[UK-CONTEST] 80m CC CW G3SJJ

[Chris G3SJJ]

As the saying goes " You cannot be serious!!

There I was all fired up, total concentration. 116 in the first 60 minutes, 29 in the next 17 minutes. It's looking good. After all these years I had 
now realised contesting wasn't about operating the radio, which I enjoy, or sending CW which I also enjoy. It was about the *keyboard." Get that bit 
right and you are away. Guess I learnt my trade in the paper log and pencil era of contesting 30-40 years ago when you had time to enjoy twiddling 
your knobs! This time I concentrated solely on the *keyboard* not looking at the radio, or the computer screen, except just to confirm I had typed in 
the correct stuff. I focussed solely on the 3 "Qwerty" rows plus the number row. I was using ESM so first finger of right hand only hitting Enter key, 
first finger of left hand entering callsign and serial. Perfection!

Armageddon arrived exactly at 2117. Function keys just sent rubbish, including callsigns of QSOs made much earlier. Paddle CW went to 7 wpm and then 
stopped. I unplugged the mHam keyer, switched off and on the K3 and finally had to re-boot the computer which then kept telling me there was an error. 
Too flippin' true!!

I was screaming "&%$R&(*$E%$£^&*&" or similar. Need to apologise to my neighbours!! Eventually made 2 more Qs. Ended on 147 which should easily have 
been 160.

Luckily my garden is 150m long and I was able to calm myself down by a brisk march to the far end and back twice.

OK, got rid of all that, so is the problem mHam / K1EL, or is it the Vespa computer. Should I change from Vespa to W7? Should I throw the whole lot 
and get a moped? Seriously, it seems to a buffer problem but is it in the computer or a function of K1EL?

To top it all, we got an email to say our Hot Air Balloon ride scheduled for 0700 tmw had been cancelled. Creeps, I could have inflated the thing myself!!

Chris G3SJJ