[RTTY] KJ4QF North American QSO Party, RTTY

[Kevin der Kinderen]

This was my first RTTY contest and first time using WriteLog/MTTY. I've seen
some others post their results and comments, so I hope this is OK.

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: VA
Operating Time (hrs): 10

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   80:   29    18
   40:   82    34
   20:   57    29
   15:    0     0
   10:    0     0
-------------------
Total:  168    81  Total Score = 13,608

Comments:

I had a great time with the contest. I learned a few things - and learned I
need to learn a few more things.

The Good:
* WriteLog and MMTTY were easy to use. The 897D with the SignaLink seemed to
work fine. I had a bit of a panic just before the contest when the program
started asking me for a network address to save the logs. A couple of
suggestions from the list and I got that straightened out.
* No lockups, no crashes, only one unexpected behaviour. I was able to pay
attention to the signals.
* I operated search and pounce the whole time (out of necessity - see
below). It was very easy to get latched on a signal and get the info into
the log. I was able to mouse and keyboard at the same time so exchanges went
real quick.

The Bad:
* I seem to have an asynchronous antenna. (I think I made that up). I can
receive well, but not everyone could receive me well. Strong stations did
not answer my call even when nobody else was calling them. I think my sig
was nice and clean so I suspect I have some antenna work to do.
* I tried to RUN a little. Probably not smart considering the comment above,
but there were some dead times for me. I got confused by the NET and AFC
buttons. When in SP, I kept NET on and AFC off thinking I would be right on
the callers freq. That seemed to work as expected. When I went to RUN I
figured I would turn NET off and AFC on so that my transmit freq would be in
one place but I could get sigs that were slightly off mine. That didn't seem
to work. And when I forgot to set it back when I went to SP, I was way off
and missed a couple of contacts before I figured it out. I really need to
figure out the details of this.

73 de KJ4QF
Kevin

Kevin der Kinderen
http://kj4qf.net/