[VHFcontesting] FW: ARRL Jan VHF N8RA SO3Band-All Modes LP

[chetsubaccount at snet.net]

Operator(s): N8RA
Station: N8RA

Class: SO3Band-All Modes LP
QTH: FN-31
Operating Time (hrs): 5
OpMode: SO3R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    6:   51    15
    2:   57    23
  222:           
  432:    6     5
  902:           
  1.2:           
  2.3:           
  3.4:           
  5.7:           
  10G:           
  24G:           
-------------------
Total:  114    43  Total Score = 5,160

Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Comments:

Contest Prep-
I was looking forward to spending more time in this contest. Since last time, I had a new rotary 6M yagi to try and had cleaned up the wiring from an old laptop to allow it to reliably control my old FT897D on 432 cw and FT8. 

Some family issues were starting to pop up for the weekend so a few days before the weekend I spent some time getting ready: 

I opened up the K3 (which had been a little flaky) to make sure internal coax cables and PCBs were seated OK, pulled out the front panel a little and reseated it. When it was back together, it now seemed AOK even from a cold morning startup.

The old FAA 6155 432 amp’s plate meter showed no reading, but screen voltage was ok so HV must exist in its power supply. After looking inside for a HV wire problem and finding none, I fired it up and it made watts as usual. I re-tuned it to 70 watts out to lower the plate dissipation because the last time it was used on the FT8 duty cycle it tripped out from overheating. At only 30% efficiency, 30w less out is 60w less heat.

Contest Day-
I thought I was ready and my plan was to start at the opening gun and first work as many cw/ssb stations that I could find and then move to where the crowds were after the rate would likely drop.

But as I powered up the station, a lot of gremlins showed up taunting me for hours.

How come 432 had no rx audio? Finally found that computer’s mic was set to mute! Uh, how did happen? Wasn’t me…

And then, how come the other computer had no rx audio to its WSJT? Uh, who had put that computer’s line-in on mute? Wasn’t me! MS, was that you?

Why were some amp PTT/ lines switched around. Uh…well maybe that one was my fault after working on the 432 amp a few days ago.

How come the K3 set power out works FB on 6M but the mw transverter output wanders for a few seconds, and sometimes drops to zero, before settling out? So that scuttled 222 operation since I had no more time or patience to dig into it.
By late afternoon on Saturday, I finally had 3 good bands working and enjoyed a few good hours of contesting Sat and Sunday. The antennas did well and there was enough activity to be busy with, having to rethink 5 antenna decisions every 15 seconds based on the latest decodes.

Other observations-
The new WSJT-X RC8 version did a few unexpected things.
One time it suddenly closed itself but restarting it from N1MM+ was OK.
Another time a crash screen popped up saying it had to shut down due to an unexpected closing of a TCP port. I had to close N1MM+, shut down an orphaned
JT9 process, and restart them again. 
I had not studied or turned on the new WSJT qsy messaging and was surprised when a popup asked me to go to 222, which sadly was not working so I had to say no. I eventually noticed my CQ message needed a reset. But it was intriguing, and may have potential.

FT8 on 432 MHz! Sometimes while CQing on a dead band I could clearly see someone reply but could not decode them. Their waterfall trace continuously drifted over each cycle making a prominent curved trace band on the waterfall. They were drifting too much while transmitting to be decoded. Most other stations had absolutely straight FB vertical waterfalls. I discovered a few contests ago that older gear (like Elecraft 432 transverters have enough temperature drift due to heating while transmitting which badly hurts their FT8 ability. I’ve since fixed mine with an external TCXO. Lately I just use my old FT897D that has a good TCXO and is OK after a 20-minute warmup. 

Tnx all and 73,
Chet, N8RA


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