ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW
Call: WX0B
Operator(s): AD5Q
Station: WX0B
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Dallas
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 276
40: 385
20: 265
15: 224
10: 0
------------
Total: 1150 Sections = 83 Total Score = 190,900
Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club
Comments:
My goal for this SS was a modest one: a new Personal Best (beating 2013), and to
re-join the Top-10 and ultimately become a regular there. As readers may know, I
have a small benchmarking program which displays 2 past scores in real time and
in detail, updating each minute. The other score was NR5M's big score (op K5GA)
from last year. So I always know if I'm doing OK.
Where last year I crashed and burned at the beginning, this year I got off to
my best start ever - ahead of both benchmarks. I also saw trouble: the SO2R Box
wasn't switching anything, making 2nd radio contacts impossible. I did not stop
and fix this right away because I was having fun. I've only done a handful of
serious efforts in the SS, and not many good starts.
Part way into the 2nd hour I saw my lead over the benchmarks evaporate and I
then fell behind. By this time I would have had 6 or 8 SO2R contacts logged. I
had none and THAT was the difference. I restarted both the SO2R software and
the contest software and was able to switch the radios AND I didn't loose my
frequency. But when I tried to actually CALL somebody on the 2nd radio,
everything crashed. The Winkey froze along with the logging program, which
wouldn't even terminate with the Windows Task Manager - so reboot Windows. Now
I lost a run frequency and had to find another - valuable time lost. This all
happened 2 or 3 more times, always crashing with the first dit on the pounce
rig. I started a run on 20 and this problem went away, replaced by a new one.
Windows were popping up (VERY frequently) telling me I had just plugged
something into the sound card, and I had to click the mouse on each to make
them go away before I could copy exchange info. Beginning in the 4th hour all
the problems suddenly went away, but I was over 100 Q's off my pace. The rest
of the night went well and I didn't loose further ground. Weird - but in the
intensity of the first hours I had missed an important clue regarding what was
wrong.
Around sunrise the problems returned. Just as I attempted to make my first SO2R
contact on 20: CRASH! And the popup windows flooded the screen when the run rig
was on 20. Obviously, I had an RFI issue effecting only one band. At 1600z on
Sunday morning, I still had only 72 contacts logged on 20.
Earlier in the year I had upgraded the shack PC, which for about 10 years had
been a 2GHz XP box. In the IARU contest I had problems with the communications
disconnecting with both the radios, so I came with ferrites this time and
choked the serial cables to the rigs before the SS started. THAT worked great,
but these new problems were in the USB connections to the Winkey and SO2R box,
and audio to the sound card. The new PC is MUCH more sensitive to RF than the
old. I dug around the drawers, found some more ferrites, got back on the air
and all seemed to work. Then after 2 Qso's Jay walked in the shack and he knew
where more ferrites were lurking so we shut down the contest and got serious
(keyboard, mouse, video cable, etc.)
I was perfectly OK with spending the rest of the contest time working on the
station so this wouldn't happen in the CQWW, but after 90 minutes I got back
into the SS with little off time left. The strategy I had planned for Sunday's
off times went out the window. Since I did finish out the contest with the full
24 hours of op time, the station got a good RFI test and there were several
hours of slow rates. I am not the slightest bit disappointed that the score was
lower. The SS has often been the contest where we work the bugs out of the
station for CQWW, including when the SS op was somebody else (K5GA).
CQWW is next. Hoping for a low K index and no rain.
Roy -- AD5Q
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