[RTTY] AA5AU Melee Score

[Don Hill AA5AU]

2003 TARA RTTY Melee

CALL:  AA5AU
QTH:  LA
CATEGORY:  SOABHP
SO2R

Band	QSO	US	VE	DX
80M	32	3	0	0
40M	102	7	0	13
20M	210	31	4	11
15M	206	3	1	21
10M	20	0	0	0
Total	570	44	5	45

Score:  53,580

Comments:
I ran high power to see if there would be any RFI problems on my newly
purchased Dell PC.  With propagation as bad as it was, I'm glad I did.

Friday night I tried many ways to crash WriteLog and Windows XP on the
new PC.  I was able to do it twice playing with stuff you'd never normally
do while contesting, like changing the Windows themes, etc.  I guess because
I now have 1 GB of RAM I can do anything I want.  That's not true. hi

The new PC performed like a champ.  With only one COM port (which I used
for FSK transmission with MMTTY), I installed a Keyspan USB-to-Serial 
adapter (on COM4) for radio control.  I tried to install my Belkin F5U103
USB-to-Serial adapter (it installed OK as COM5), but when I went to 
activate it, I got the blue XP screen of death.  I tried several times
but it never worked.  Therefore, I was not able to activate my DXP-38 in
the 2nd Rttyrite window and I missed it greatly.  I will go ahead and
purchase a Byterunner 4-COM port board next week and have it ready for 
the OK contest if I'm not hunting duck.  Will definitely have it for RU.

I only operated 14.5 hours of the contest.  I thought I would like the
new longer hours but activity was so slow Sunday afternoon that I found
myself falling asleep.  So I took a 1.5 hour nap.  I think the new format
will catch on in future years, so I fully support it.

I did have RFI problems into the network and dropping out the Internet
connection to the packetcluster.  I've not had this problem with high power
before, but I'm not really concerned with it.  I'm convinced that I will
go Low Power in next month's ARRL RTTY Roundup.  So I don't need
high power or the Internet connection then.

K0HW in SD was my only 5-band QSO.  Missed DE, MT, UT & ND states and
there wasn't much from Canada.  I did have fun but it got really slow at
times.  Thanks to TARA for the contest.  Thanks to everyone for the QSO's.

73,
Don AA5AU
http://www.aa5au.com
http://www.rttycontesting.com