[SECC] NJ8J CQWW SSB SOAB LP

[Ben Coleman]

                         2000 CQ WORLD WIDE DX CONTEST
 
 
     Call used: NJ8J                                          
Location: 05
     Category: Single Op All Band         Mode: PHONE           Power:
70W
     Callsign of Operator: NJ8J
 
     Exchanged Information: NJ8J RST 05  
 
     Hours of Operation: 25:42
 
     band    QSOs   points    zones     ctys 
     ---------------------------------------
     160        2        0        2        1 
      80        3        4        3        2 
      40       25       64        6       18 
      20       63      157       13       35 
      15       89      231       19       46 
      10      218      608       23       71 
     ---------------------------------------
     TOTAL    400     1064       66      173         SCORE: 254,296
 
 
     Club or Team Name: South East Contest Club
 
 
     Comments:
 
I basically jumped into this as a way of practicing on using NA
(recently purchased, and running under dosemu on my shack Linux box)
before Sweepstakes.  I hadn't planned on putting in 25 hours, but I
guess I got carried away.

Friday night I almost felt like I might as well as skipped, as
operating LP with a 'Bedsprings' level antenna (100' ladder-line-fed
doublet up ~30 feet) was rather frustrating (just 33 Qs in the first 4
hours of operating).  Saturday and Sunday were better (particularly on
10 meters), but I felt the lack of low-angle-of-radiation antennas the
whole weekend.  You can have fun in domestic contests with a doublet
antenna, but for DX contests it gets rather frustrating.  I'm now
motivated to see what I can do to improve my antenna situation.

I was left wondering how many of the ops on the other end would end up
with busted contacts for my QSOs because they trusted their contesting
software and didn't listen.  NA (and I presume other contesting
software) has this nifty feature where it figures the proper zone from
the callsign and inserts it in the exchange, saving some typing.  It
breaks, however, for people like me, who have moved from one zone to
another but kept the old call sign (I *like* having a 2x1, and I'm not
interested in paying for a vanity call to get one for 4-land.  Sorry.).
 Comments and queries told me of some who caught it ("Did you say 04 or
05?"  "05" was a not uncommon conversation).  One didn't catch it until
the third contact("Did you say 05?"  "Yes, 05" "Oh.  I logged the other
2 contacts as 5904"), and at least one other had to jot down a note to
go back and fix earlier contacts.  I have to wonder how many didn't
catch it.  I guess I'll find out from the log analysis.

(Not that I'm complaining about the feature.  It *is* handy - I had a
few contacts where I would have ended up with mis-copied calls except
that the reported zone differed from the calculated zone, and this
prompted me to recheck the call.  I'm just saying that ops shouldn't
allow contesting software to substitute for actually listening to the
exchange.)

One question:  The contest rules are a tad bit confusing on log
submission.  If I submit via email, do I have to submit more than the
Cabrillo-format log, and a summary?

Ben


-- 
Ben Coleman oloryn@mindspring.com    | The attempt to legislatively
http://oloryn.home.mindspring.com/   | micromanage equality results, at
                                     | best, in equal misery for all.



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