Ohio QSO Party
Call: K1LT
Operator(s): K1LT
Station: K1LT
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: Fairfield EM89ps
Operating Time (hrs): 12
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band CW Qs Ph Qs
--------------------
80: 133 95
40: 66 65
20: 40 39
15: 1 1
10: 0 1
--------------------
Total: 240 201 CW Mults = 85 Ph Mults = 94 Total Score = 121,899
Club: Mad River Radio Club
Comments:
I am still avoiding my new amplifier because of the acoustic noise it
makes. The blower has 3 speeds: quiet but barely able to dissipate
filament heat; not unreasonable but unsustainable; and full bore
noisy. For very light S&P use, the blower will stay at the medium
speed, but any kind of running or rapid S&P operation causes the full
bore noisy mode. I've been experimenting with auxiliary airflow which
has some promise of reducing the need for the noisy blower.
I operated low power with the goal of beating W8WTS's 2012 score.
That year Jim made 582 QSOs operating lower power at K8AZ's station.
I figured that stacked Yagis, 4-squares and 40 meter beams probably
don't help very much for a state QSO party and that I might be able to
compete successfully.
In previous years I erected a 30-foot high 80 meter dipole in the
hopes that NVIS propagation would be useful for in-state contacts. So
far, I have not noticed that the low 80-meter dipole helps. It seems
to work the same as my vertical. This year, I put up a 25-foot high
40 meter dipole instead of the 80-meter dipole. I connected the extra
40 meter antenna in place of my 6 meter beam at the relay in the box
beneath the tower.
Another advantage of low power is that I can use the K3's built-in
automatic antenna tuner instead of using the outboard antenna tuner
for 75 meters. The disadvantage is that the automatic antenna tuner
works well enough that one might try and possibly succeed to make 75
meter contacts using a 40 meter antenna.
In the process of connecting the 40-meter dipole, one of the wires
that operates the Transco for the tribander came loose. I reattached
the wire, but I later found that the relay controller would not
activate that relay, although it would still activate the other nearby
relays. Eventually I just cycled the power to that controller but I
lost 20-30 minutes troubleshooting the problem. Apparently, the "high
side" relay driver chip I am using notices open circuits and won't
drive the defective circuit until the software acknowledges the
condition. So I need to add some smarts to my distributed antenna
switching software.
A disadvantage of low power is that the rate is much lower. The first
hour saw a higher rate than any previous year, probably because I went
to phone much sooner than before. However, 40 meters went long in the
second hour and combined with the antenna switching problem above, I
lost faith in my low power plan. Fortunately, I stuck with it and
eventually figured out that one can operate that mode called "phone"
as a substitute for CW and still have some semblance of a decent rate.
The K3 DVR makes CQing on phone almost as nice as CQing on CW. The
main disadvantage is that I have to listen to myself. Yuck! I did
trip over the problem that the "timed pause" setting of 3.5 seconds
on
CW doesn't work on phone because the logging software doesn't know how
long it takes the radio to execute the "send message 1" command.
Until I figured out that this was happening I thought the system
(software, computer, interface, and radio) was broken. Since this
occurred right after struggling with the antenna switch problem, I was
getting quite frustrated. Too bad ham software authors rarely "open
source" their projects or I might be able to write a solution to this
problem.
I tried using SO2R again. However, the 2 instances of Writelog would
not stay consistently connected to one another. I don't have this
problem for any other contest. Last year, the 2 instances of Writelog
absolutely refused to talk to each other, although the problem
manifested as an OQP module issue (the problem appeared to be specific
to how the OQP module interprets its configuration info). So I didn't
push hard on the second radio and mostly used it to check for new
stations on other bands.
I realize that the software authors expect one to use an SO2R
switching box, but I hate to acquire extra hardware that merely
duplicates capabilities that already exist in the computers. The only
add-on really necessary is audio routing. Maybe I should write my own
logging software. Then I can integrate the antenna switching
functionality with the logging functionality so that typing a call
after switching antennas doesn't require an alt-tab alt-w sequence (or
even more atrociously, mouse clicks).
By the fourth hour, my station mostly settled down and operated
normally. The 40-meters "too long" but 80-meters "not yet
discovered"
hours were the slowest. Hopefully I didn't miss too many QSOs before
I discovered that one can actually operate on 80 & 75 in broad
daylight. After nightfall, chasing K8MR (12 QSOs), K8O (7 QSOs) and
K9TM (8 QSOs) became possible and fun. Worked WB8JUI twice but the
jump to SSB didn't work. Also running west coast stations of 20 SSB
was very productive for multipliers.
I worked several stations in the Kansas QP and in the Hawaii QP. It
was very interesting how different people reacted to the concept of a
dual-contest QSO. Some understood immediately, some understood after
some coaching, and some were not able to be helpful. Maybe "5NN NR
nnn FAIR OH" does not make a recognizable universal state QSO party
exchange. Maybe we need a Q-signal for "what is my sequence
number"?
Lessons learned: add some extra relays to the outdoor box to allow for
temporary antennas. The 40-meter dipole seemed to work equivalently
to the 40 meter vertical, so don't bother. Use high power. Add
outboard fan to amplifier. Operate phone more. Find or write
software tools to streamline antenna switching versus logging. Put up
real 80-meter vertical.
Anyone have any Transco relays for sale?
Equipment: K3, P3, IC765, several computers, 2x Writelog. Antennas:
Cushcraft X7 2 60 feet; ground mounted 40 meter vertical; 40 meter
dipole at 25 feet; 3 80-meter "cage" wires surrounding my 160-meter
vertical. Note that each "cage" wire provides about 50 kHz of
bandwidth in select chunks of 80 & 75 meters.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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