!  I can see where running is the only way to go if you want
to achieve rate, but I just cannot do that on SSB!  After the 10/15M debacle I
never did try to alternate CQing on two bands again.  Did I mention that SSB is
my least favorite mode?

Propagation was long and fading on both 20 & 40M.  80M was much better and I
was able to work many of the PVRC folks on this band.  I did listen to 160M some
but I did not hear anyone.  Overall the QRN made copying difficult on all bands.
 

Thanks to all who put up with my rather longish canned messages.

73, Sam W4PK


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