[NCC] K2UA CW Sprint

Healy, Rus RHealy@mdsroc.com
Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:06:51 -0500


>                               SPRINT SUMMARY SHEET
> 
>      Contest Date : 14-Feb-99
> 
> 
>     Callsign Used : K2UA
>          Operator : K2UA
> 
>          Category : Single Operator
> 
>  Default Exchange : # Rus NY
> 
>              Name : Rus Healy
>           Address : 5960 Canadice Hill Road
>    City/State/Zip : Springwater NY 14560-9643
> 
>         Team/Club : North Coast Contesters
> 
>    BAND   Raw QSOs   Valid QSOs   Points   Mults   
>  __________________________________________________
> 
>    80CW       96          96         96       9 -- three-element
> parasitic vert array
>    40CW       83          83         83      24 -- 40-2CD at 96 ft
>    20CW       20          20         20       8 -- Tribander at 103 ft
>  __________________________________________________
> 
>  Totals      199         199        199      41 
> 
>     Final Score = 8159 points.
> 
> What an amazing contest! I wasn't able to get on until 0125 because
> the household was suffering from a nasty stomach virus. The baby was
> pretty much over it, but my wife had spent the whole day balled up on
> the couch, so I offered to defer my starting time until the baby was
> in bed. In retrospect, I sure wish I hadn't missed that first 105
> minutes--this almost certainly would have been my first over-300-QSO
> CW Sprint--but family must come first.
> 
> Sure enough, the virus hit me three hours after the contest ended, and
> I was up all night worshipping at the porcelain throne. I was the one
> who spent Sunday balled up on the couch . . ..
> 
> In addition to enjoying the great time I always have in the CW
> Sprints, I wanted to shake down some new hardware I've built before
> the ARRL DX Contest this coming weekend. I also wanted to get more
> experience with TR Log; although I used it in making a few hundred Qs
> in the NAQP CW and in the ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes, I lacked
> comfort using it in high-rate contests. My new automatic antenna
> control box and the accompanying relay box are working great, although
> it took a good bit of added bypassing to get all the RF out and keep
> the computer noise in the computer. The control box fully incorporates
> TR's ability to use the radio A/B, CW, and PTT outputs, the inputs for
> paddle and foot switch (which I'm using for radio A/B selection), and,
> of course, serial-port radio control. The box also auto-switches
> band-pass filters. The automatic antenna selection, filter switching,
> PTT function and the parallel-port paddle inputs are the only new
> features to my station, but what excellent additions they are!
> 
> I did have some frustrations with TR that I need to better understand,
> but overall I was quite pleased with the way it played. The worst
> thing that happened was when someone asked me for the QSO number I had
> given them on another band, and I couldn't figure out how to pull it
> up! (Sorry, John!) That's seriously frustrating, coming from someone
> who has a long background with CT, in which it's super-easy to look at
> or edit anything in the log. I'm sure that after a season of using TR,
> it'll be second-nature, but right now it really keeps me on my toes.
> On the other hand, I did manage to tweak the logcfg.dat file to do
> everything I wanted--before the contest!
> 
> Can't wait to see how all this stuff plays in ARRL CW! See you all on
> the bands.
> 
> Now to go put connectors on the hardline to the new monobanders for 20
> and 15 . . ..
> 
> --73, Rus, K2UA (ex NJ2L)
> 
> __________________________
> Rus Healy
> Senior Systems Engineer, Microwave Data Systems
> Web: http://www.microwavedata.com
> Tel +1-716-242-9600
> 

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