[RTTY] WB4YDL NAQP RTTY SOAB LP

[James C. Hall, MD]

                    North American QSO Party, RTTY - February

 

Call: WB4YDL

Operator(s): WB4YDL

Station: WB4YDL

 

Class: Single Op LP

QTH: UNION CITY, TN

Operating Time (hrs): 9.5

 

Summary:

Band  QSOs  Mults

-------------------

   80:  171    45

   40:  194    40

   20:  105    33

   15:   28    11

   10:    9     5

-------------------

Total:  507   134  Total Score = 69,966

 

Club: Tennessee Contest Group

 

Team: Be

 

Comments: Mr. Murphy paid a visit to my shack on the day of this contest. I
started out slow and it got slower when my Elecraft K3 gave me an ERR 12V
message and dropped the PA to bypass. It was intermittent at first and then
it wouldn't go away. My other radio, the venerable FT-1000MP Mark V just
bopped along fine at 100 watts all contest. So I wasted plenty of time
trying to figure what's going on and what to do about it. I discovered that
this is a known problem with early serial number units and mine definitely
qualifies for that at #616. It turns out to be a tarnished tin-plated
connector which needs to be replaced by a gold-plated one. 

 

So after fiddling around way too long, the decision was made to use the 10
watt radio as a S&P radio while running with the Mark V. Needless to say, I
was not loud with this setup but surprisingly effective. I didn't spend much
time on the upper bands and went to 80M early. 80M was in good shape and
S&P'ing on 40M at 10 watts yielded reasonable results. 

 

The only thing I forgot is that this is a 12 hour contest. I stopped
operating 15 secs to time because everybody seemed to "go to bed" at about
the same time ! D'uh ! When in doubt read the rules ! J Overall, had lots of
fun and heard many TCG stations - some I could actually get to hear me !

 

73, Jamie

WB4YDL