[CCF] Rus DX OH0X(OH6KZP) SO CW HP

[Kim Östman]

La-aamun mailissa luvatun kaltaista "vauhtia ja vaarallisia  
tilanteita" tosiaan...! Kiitos OH-kusoista.

73
Kim OH6KZP

-----

                      Russian DX Contest

Call: OH0X
Operator(s): OH6KZP
Station: OH0X

Class: SO CW HP
QTH: Brando
Operating Time (hrs): 23
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
   Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Countries  Oblasts
----------------------------------------
    160:   237    0        42        51
     80:   417    0        59        58
     40:   600    0        69        63
     20:   616    0        77        70
     15:   414    0        79        61
     10:   191    0        57        49
----------------------------------------
Total:  2475    0       383       352  Total Score = 10,854,480

Club: Contest Club Finland

Comments:

"Staying awake for 24 hours is a great way to connect with your inner psycho,"
said a friend's unrelated Facebook wall post on Friday morning.  
Fortunately it's not quite that bad, but I did choose SOAB CW instead  
of SOAB SSB/MIX. Just
in case listening to non-stop splatter would cause my eyes to start  
twitching (cf. Homer in "The Simpsons"!) :)

I find the RDXC to be an enjoyable event with a lot of fine Russian CW  
operators. I set a new SOAB CW record as my goal and did manage to  
exceed the old record, but with insufficient log checking margin. LZ8E  
quickly pulled ahead of me at cqcontest.ru and did a superb score,  
congratulations!

Looking at my bandwise goals, I fell behind in QSOs on all bands apart  
from 15m
and 10m, where I also exceeded the expected multiplier count. All of  
this despite (or partly because of overcompensating?) being  
handicapped by not being
able to use the main antennas of those two bands. Propagation was I  
think better
than it was last year, although the incoming CME clearly impacted  
things for the
worse on Sunday. For example the UA0 stations on 15m came in with  
strong arctic
flutter since the path from here to there crosses the polar region. It  
still made for some interesting condx, however, and during the last  
hour I added nearly 1M to the score by working loads of weak but new  
oblast multipliers on 10m.

On the 4-hour drive back home I was even treated to the nice spectacle  
of visual aurora. In Finland that is quite rare down south in OH1/OH2,  
it normally
being the exclusive enjoyment of the guys up north in OH8/OH9.

Then to the "collected explanations," as the Finnish saying goes.

This contest entailed a number of technical troubles that really grate  
away at you when you're trying to give it your all. Just before the  
start the logging computer monitor gave a "warning" by going blank for  
a couple of seconds at a time, sporadically, but during the contest  
this fortunately happened only towards the very end. Win-Test/MK2R+  
also had some issue throughout the race,  with the CW speed sometimes  
suddenly rising to 40 WPM when transmission started.

The worst episode, however, was when the logging computer froze around  
05z on Sunday morning. I had changed the Radio 2 band to 10m, and the  
first transmission there caused everything to freeze. The computer did  
not respond to
Ctrl+Alt+Del, so I then turned it off with the switch. When Windows  
started up again, Win-Test would immediately crash every time I tried  
to start it by clicking the icon.

So there I was, 2000 QSOs in the pocket and 7 hours to go, with no  
logging program left...! During the following hour, after first  
determining not to quit, I resigned to moving the log file to my  
laptop, dropping most of the SO2R, and sending CW manually with the  
paddle for the rest of the contest.

While I was operating in this new manner, I thought I'd try the  
Windows "safe mode" boot to see if Win-Test would start in that  
environment after all, and in
fact it did. I then restored the Windows system registry back to what  
it was on
Saturday morning just before the contest, and miraculously enough,  
Win-Test worked smoothly again after a normal computer boot. The only  
explanation I have is that the meltdown and my ensuing hard switch  
shutdown caused some variable or
other to be lost or not to be written into the Windows registry,  
leading to the
subsequent software start-up malfunction.

Anyway, it was quite the feeling sitting there sleep-deprived and  
seeing your logging computer refuse to run the logging program, the  
key to controlling everything! Never expected that one, and it took  
some time to sort out the options in my head. Lost nearly one hour  
completely and then another partly while working paddle CW and  
fiddling to fix the issue with the main computer.

All in all, it was still a nice one. Thanks to the Brändö Island Group  
for letting me use their fine station again, and thanks to all for  
being on the air!

Kim OH6KZP