[3830] WPX CW WX5S(@W7RN) M/2 HP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, CW - 2020

Call: WX5S
Operator(s): WX5S K6DGW AA6AA K5VWW
Station: W7RN

Class: M/2 HP
QTH: NV
Operating Time (hrs): 48
Remote Operation

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:  223
   40:  871
   20:  903
   15:  304
   10:    9
------------
Total: 2310  Prefixes = 837  Total Score = 4,613,544

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

This was our 3rd remote operation (and largest remote effort to date) from the
W7RN station. This time we had 4 remote operators and nobody operated the main
station in person!

Remote contest operation is a tricky business with many technical and
operational challenges. Since our last remote contest, we have made big
improvements in Internet reliability. We still experience audio dropouts from
the remote rigs. But this is now at a tolerable level.

W7RN uses a SoftEther VPN network and we run a distributed N1MM network.  N1MM
is very sensitive to any kind of network packet loss.  As expected, some N1MM
issues did surface. 
However our efforts to increase network reliability did pay off with fewer N1MM
failures ("bugs").

We use TeamViewer to look at and operate the Antenna and Amp controls. I, WX5S
had numerous "fights" with that program and I apologize for any of my
QLF on-the-air goofs while "fighting with the computer".

Conditions were of course bad for the West Coast. 20m was dissapointing. 
The 40m stack was destroyed during the winter and hasn't been rebuilt yet, So we
used a 2 el 40.  The big 80m antenna was stuck to the NE
and this hurt the point count to JA!  Significant blocks of time were not
available on the 2nd remote due to concurrent EME operations.
So a lot of the time, we were just M/S. Due to some unfortunate scheduling
circumstances, nobody was availble to operate the main station.

Overall, we learned a lot and had fun despite the challenges! Remote contesting
requires incremental improvements at each attempt.

I, WX5S personally missed the camaraderie of an in person team. Making
adjustments via a common social media messaging board like Slack or a Google
Hangout is just not the same.

Tom, K5RC of course gave the team great support!  There was a huge internet
meltdown on Thursday before the 
contest and K5RC got us back working Friday AM. Contesting is just a lot more
complicated than it used to be!


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