Here is the much anticipated by some, and much dreaded by others,
next installment of my micronoscopic dissection of my “G-expedition”
to North Georgia for the Georgia QSO Party. I was only on for eight of
the ten hours of the first day, but by the time I’m through you may think
I was on the road for weeks. I had a blast and felt really
good about my score of 208 station and 30 multipliers until I started seeing
other logs come in. My post mortem of the post mortem will be another
chapter. This edition of musings is a continuation of the lessons I
learned during the journey…
Lesson Learned Number Six: Inverters are More Finicky
than Vera Wang on Rodeo Drive
Not
only did the Inverter squeal like a pig when I tried to hook up two laptop
computers (probably a poor analogy to use when talking about my trip through
North Georgia), it was also a source of considerable electronic noise when it
wasn’t being pampered. As related earlier, although the inverter
has 300 WATTS silkscreened on it bold letters, the fine print reveals that it
will only yield 140 Watts if plugged into the vehicle accessory outlet.
My conviction is that the unit must have a yin and yang that is balanced on a
razor thin edge. It gets very unhappy and pitches a tantrum if the supply
voltage drops at all. If you try to ask it to do the least bit more than
it want to do (which is an arbitrary amount that constantly changes), it
pitches a fit worse than a 30-year veteran union laborer at the Convention
Center on move-out day (If you are a union member, this is not a personal slam
– unless you are the grizzled, and very disgruntled veteran forklift driver
that I encountered at a trade show in Philadelphia a few years back).
Next
time: All the more reason to use the alligator clips and attach the
inverter to a good, solid, stable power source.
Lesson Learned Number Seven: Listen to those Small Voices
It
was getting well into the trip and I had been working stations in Lumpkin
County (affectionately known as “the LUMP”) at a pretty good
rate. My wife deftly navigated beautiful blue Town and Country chariot up
Highway 19 from Dahlonega to Blairsville, a twisty, windy, climbing road that
ascended a foothill of the Smoky Mountains and that seemed to hold a surprise
around every bend. As we were getting closer, I was
“teasing” my contacts to stick around for Union; that we would be
there in just a few minutes. Finally we reached the summit and crossed
the Union County line. We pulled off into a parking lot, and a mini
pile-up ensued. All of my contacts remarked at how my signal came up as I
crossed the peak. I was feeling really jazzed! Suddenly through the
ethos I heard a familiar voice:
“KB4KBS from
ZF1DX.”
“The Delta X-Ray station,
your full call?”
“Zed Eff One Delta X-Ray, Hey
Scott.”
“Oh, Hey Vern! Thanks for the
call, great signal from the Caymans. You’re 5-9 in Union County.
I look forward to chatting with you
back in Roswell when you get home.”
Then he was gone and I typed his call into the logging
program, erased Cayman Islands and entered ‘DX’ in the S/P/C field
and hit return. Nothing happened. Try again: call – report
– location – enter. Still nothing. The program just
wouldn’t take the data. I had other stations calling me, so I said
“QRX a minute folks, while I get his call in the log – its giving
me problems.” Suddenly from the chaos a 5-by-5 voice
astutely said,
” Write it down on a piece of
paper OM, we’re all waiting…”
Thanks, whoever you were, for the best piece of timely
contesting advice I could ever receive. I did just that, and got back to
the business of the pile-up, giving out Union County multipliers to the gracious
and patient masses.
Next
Time: Keep a pen and piece of paper handy, and if the logging program hiccups
on a call, note the particulars – his call, his location, the band, mode,
and time, then move on. Don’t ever keep your “peeps”
waiting.
Lesson Learned Number Eight: The inventor of the Voice Keyer
deserves the Nobel Prize… and a Prison Sentence
This
is probably something that ought to be in the post mortem chapter, but even
before I was home I was feeling the effects of the constant talking. I
thought about getting a microphone for my PC and recording some simple .wav
file audio loops before the event but I know how much I detest the
“lids” that play their “CQ” loops over, and over, and
over and how much I don’t want to be like them. They’re like
the blonde who had to be rescued from the shower because she was following the
shampoo bottle instructions that say lather, rinse and repeat … Of
course I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer either, and there has
been more than one contest that I have tried to participate in from home where
I’m busy calling a station with a voice keyer on perpetual repeat, using
every ounce of my thimble full of ERP only to un-key and hear his message loop
go again, and again…but I digress. Now that I’ve done
one good contest with a semi-“real” station, I can understand what
drives contesters to uses these blessed/cursed tools. It is now two days
later and my throat is still sore and swollen.
Next
time: Go ahead and take the time before the contest to record the messages, and
also start an awareness campaign to encourage the responsible use of voice
keyers . What’s wrong with appending to the end of a
“CQ” message these three simple words: “please call
now…?” (And this is the novel part) then actually listen for
stations to call?
I realize this is only three lessons, but I’m really
sleep deprived and my creativeness is waning. Thanks to all who
made positive and affirming comments about my first release, but even more
thanks to those of you who showed great restraint and didn’t tell me what
you really thought of my drivel. More lessons later…
73,
Scott, KB4KBS
------------------------------------------------------
Scott Straw, CTS-D, CTS-I, EMT-I
scottstraw@mindspring.com
A/V Engineer
SPL Integrated Solutions, Inc.
Norcross, Georgia 30093
sstraw@splis.com
Technical Director of Contemporary Worship
Northside United Methodist Church
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
scott.straw@northsideumc.org
Firefighter/EMT
Roswell Fire Department
Roswell, Georgia 30075
sstraw@ci.roswell.ga.us