[SCCC] NA Sprint CW W4EF(@W6UE) HP

[Michael Tope]

                    NA Sprint CW Contest

Call: W4EF
Operator(s): W4EF
Station: W6UE

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CA
Operating Time (hrs): 3:29

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Op Time
---------------------
   80:   68    0:55
   40:  117    1:42
   20:   37    0:52
---------------------
Total:  222    Mults = 46  Total Score = 10,212

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Team: SCCC #2

Comments:

Rig:	FT1000MP MKV / Alpha 78
Software:	N1MM Logger
Antennas:	5el 20 at 65’, 4el 40 at 102’, 80m Inv-V at 95’


The CIT/JPL radio clubs bought some K1EL WinkeyUSB Keyers for Field Day this
year, but I never really got a chance to play with them, so I decided to use
this running of the CW Sprint to make the jump from the old TRlog and DOS with
a parallel port CW interface paradigm to the N1MM Logger and Vista with a USB
CW interface paradigm. 

Knowing that advanced planning is crucial for this kind of "technology
rollout", I showed up to the W6UE shack less than an hour before the start of
the contest so I would have plenty of time to solve all the software
compatibility problems and configuration issues. This advanced planning paid
off as I only missed the first 30 minutes of the contest most of which was
spent pounding the desktop and uttering very unflattering things about a
certain someone from Redmond, Washington (the stream of expletives was
reminiscent of that scene from K2ORS’s “A Christmas Story” where
Ralphie’s dad was in the basement working on the furnace). Miraculously,
however (and with a little help from NT6X), I was able to get the K1EL keyer
playing with N1MM under Vista and I was off to the races (uh….well sort of).

I am pretty impressed with N1MM, but I don’t recommend that anyone try to
learn it cold during the Sprint. That was a very humbling experience. I felt
like a first time Sprinter for the first hour or so. The way N1MM toggles
between the Sprint CQ mode and the S&P seemed a lot less intuitive to me than
TRlog, and it was quite a while (and many botched exchanges) before I felt like
I could get a smooth TRlog like rhythm going. 

My biggest complaint about N1MM is that when I finished a QSO in S&P mode, I
had to manually switch back to “running” mode to avoid sending a botched
exchange (N1MM would send my call instead of the exchange which I am sure
confused the heck out of all the callers who I did this to more times than I
care to recall (sorry folks)). Perhaps there is a way to automate this (hitting
alt-u each time is a bit cumbersome), but I decided to wait until after the
contest to dig through the manual searching for something that might not be
there. 

Aside from the LID operator behind the key and the software learning curve
challenges, the W6UE station worked flawlessly. I am giving the K1EL WinkeyUSB
keyer a big thumbs up. This scheme really works well. As far as conditions go,
I agree with others who observed that 20M sounded really weird. I only heard
one multiplier that I didn’t work (N8NA in Delaware). Thanks go to NT6X for
the moral support and the pre-contest setup assistance. 

73, Mike W4EF………