[Orion] Orion in CQWW CW

[by way of Bill Tippett <btippett at alum.mit.edu>]

                     CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW
	I'll write more about Orion later but thought you might
like to see these early results.  Scott W4PA had a very nice
SOAB score (7.78M) operating NT1Y but I haven't seen the
other top scores yet.

				73,  Bill  W4ZV

Call: W4ZV
Operator(s): W4ZV
Station: W4ZV

Class: SOSB/10 HP
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
  Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
   160:
    80:
    40:
    20:
    15:
    10: 1593    34      122
------------------------------
Total: 1593    34      122  Total Score = 707,148

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

Hee hee hee!  Just when we thought 10 was dead it up and surprises us even more
than in the SSB weekend.  If my memory is correct, this would have been a new
record in 1999 (but about 30% down from my 2000 record).  Conditions to JA were
MUCH better than in SSB but they were still quite weak and I got a good chance
to try Orion's NR on signals at the noise floor.  I missed Zones 18, 21, 
23, 26,
28 and 29.  Conditions were there for 21, 28 and 29 but I never came across 
them
since I was running most of the time.  I was pleasantly surprised to have a VU2
call just as in the SSB weekend.  I missed Zone 40 in the SSB, but worked 4 
TF's
this weekend!

This was my first CW contest with Orion and it performed just as well as in the
SSB contest.  On Sunday, I got sandwiched between a couple of loud EU's that I
am quite certain would have wilted the MP's front end.  I would probably have
moved with the MP but I just stayed put with Orion and cranked the roofing
filter down from my normal 1000 Hz setting to 500 Hz and occasionally 250 Hz.
Unfortunately Orion is not magic and cannot remove the bad clicks and phase
noise that some stations seem to have in contests!  I am generally not a 
big fan
of DSP stuff, but I found Noise Reduction was quite useful for very weak 
signals
at the noise floor.

After both CQ WW weekends, I've now graduated from my Orion Learner's Permit to
an actual Driver's License.  ;-)  The next step is to use it in the world's
toughest receiver test...the CQ 160 CW.

73,  Bill  W4ZV