[RTTY] ARRL RTTY RU; AH6OZ/W& MSLP

[Walt Niemczura]

                   ARRL RTTY Roundup

Call: AH6OZ/W7
Operator(s): AH6OZ W7AY
Station: W7AY

Class: Multi Single LP
QTH: OR
Operating Time (hrs): 14

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
   80:   72
   40:   32
   20:   32
   15:  112
   10:   96
------------
Total:  344  State/Prov = 50  Countries = 18  Total Score = 23,392

Comments:

Back in September it looked like I would have to take a pass on this
year's Round Up. My wife was making plans to for us to go up to 
Seattle to visit our daughters. I grumbled about this to Chen in an
email and he came up with an outstanding idea; "Why not come down
to Portland and operate from my QTH". Thus the plans was originated.
Several dozen emails later and we were set. Operate as AH6OZ/W7
from his location and have fun. What could be better? 

The week before in Seattle it was cold and wet. I didn't expect anything
else. The two hour drive down was nice and we arrived before dark on
Friday. Off to dinner and then back to check the bands. Sounded good.
Chen gave me the tour of the wire and aluminum farm and the shack. A
very nice setup.

Started off on Saturday testing out Chen's contesting software for the
Mac. This is a very nice piece of work but had never been tested in the
heat of battle. The tuning was great and the interface was obvious. 
Ran into a buffer overflow problem about a half hour into the test and
had to switch to my PC laptop and Writelog. Ported over the initial
contacts and continued that for the rest of the contest. Actually, Chen
trouble shot his program and found that problem and he dual monitored
for the duration. Could there be a contesting logging program for the
Mac on the horizon?

Band conditions were very interesting. 15 and 10m started off good and 
we got a run going on 10m before we took a break for shopping (remember,
the wife and daughter were here and ..., well, we didn't want it to be
a total bust for them and I've never been to Portland). Go back after
dinner to do some work on 40m and then went to 80. Wow. We found stations
every 500 Hz starting at 3550 up to 3630. I remember saying to myself
"We never hear this in KH6. No wonder I can't find anyone on 40m after
0600Z." It's a bit of a relief to hear that this was unusual. We did 
enjoy the low band activity. We even found a spot and CQed and started 
a run of sorts. We even had a mini pile up with three stations calling at
once. I was very impressed at how quite Chen's QTH is. There was no
indication of any noise on the S Meter on either 40 or 80m.

We knew that Sunday would be a bust. We had plans to meet Sandy, W7BX for 
lunch and then I had to do some car work for the daughter. We finished up
with over 300 Qs which was what we had hoped for considering the other
planned activites. Missed six states and a couple of provences and didn't
work much DX but we ahd a good time.

Sandy and his wife Akiko WH0AAM came over that night. Chen and Agnes whipped
up an outstanding Thai dinner (if you're ever up visiting Chen ask for the
curry duck). We sat around and talked quite a bit about nothiung and generally
had a great time. I must say that this was one of my top contest weekends.

TNX to ARRL for sponsoring this great event and all those that work us.
TNX to W7AY for the opportunity to operate with him and to Chen and his 
wife for the fantastic hospitality.

73 es Aloha,

Walt
AH6OZ

PS I messed up on the 3830 posting and it came out as Single Op LP. That is
not the correct catagory. It's MS. We tried to get the others to have a seat
but they only wanted to listen and watch. Chen and I were hoping to have at
least three other calls on the operator list. Maybe next time.