[SECC] Stew Perry

[Tom Rauch]

I think conditions were horrible. Compounding the poor propagation 
are the very silly power multipliers that seem to cause most 
stations to operate with low power.

I made just over 2000 points (no way to know for sure, because I 
get a double points multiplier for contacts with the few dozen QRP 
stations I worked).

I only had 450 contacts in ten hours or so of operating. Although 
much of the time was spent learning how to use the keyer and 
other stuff in NA (and that may have cost me contacts), I still don't 
think activity was all that good. The many times I swept the band 
looking for new contacts there were only perhaps 50 or 100 
readable signals on at any one sweep.

The longest distance contact was with two VK6 stations who are 
normally over S9 on good mornings but they were only about S2-5 
in the contest, barely out of the noise floor here.

I've concluded my station is much too difficult to operate single op 
with so many knobs and switches. Tuning the receiver, picking the 
best receiving direction on a very short call and exchange, and 
typing in the information took me about two hours or more to get 
down to a system. Using wide RX bandwidth helps with tuning, but 
costs S/N on weak signals. Splitting the receivers in different 
directions in each ear helps fill in directions, but at the cost of 
copying stations near or in the noise.

Doubling the filter BW from 250 Hz to 500 Hz costs about 3dB in 
S/N, and splitting directions on the receiver costs another few dB in 
perceived S/N and takes away the diversity that greatly reduces 
effects of fading.
73, Tom W8JI
W8JI@contesting.com 

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