[3830] SS SSB K4XD SO Unlimited HP

[webform at b4h.net]

                    ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB - 2021

Call: K4XD
Operator(s): K4XD
Station: K4XD

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:   0
   80:  37
   40:  12
   20:  29
   15:   5
   10:   0
------------
Total:  83  Sections = 83  Total Score = 13,778

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

So near and yet so far... close but no cigar... almost only counts in
horseshoes...

TL:DR; I tried for "84 sections in 84 QSO's" but got stiffed by MAR
:-).  83 out of 84 
sections worked, far too many hours spent dial-twisting... well, actually
panadapter clicking,
but ... it was fun!

Travel has kept me away from SS the last couple of years, but finally this year
things lined
up and I could get back in the chair.  My appetite for 24 hour marathons has
largely evaporated.
Sorry, but BIC for that long = Sore BIC, droopy eyelids and an unhappy spouse,
so I've decided
my new motto is Focus on Fun.  

I've always enjoyed the hunt for a Clean Sweep and achieved it more often than
not, but
I never tried the "get 'em all with one Q per section" challenge and
decided to give it a try.
Plus, while I enjoy SSB, it's not my favorite mode and I figured making 84 Q's
was well within
reach without straining ye old vocal chords.

Saturday afternoon was a perfect pre-Sweepstakes day.  Clear skies, a bit of
chill in the air,
the faint odor of smoke from the neighbor's burning leaf pile, and the
anticipation of the chase
all combined to raise my excitement and anticipation to a level I haven't felt
in, well, the years
since my last SS.

And of course no SS prep is complete without a last-minute, totally uncalled
for, tremendously 
risky and dumb change to my station's hardware.  2021 SSB was no exception.  My
current shack 
setup has evolved over the past two years since moving to Caswell County in NC. 
I decided to forgo
drilling holes in the house and running lightning attractors through the walls,
and instead setup
the shack in a nicely appointed outbuilding nearby.  The previous homeowner used
it for a shop
for his fishing tackle business, and with 100MB Ethernet connecting it to the
house, it was the 
perfect place for my "walking distance remote" radio shack.  I could
drill it full of holes
for coax and control wires with no guilt feelings, and while I pray for the Lord
to provide 
lightning with more attractive alternatives in the woods nearby, if the worst
happens, at least
it's unlikely to set the house on fire :).  Please let me not regret typing
these words!

I could play radio in the ham shack, but from my time working K4VV/W4AAW
remotely, I've become quite
comfortable doing remote operation.  It was a no-brainer to set things up this
way at home, so my
home office with a comfortable chair and dual monitors is my main operating
position.  

The shack is equipped with a Flex 6600M and an Elecraft KPA1500.  An Antenna
Genius switch connects
them with a 40-10M Spiderbeam and a 160-10M Cobra Ultralight doublet.  All three
connect to the LAN 
which minimizes cabling and makes remote control a breeze.  Well, relatively :)
!

Back to the last minute hardware project.  I don't do a lot of SSB outside of
contests, and the weak
point in my remote setup has been the lack of a working footswitch for remote
PTT.  I have a number of 
ways to trigger PTT - the MOX button in Flex's Smart SDR, the TX button in
DXLab's Commander, and 
even a button on a NuMark midi controller via N4PY's Pegasus software.  But in a
contest, a footswitch
is, for me anwyay, the best way to go.  

I found a writeup in the Flex radio forums on how to wire a footswitch between
pins 7 & 8 of a DB-9,
then plug that into a serial to USB converter, and set up a PTT control in the
Flex CAT software.
I did all that... and it almost worked :-\ .  The MOX button lit up, but no
audio made it to the 6600.

I did a little more research and found a writeup about using pull-up resistors
and de-bouncing the footswitch,
but 1800Z was only 20 minutes away and I decided to postpone the project for a
rainy day.  [Update - 
today's a rainy day.  I added the pull-up resistor and used the wonderful free
FRStack software to 
implement a 100% working, lovely remote PTT footswitch for Smart SDR.  Yay!]

VOX was an obvious alternative to the footswitch and I did use VOX for the first
few hours of contesting.
But my sensitivity settings must have been off slightly because it only worked
some of the time.  After 
dealing with dropouts and repeats for a while, I decided to find a keyboard
option.

Since I was only going for 84 Q's, my workaround was to let N1MM send the PTT by
assigning the {TX} command
to a function key.  Hitting the function key puts the Flex into TX mode, and
hitting Escape puts it back to RX.
With a little practice, it became second-nature to hit F4 to send my call during
S&P, then F3, speak the 
serial number, then hit F2 to send the rest of the exchange, and ESC to get back
to RX.  Kind of clunky
but it worked.

On to the contest and my "83 outta 84 ain't bad" adventure :) .

