[3830] CaQP AI6DO SO(A) QRP

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                    California QSO Party - 2021

Call: AI6DO
Operator(s): AI6DO
Station: AI6DO

Class: SO(A) QRP
QTH: LAX
Operating Time (hrs): 9

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs
--------------------
  160:            
   80:   39       
   40:   71      5
   20:   49      6
   15:   28      2
   10:    3       
--------------------
Total:  190     13  Mults = 39  Total Score = 23,127

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Comments:

Put in my most significant CQP effort ever this year, logging over 200 QSOs,
more than I've ever done in a contest when operating my own substandard station.
Missed the sweep by only 19 mults. So close! 

I'm not a big fan of CQP since a California station really needs to run to have
anyone to work on the high bands, and I feel like an alligator even at QRP,
especially on 20. Thanks to everyone who called, and my apologies to those I
couldn't hear. My station is weak and my copying skills at very low S/N are even
weaker. 

Started out on Saturday with a fan dipole for 10 and 15. Found only one workable
station on 10, and 15 was slow going. After lunch, I took down the fan dipole
and put up the vertical for 20. Noise was pretty high, with intermittent
invading electronic QRM and rampant fade. Tried using the two elevated radials
as a 20 meter dipole but the noise was just as high and signals were an S unit
down, so I stuck with the vertical configuration. Runs were particularly
unproductive. Eventually gave up on 20 at 2230z, taking down the vertical and
putting up the fan dipole for 20, 40, and 80, which provided good action with a
nice low noise floor on 40 and decent conditions on 80 until I had to go QRT at
0500z. Did a lot of search and pounce on 40 and 80 picking up local stations and
few mults but with a much faster QSO rate than I get running while QRP. Oddly, a
few stations with higher QSO numbers earlier in the contest sent much lower
numbers later. I asked for repeats and got back the same thing I copied the
first time so that's what I logged. Not sure what was up with that. Spent a
total of 7 hours operating on Saturday, plus about an hour of antenna setup and
changes. 

Didn't get out of bed until after 1400z on Sunday so I skipped 80 and 40 and put
up the vertical for 20. Still had a lot of noise and electronic QRM. Ran on 20
for about 90 minutes until lunch, only picking up 8 mults, then took down the
vertical and put up the fan dipole for 10 and 15. Mostly running for an hour
netted a whopping total of 7 contacts. Went QRT at 2000z after the magic smoke
had escaped from my head. Total of about 2 hours operating on Sunday, which felt
a lot longer, plus about half an hour of antenna changes. 

This old Dell laptop was really bogged down running nothing but N1MM Logger+.
Reloading the bandmap seemed to be the biggest culprit. I had to kill the
bandmap, telnet, and all other windows save the Entry and Log windows to
minimize the lag. As a result, my "assistance" ended up being just
using the Reverse Beacon Network website to see how the other bands were doing
and to avoid running on occupied frequencies too weak for me to hear. Despite
all that, I still had the computer lock up a couple of times in the middle of a
QSO, leaving the radio inoperable even by paddle. Also, a few times, N1MM didn't
log the QSO property, losing the received number, and once even lost the
caller's callsign! Possible I just fat-fingered something during one of those
lag sessions, but who knows. As a result, I had to guess at a few of those
exchanges and update the log by memory before the memory faded too much. Time
for a new computer, I think. 

KX3 and PX3 at 5 W
Inverted-vee fan dipoles for 10, 15, 20, 40, 80
MFJ-1979 vertical for 20


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