[UK-CONTEST] Club championships - G3NKC - 1st time N1MM user report!

[Dave Sharred]

Since xmas, I have had a nice new laptop at my disposal; that still is not
fully commissioned for radio use due to lack of time.

On Tuesday night, and following the thread about N1MM  (I nearly bought
Win-test !); I decided to load N1MM, and try it out.

I never really had time to set it up on Tuesday, or look at the manual; so
tried to figure things out before the contest - bad move !!

Used my MicroHam USBII interface to my MP; set it up ok, and got it talking
to the MP and sending CW great ! And, there was no problem with elongated
characters , when PTT line control is set, that I had previously seen (with
a different laptop) when interfacing to Writelog !  So Keyboard messages
looked good !

Deciding to go with the laptop was a harder choice - my bench is not big
enough to put anywhere sensible, I need an external keyboard, so that the
Laptop can sit on the raised shelf above the rig!  So , I cleared out a
shelf to my left, and stuck it there. I operated with the rig in front of
me, but the keyboard to my left side!  Not the most ergonomic by a long way;
and apologies to at least GW4BLE and GM3WOJ for being a little slow as a
result. And the fact I should have used N1MM before the test !!

Got the CQ messages sorted easy enough, to my liking

Having got this far; I then tried to work out how to make N1MM send CW - a
lot of commends like ALT -W seem carry over from CT; but not ALT-K for
keyboard CW.  The help menu does not seem friendly to me; eventually I found
it was Cntrl-K  Doh !  I only sorted this about 2 mins before the test, so
then tried to "Lay out my towel" !

Worked 1 station immediately , but then I thin it was another 2 or 3 mins
for the next station - S+P would have been better !!!

But then the rate picked up; and all was well.   I ended up with 126 QSO's,
so am happy with that !  Only felt I had to do SO2V about 1 hour in; and did
true S+P in last 10 mins.

BTW - at about 18:30 there was yet another contest going on - loads of
eastern EU were calling CQ MOON. Does this mean that Lee, MTN, had the
chance to work 3 contests in one night ???!!!

Nice to work 5B/G4ODV; like SJJ, it was ESP after hearing the 5B this time !
a reasonable signal though, Brian !

Power was 100W of course, and am 80m dipole at 45 feet




N1MM minus points:
=================
I wished I could use the + key to log a CW QSO, like CT.   ALT-Enter is
horrible, especially on a laptop keyboard

Laptop INS keys for sending call and exchange is also horrible on most
laptops. This will be sorted with an external keyboard

Somehow, I made N1MM start a new contest exchange - the call entry line
changes colour, and it sent 001 - Uh ??  The right number of escape keys
seemed to fix it !

I don't know why N1MM keeps on telling me to log a brand new CTY.DAT file,
which I did do, at the start of the contest.  Seems like it never loaded
after all ?

I never made the NO WORK DUPE function work; I know there's a button, but
cant it sort this automatically?


N1MM Plus points
===============
Looks very professional; sharp - great ! And its free !

It must have been pretty intuitive, if I could get it working and turn in a
competitive score with no specific practice.

I don't know whether this is a feature, or a bug, but I liked it - I set CW
speed at 32 WPM most of the time. I usually slowed the exchange down (with
the mouse, Chris) , for sending where needed. When I turned it back up, the
CW speed stayed the same until the "TU G3NKC TEST " message was completed;
and then increased its speed. This I think might help others to copy the
call at a slower speed !

Lessons learnt
==============

RTFM first !!!
Get using bandmap - I never did this time, have to investigate it more!


BTW - anyone recommend a good (= RF proof)   WiFi Keyboard ???


73

Dave