[3830] RTTY WPX WV1K(@W1TJL) M/2 HP

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                    CQ WPX RTTY Contest - 2020

Call: WV1K
Operator(s): N1IXF W1TJL
Station: W1TJL

Class: M/2 HP
QTH: FN32ra
Operating Time (hrs): 42.8

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
   80:  281
   40:  634
   20:  965
   15:   53
   10:    0
------------
Total: 1933  Prefixes = 786  Total Score = 4,244,400

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

>From Rich, N1IXF:

What a blast!  Cndx weren't the best but we still had a lot of fun.  We debated
the category we should enter and decided that Multi-two would provide the best
opportunity, since there is no multiplier station in the Multi-Single category. 
Besides we both like to operate.

First time running an RTTY contest @ W1TJL.  We had plans to prepare in advance
for the contest by setting up 2 operating positions with all the right software,
function key messages, and testing it during the RTTY practice session on
Thursday (local) afternoon and night.  As a precursor to the WX challenges for
the weekend, we had freezing rain on Thursday and we couldn't get together at
Tom's station to set things up.  The next big WX event that conspired against us
were the high winds on Friday through Saturday that kept us from raising the
towers up to full height, a condition that persisted most of the weekend.  Not
the end of the world, but also not optimal.

We worked through the station set up in one hour before the contest start and
only had minor things to improve throughout the contest period, like optimizing
our sound card levels and little fixes to N1MM+ to get ESM to work properly for
us.  We never did get our logon to work for reporting to the online contest
distribution server so ended up showing as W1TJL.  Watching our competitors on
contestonlinescore adds another element of fun to any contest.  Hats off to the
team at K9CT, as they broke out early and became untouchable.

This was also a good opportunity to check out the station before the ARRL DX
contests.  The relay board for the antenna switching "blew-up" during
CQ WW CW and is in the process of being replaced.  That meant we had to manually
change feed-lines Field Day style... that got old fast ;o) 

20M runs were fantastic, 40M runs never produced really big rate, 80 was okay,
and on 15 we felt we were experiencing one-way propagation... we could clearly
hear EU and SA stations that couldn't hear us.

Another plus to high power RTTY and 100% duty cycle, the station stayed really
warm all weekend despite the WX outside.

Thanks for working us!  See you again.

>From Tom W1TJL:

I echo much of what Rich said above.  I had a blast!!  My first RTTY contest,
thanks so much to Rich for working to get the software set up and working.  Lots
of things to learn and it took a couple of hours to feel comfortable running. 
It is a rhythm though and finally I managed to learn the series of steps,
(tuning, keystrokes, timing, exchanges) to make a good rate (I even managed a
full hour of 122 per hour!).

I do want to compliment the N1MMLogger+ team for making the software so reliable
and easy to use.  Coupled with MMTTY and 2Tone I could not believe the accuracy
of the decodes, the ease of use and error checking (especially important for me
due to my newby-ness) that went into that amazing piece of engineering.

So some work to do for this coming weekend...  Better get started!

73, Tom


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