[WWYC] Stupid Contest CW ON5ZO LP

[Franki ON5ZO]

The Complete Story on how to screw up a stupid contest!
It's long, so don't read it.

>  EU Spring Sprint, CW
>
> Call: ON5ZO
> Operator(s): ON5ZO
> Station: ON5ZO
>
> Class: Single Op LP
> QTH:
> Operating Time (hrs): 3
>
> Summary:
> Band  QSOs  Op Time
> ---------------------
>   80:  31
>   40:  35
>   20:  19
> ---------------------
> Total:  85    Total Score = 85
>
> Club: Worldwide Young Contesters
>
> Comments:
>
> Lots of troubles this time (PC, interference on keyboard, static crashes from
> lightning) and conditions overal seemed poor.
> I personally consider this score a big disappointment...  :o(

I had high hopes for this one... But if you're high, you can only come down... My 
personal best score for a CW Sprint was last autumn with 161 claimed QSOs. Last week, 
in the SSB leg, I also made more QSOs in the lid mode than average so I really felt 
confident for this one: I would kick ass. And in CW I could go SO2R like the real 
pro's, plus I lowered my 80m dipole a bit to increase the take off angle as 95% of 
the QSOs on that band are in a 1000km range. Yeah, I would open a can of Sprint Whoop 
Ass!

Back to reality. I set up the PC early in the morning as I had to attend a 
hobby-related meeting all day and knew I wouldn't be back before 30 minutes before 
the start of the contest. A quick check revealed that everythning *seemed* to work. 
Why wouldn't it? I had tweaked the CW messages and macros for N1MMLogger last Sprint 
and it worked smooth, so a reload of these settings would do fine. This assumption is 
also know as "Mistake N°1".

At 14.35utc I got home and with 25 minutes to go I went out in the pouring rain to 
put up the 80m dipole. This went fine (I got the routine by now) and I lowered the 
dipole by a few meters for a better signal in EU. This is know as "Mistake N°2". 
Hurried off to the shack and oh my gosh, luckily I had already booted the PC before 
going into the garden as the clock said 14.59utc.

Off we go, heading to 20m... Not too much to be heard. Weak signals... There you go: 
EA5FID! Give him my call, he comes back, that's it: ON5ZO king of the band! Huh, 
what's that, PC refuses to send reports? FID getting impatient, quickly handle this 
situation by hand... Now what is wrong? Quick look, messages are ok... someone 
calling me after the FID QSO, screw him, first things first. All settings seem ok, so 
let's call CQ to start again - over 8 minutes in the contest and 1 QSO in the log. A 
couple of CQ's later (where is everyone???), Howie N4AF calls me! Yeah, cool with the 
beam pointing to Russia... Hitting enter... a load of crap comes out of the keyer but 
not what N4AF would like to hear from me. Ouch, FrankiLid in full effect. Again, the 
paddles save my sorry ass out of this one.

This is going BAD! Panic... Rage... Put yourself together dude... switch voxes and 
audio off and do a quick simulation until you get it right... Why won't this 
@|#{|@#{|@#{@#{|@#{ work while it has always worked flawlessly? Lemmethinkhere, what 
has changed since last CW Sprint? Ah, N1MM soft went from V4 to V5, but V5 works 
great for me. I have seen no changes reported that were important for this contest. 
Loading the manual... go to section "CW Messages": ah yeah, there was a small change 
to allow CW Messages on all 12 F-keys, so maybe that is my problem? It never bothered 
me before with over 6000 QSOs in the log since V5, but I need to exclude all options. 
I change all the CW buttons, but to no avail. Maybe it's time to do a posting on the 
N1M reflector? I always despise emergency calls in the middle of a contest, because I 
figure that you should check and double check everything way before the contest. Like 
I did today, this early morning! Faint heart never won fair lady (nor a contest for 
that matter) so swallow your pride, post the message and see what it brings.

After 15 QSOs in 51 minutes and most sending done by hand, I decide that 20m is a 
wasteland and move to 40m. By now I realize I can put the can of Sprint Whoop Ass 
into the fridge until October for the next CW Sprint. Maybe I should quit? Well, no: 
I planned to be Country Winner for alll 4 Sprints in 2004, but that didn't work out 
too. SSB Sprinting isn't my thing but ON6NL's and for CW a certain HA1AG decided to 
come to Belgium, do a hit-and-run CW Sprint here and make me bite the dust... So: I 
won't put down a tremendous score but I did well last week in SSB so if I can be best 
ON now, I still have a chance of winning 4 Sprints for Belgium. I know, there is not 
much competition in Belgium, especially for CW, but don't bust the bubble please!

So we work our way through some 40m QSOs, when an answer shows up on the on the 
N1MM-relfector. This turns out to be a winning solution (needed to change some macros 
in the messages), but I still wonder why my macros worked before and won't do it this 
time... Benefit is I can use full PC logging again with the macros, and exploit SO2R 
on 80/40m. Just like 20m, conditions on 40m are not too good, there are many UA's in 
their own contest and somewhere there must be a major thunderstorm because static 
crashes wipe out entire exchanges!

With less than 75 minutes to go and 20/40m being what they are, I assume some people 
will move down to 80m already while there is still plenty to do on 40m. I always 
thought SO2R is the way to go in Sprint, so here I go: SO2R-rookie ON5ZO. CQing on 
80m, listening on 40m. Hmm, weird, I can listen a long time here on 40m while 80m is 
CQing... @#{|[@{|@#{|@#{|@#
That 80m CQ-msg is looping, it keeps sending ON5ZO ON5ZO etc. Hitting escape helps, 
someone calling me after this lllooooooonnnggggg CQ. I can't figure out what is 
wrong, but I stay on 80m where I work YO9WF, who must surely think of me as a lid 
because I send more rubbish than usable info. What's wrong now?

The PC screen is acting up as I send on 80m, and waitaminutehere; SWR is almost 2:1. 
Yes, it is the dreaded RF Interference: because my dipole is cut for 3520 and Sprint 
is done round 3550, the SWR rises. Add to that Mistake N°2 (dipole lower than usual), 
and you have RF QRM on the PC keyboard. That is what's wrong: the RF triggers one of 
the F- keys on the PC keyboard, and I never had this because I hung out lower in the 
band and the antenna hung out higher in the air. So as soon as I hit F1 to CQ and 
listen on 40m with the 2nd radio, I keep on cq'ing on 80m... And why not... just 
another item on the list with problems... Confirmation: move down to 3520, SWR lowers 
to 1.3:1, PC not acting up now... but lighnting is: apparently, like the forecast 
predicted, there are thunderstorms. Static crashes all the time, S9++, so I miss a 
lot of exchanges and have to ask for a repeat. I work many gues called Lid, but I am 
sounding like one too now!

Seven minutes before the end of Sprint, I look for a towel and throw it... 85 QSOs, I 
feel bad... Sorry to all those thinking I am a lid, you are right...
CU in six months for Sprint, a Stupid Contest (and stupid is my middle name!!!!).

73
Franki "ZEP" ON5ZO