[3830] WPX SSB KM4SII SOAB TB-Wires Youth LP

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                    CQWW WPX Contest, SSB - 2022

Call: KM4SII
Operator(s): KM4SII
Station: KM4SII

Class: SOAB LP
Class Overlay: TB-Wires Youth 
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): ~34
Remote Operation

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:     
   80:  177
   40:  334
   20:  168
   15:  258
   10:   76
------------
Total: 1013  Prefixes = 519  Total Score = 1,231,068

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

Another fun contest operating my home station remotely from my dorm room
(obviously with no roommate or else that would put SSB out of the equation) at
Auburn University. I only intended to do a casual effort, but soon found myself
sucked into the contest vortex! As always, I was SO1R with simple wire
antennas.

Some of you may have come across me running (and occasionally during search and
pounce) and though to yourself: "Wow, Mason sure sounds a lot different
than I remember!" As I'm sure those of you that gave me a call when I was
calling CQ could tell, I was giving a trial run of W1VE's DVK software.

Why use a DVK synthesizer, you might ask? Well, I struggle with some vocal cord
issues meaning I lose my voice easily. Thus, for the past several years, a
full-out SSB contest effort has just not been possible. However, thanks to the
DVK, I was able to make it through the weekend and not completely lose my voice!
While searching and pouncing I used my own voice since a synthesizer simply
cannot replace a human voice when it comes to clearly repeating a miscopied
callsign or serial number where different phonetics, pausing, and inflection is
a must. But for running, the DVK does the trick just fine!

As those of you that worked me at the beginning of the contest may have noted,
the audio from the software "out-of-the-box" is a bit choppy with a
number of the characters getting cut off. So after the first hour of the
contest, I took nearly an hour off playing around in audacity to fix the audio
files so that everything came out cleaner. It still needs a little work, but
after that, things sounded a good deal better.

A few of the comments from fellow ops included "hello robot" or
"thanks computer!" Many of the ops responded with a chuckle and gave
me their serial number in a voice mocking the way the DVK sounds. Quite
entertaining!

Enough about the DVK, though. Conditions this weekend were quite good, although
20m Sunday morning was notably poor. Thankfully, 15m and 10m made up for that at
the time. 10m was quite exceptional Sunday afternoon with booming stations from
CT, D4, South America, VK, and KH7 etc... all coming in at once! 15m on Saturday
morning was also quite good to SE Asia with Thailand in particular coming in
very strong. However, after sitting in the large pileups for those stations for
a while, I decided to move on despite how enticing the unusual DX was.

I was able to run on 80 and 40m, but other than a little bit on 15m on Sunday,
my high band QSOs were almost completely search and pounce. I was able to hit my
goal of 1,000 QSOs just before I had to go QRT an hour before the end of the
contest.

Thanks for the QSOs! 

de KM4SII - Mason 


Rig: Flex 6300

Antennas:

80: 80m dipole sloping from 70 to 40 ft
40: 40m dipole sloping from 70 to 50 ft
20: 20m delta loop at 60 ft
15: 40m dipole sloping from 70 to 50 ft
10: 20m delta loop at 60 ft


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