ARRL RTTY Roundup
Call: K9YC
Operator(s): K9YC
Station: K9YC
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: SCV
Operating Time (hrs): 17.5
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
80: 197
40: 70
20: 233
15: 393
10: 113
------------
Total: 1006 State/Prov = 57 Countries = 55 Total Score = 112,672
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
I had fun with this, but it didn't begin well. I've been working on rearranging
and further automate antenna switching, and one element of the automation has
one or more problems that I was still troubleshooting Friday night.
As if that wasn't enough, I caught a cold early in the week that was kicking my
butt by Thursday and knocking me out on Friday and Saturday. The result of all
of this is that I started two hours late and without access to several of my
antennas. And rather than try to run AS on 40 for an hour or two during the
night, I quit Saturday night around 11 pm to let my body recover and hit the EU
openings on 20 and 15. That turned out to be a good move -- I was on the air by
6:45am, made a couple of S&P passes of 20, then 15, picking up a bunch of
mults.
For about the first half of the contest, my brain wasn't ready for SO2R, so
while I had the other radio set up on another band, I only occasionally picked
up another Q. As things slowed down, I did a bit more, and after the EU
openings, I feeling better and pretty actively running both radios, mostly
dueling CQs.
A note about operating time -- I remembered W0YK saying that RU log checking
would count only the first two breaks longer than 30 minutes as off time,
ignoring a later longer break. Since I wanted a lunch break and a dinner break,
I added a "dummy" dupe QSO during those breaks so that the off times were less
than 30 minutes. So the "official" on time is 20 hours, the actual operating
time was about 17:30.
I was pretty pleased with things except for 40M, which was really stinko for
most of the time I was on the air. 80M made up for it rather nicely though,
with nearly 200 Qs. And 15M turned out to be the place to be, producing nearly
40% of all QSOs.
One downside was the very minimal activity from South America. Either folks
down there don't dig RTTY, or perhaps they're getting tired of contests so
strongly focused on North America. Yet another reason for revisiting contest
rules.
And I DO agree with comments by others with respect to making the counting off
of time more flexible. We are mostly an aging population, and we have XYLs who
must be considered. SOME allowances need to be made for this.
73, Jim K9YC
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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