[SCCC] NI6W (W4EF) IARU SOHP MIXED

[Michael Tope]

     IARU Score Summary Sheet

       Start Date : 2009-07-11

    CallSign Used : NI6W
      Operator(s) : W4EF

Operator Category : SINGLE-OP
             Band : ALL
            Power : HIGH
             Mode : MIXED
 Default Exchange : 5NN 6
       Gridsquare : DM04LL

             Name : Michael C. Tope
          Address : 11018 Cardamine Drive
   City/State/Zip : Tujunga  CA  91042
          Country : USA

     ARRL Section : LAX
        Club/Team : Southern California Contest Club
         Software : N1MM Logger V9.5.1

        Band  Mode  QSOs    Pts  Sec
           7  CW     137     377   21
           7  LSB     46     102   10
          14  CW     154     480   35
          14  USB     87     279   27
          21  CW      24      51   10
          21  USB      6      14    1
          28  CW       5      7    2
          28  USB      3      3    1
       Total  Both   462    1313  107


            Score : 140,491

              Rig : Ten-Tec Omni 6+ / Drake L-7 / N1MM Logger

         Antennas : Cushcraft R7000 Vertical at 10ft

Soapbox : Threw a station together rather hastily at my Littlerock, Ca 
QTH just to see how the new location plays. I am amazed at how quiet 20 
and 40 meters are up here.  There is some line noise on 15 and 10 
meters, but it is still very quiet compared to my Tujunga QTH. I had the 
R7000 vertical antenna up on Thursday, but I didn't start gathering up 
equipment until midnight Saturday morning. My goal was to be in 
Littlerock in time for the start, but I ended up getting here about two 
hours late. 

Still some bug to work out with this station. The R7000 needs to be 
moved farther away from the shack. I mounted it with the base at ~10ft 
on an old rusty (but very sturdy) light pole which happens to be about 
20 feet from the shack. The close proximity caused some problems with RF 
in the shack. I partially cured this by wrapping the USB cable between 
the laptop and the K1EL keyer with a #31 ferrite core, but I still had 
problems with the laptop's touchpad locking up if I happen to touch it 
while transmitting. There were also problems with the Omni 6 generating 
random beeps while I was transmitting on SSB. Apparently it didn't 
affect my transmitted signal, but it was very distracting when it 
happened. Again probably an RF in the shack problem. I also had what 
appeared to be fairly large fluctuations in VSWR which were a function 
of my transmitted power level. The R7000 has been sitting out in the 
weather for several years so perhaps there are some dead bugs in the 
traps or some such thing.

The station played about as well as could be expected for a 1/2 vertical 
over dry soil. I could hear pretty well, but it was obvious that on 20 
and up in most cases that I wasn't terribly loud (lots of DX stations 
asked for multiple repeats). On 40 meters I felt like I could hold my 
own. Unfortunately I missed a lot of prime 40 meter time due to a late 
start and then a "nap" that ran from ~0715 to 1045 UTC on Sunday 
morning. The last hour or so I was able to generate a nice run on 40CW 
which was a lot of fun as almost all my other QSOs were search and 
pounce. Anyway, great fun from the high desert.

73, Mike W4EF/6 Littlerock, Ca