I did some tuning around 20 minutes before the start of the contest and couldn't
find anyone "warming up"
the frequency which had me wondering if I had the right day.  I double-checked
and indeed, SS was
happening in 20 minutes.  But when the time came, boom, the 20M band exploded
with signals.  Let the
fun begin!

I hooked up the N1MM+ Telnet window to my local VE7CC cluster software and
filtered out everything but SSB
spots.  I started tuning up the band and the first thing I noticed was how much
nicer the audio was with 
the Flex than my previous rigs.  I was used to SSB contests being a constant
struggle to decipher 
signals through the QRM and QRN.  But with the Flex (and no, I have no $
connection other than sending 
them a big check for the rig :), the vast majority - 95%? - of the signals I
heard were easy to understand.
It sounded more like each signal was in its own channel, even though they were
cheek to jowl on the waterfall.

Stations and sections dropped into the log with ease - SV, STX, ORG, AZ, SDG
(nice to get that one early!),
OR, UT, SK, NV, WWA... can you tell I was on 20 :) ?!  

At this point I realized I'd better have some visual way of telling what
sections I still needed.  
Doesn't N1MM+ have a window showing mults... hmmm.. a quick Google search got me
to the right N1MM+ help page,
and jogged my rusty memory of how to find it.  Windows -> Multipliers ->
Sections/States.  Much better!
Plus, the sections I still needed were now lit up with red boxes if a spot
rolled in for that section.  Sweet!

Going for 84/84 is a totally different contest experience.  It's much more like
DX'ing... maybe closer to
the CQ Marathon with the added, totally self-imposed restriction of working one
and only one station per section.
Even if the spot said "14.171 is SV," I still sat and listened to at
least one Q to make sure the op was really 
sending that multiplier.  After all, if the spot was wrong and I made the
contact and it turned out to be a duplicate
of a section I already worked, I would still feel obligated to log it - and
there goes the 84/84 quest.  At the
start of the contest, this was pretty easy because everyone was busy and the
wait was short.  But toward the latter
stages it was more suspenseful - if someone is calling CQ for two minutes with
no contact, and the spot said they 
were from a section I needed... what to do?  Do nothing and they might QSY or
worse, QRT.  Call and find out the spot
was wrong and my whole quest was kaput.  Fortunately, the contacts I needed all
stayed on through at least one
call before mine, so this was more of a worry than a problem.

I spent the evening on 40 and 80, using a combination of spots and band scans. 
N1MM+ sends spots to Smart SDR where
they are displayed above the signal on the panadapter.  It was really easy to
move up the band and see the signals
without spots and listen to them to see if they were anything "new"
for me.  The waterfall also made it easy to see 
exactly where to click to tune to the next station up the band, and the mouse
wheel provided the fine tuning 
to zero in on a clear signal.  

Yes, this is about as far from "a boy and his radio" as you can get. 
What can I say, I like tech.  Remember... fun!
I finished the evening early, at 23:50, with 20 sections in the log including PE
as the last one of the day.  
Watched some TV with the XYL and hit the sack.

Up the next morning at 0900, got a cup of Joe and back to the "rig,"
if a PC connected via the LAN can be called that.
I got on 80 and started reeling in the MidWest.  KS, IN, MI... then SC, GA, ND,
RI, ONS, VT, WCF, GTA - which makes me
think "Grand Theft Auto" :) - OH, NNJ, CT.  Stopped for breakfast at
12:43 with 61 sections in the log, finishing with MB
on 40.  A good haul for the early AM!

Got back on at 1330 and bagged PR, NL, MS, SD on 20, back to 40 for NLI, QC, WI
on 20... following the little red boxes
in N1MM+.  Still fun!

In case you're wondering, this is NOT a rate game!  N1MM+'s Info box was
scowling at me... "29 minutes since your last QSO!  
Wake up!"  My rate meter was pretty much in the toilet the whole contest. 
On the other hand, it was easy to catch up on 
my email and YouTube backlog with one eye on the Mult box.  But the best
contesters worked as many stations in 15 minutes 
as I did in the whole 'test.  

It also felt kind of shameful to not be passing out Q's to so many of the
deserving, especially fellow club members.  

