[NCC] The OJ4M WRTC Report

[Tim Duffy K3LR]

Super great time in OH had by N9RV and K3LR

Lots of packing and lots of shipping expense helped get large Icom
radios, computer monitors and desk top computers to our host station
OH2HXT. We were in the same town as NT1N/AG9A, S50A and TJ/TO. Only
challenge at our site was line noise to the west (towards USA), but the
781 noise blankers took care of it.

The B station desk top computer had a video problem during setup and in
the process of swapping out to the back up desk top we blew the back up
computer because the 230 VAC switch was not set. Host man HXT came to
the rescue and lent us his home computer which we tore apart on the
floor and installed our hard drive and ether net card and then we were
off and running.

Our 15 M VSWR through the Dunestar was bad on SSB and that bothered me,
but there was not much we could do to fix it other than bypass the Radio
A Dunestar which created more interference for Radio B. The top ten
switching boxes needed a resistor that I did not know about for proper
80 meter Icom operation, so going to 80 was a manual process instead of
an automatic process.

RV and I passed every mult that called and we worked the B radio hard
for mults, but we seemed to be in a different contest from the mult
perspective. RV and I are still VERY bummed about this mult problem
which haunted us in 1996 as well. We had enough QSOS and our points per
QSO was above average (lots of USA QSOs).

RV did all of the A radio CW and I did all of the A radio SSB work. I
think that worked great for us.

We felt loud enough on 20 and 15, although it took several hours before
we believed we were loud enough to get good rate on 20 SSB. It also took
some time to believe we were loud enough on 15 with the VSWR
problems....

Interesting to end up in about the same place we were in 1996 relative
to the rest of the field.... Must be our place in the world.

No travel problems for either of us. The equipment crates should arrive
back in Western PA late next week and I'll reassemble the K3LR 20 and 40
Meter run stations.

73,
Timmy