It was easy to tell when a section everyone needed came on the air.  The pileups
were massive!  Case in point - ONN came on 
Sunday around 1600 and you'd think it was Bouvet Island!  The more savvy guys
would wait five seconds until the undecipherable
mass of callers slowed a bit and lob in their call then.  Of course with so many
calling, that "wait a bit more" behavior
just kept on rolling and pretty soon there was a mass of callers for 10 or 15
seconds after each "QRZ?"  I believe it 
was Rich, NN3W who suggested ONN go split, since he could TX below 7.125 while
the hungry masses listened up.  This was a 
great idea and mastered the pileup in a hurry.  But it also led to my only
"oopsie!!" of the contest.  I set Smart SDR
up for Split - the "B" VFO appeared on 7.159 while the "A"
VFO was listening on 7.124.  Everything looks good.  Hit the F4
key in N1MM+ and watch in horror as the TX button lit up on the A VFO and N1MM+
happily sent my call OOB.  Yikes!  I later realized
that I had to set N1MM+ to operate Split, not the Flex.  Of course a frequency
cop was waiting to pounce and 
literally a split second after N1MM+ finished saying "K4XD" he got on
and said "he's listening up!  and you're out of band!"
in a scolding tone.  Thanks dude. Of course the admonition was transmitted on
the ONN's TX frequency.  On the plus side,
the Smart SDR panadapter made it immediately and painfully obvious I was on the
wrong VFO.  

After correcting my VFO snafu, I managed to work the ONN in a few tries and
moved on to the next section.  

The "Sunday Afternoon Snoozefest" doesn't only apply to running
stations.  The rate of new section arrival slowed to two or three
per hour, so I decided I needed to set up an alerting system of some kind while
I tended to important <cough> chores <cough NFL cough>.
Easy solution - a laptop set up in the living room with a Google Remote Desktop
connection to my N1MM+ session.  Easy to watch
for a new red block in the mults needed box and head to the "shack" to
work 'em.  

By 1900 I was up to 78 sections worked.  The rag-tag collection of "still
to go" included SB (a perennial nail-biter), NT (of course!),
AK (usually in the bag by then), OK (huh?), NNY (I saw they were on 15 earlier
but too faint to work), and MAR.  If I had to guess
which of those would elude me, I probably would have guessed NT, with SB a close
second.  MAR?  No way!  

But then another of the Truths of the Pure 84/84 Quest struck me... in past
SS's, a good number of sections were acquired 
by running.  Always a nice surprise to get called by a "rare" one,
like NT.  But it happens.  However when you're going for the Pure 84/84,
you can't in good conscience run... it's all S&P.  I suppose I could have
gotten on and called "CQ MAR -only-" but what are the odds
of that working, besides sounding like some kind of weirdo.  And that meant at
least one brave soul from each of the "rare" sections
would have to be willing to get on and run, braving the kind of pileups that a
seasoned DXpeditioner craves, but a Sunday Sweepstakes
warrior might find more than little intimidating.  

Over the next four hours, one by one the sections fell into the log.  VY1CO for
the NT.  I was glad to have the KPA1500's oomph for that one.
AL2F for Alaska, ditto.  Both on 20M.  An hour later the OK box lit up red and I
found N5UM on 20, nice and loud.  I heard him earlier in the
day but conditions were crapola and he was too faint then.  But good now.  

So I'm down to two at this point - NNY and MAR.  Would NNY get back on?  Would
they be workable?  It was mid-evening here so I was guessing
anything I logged would be on 40 (most likely) or 80 (maybe).  I added another
alerting mechanism to my SEWS (Sections Early Warning System).
DXLab's SpotCollector has a "SQL Expression" (database query) you can
set up in the Email Alarms configuration.  Quick sidebar - earlier
this year I had a daliance with a few alternate logging systems - you know, one
of those seven year itch things - and ended up back home
with DXLab.  It just does everything.  Literally.  Everything else I tried had
some shortcoming - something I could easily do with DXLab 
but just wasn't possible with the alternative.  So, tail between my legs,
begging to be taken back, I returned to the amazing free software
that is DXLab.  Thanks Dave!

At 22:30 my email alarm (set up to send an SMS to my phone -- for most (all?)
carriers there is an email address that gets translated to a text message)
went off for my SpotCollector search for "NNY" in the spot notes.  But
the call wasn't the one I'd been seeing as NNY all day - the one I couldn't
hear.
Was this a false alarm?  Got on the rig, 40M, WI2E... sure enough, he's fresh on
SS, sending single digit serial numbers, and sending NNY with his
exchange.  Got him on the third try.  The pileups were there but not massive. 
Yay!

OK, one to go... MAR.  Really?  MAR?!  I had seen several alerts for MAR during
the day that turned out to be false alarms.  I'm guessing someone
had their logging software set up to send a spot when they worked someone, but
they were running, not S&P'ing.  In one case I even heard the MAR 
station but they were S&P'ing and were gone before I realized they weren't
running.  

And that's how it ended.  Another couple hours of nothing... no MAR, no Pure
84/84... just an also-ran, bridesmaid, red ribbon, 
"you got second place, son" finish with 83 out of 84.  

Sigh.

Would I do it again?  You bet!!  Why?  Fun!  
(But only ontil I do it one time :O )

73 and thanks for the (83) Q's... CU in the next one!

Rowland K4XD


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