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K4OJ SS CW 1997 Multi-op 1380 X 97 <----the bottom line (albeit on the top)
and for more detailed info, please continue...
Finally got healthy enough to tackle replacing the Rohn 25 "back tower" which
held the 20 meter beam, replaced it with a new one, fifteen feet taller -
Rohn 55. The new tower to become home to a 4/4 20 meter stack of 204BAs
w/W1CW mods....thanks to K1TO and WC4E for their help in the dismantling of
the old tower while I was under the weather.
The tower finally went up, and then it rained and rained for record
amounts....flooding the back yard at W1CW/W1YL, the county brought in
sandbags and stacked them around their garage door (low side of house) - the
water made it to the sandbags, and finally the rain subsided. Hellm, there
were ducks swimming across their back yard.....and I eneded up driving my car
into a new "lake" in the road down the street from their house three weeks
before SS.....yes it was wet! Did you know cat litter does a good job of
drying out your cars carpet wehn you submerge it! I do!!!!!
Finally got the weather dry enough to tackle antenna work, but not enough
time left before SS to put the entire system up, made the decision to put up
the upper 20 meter yagi only (@ 112 ft).....bad move.....spent whole weekend
getting sand kicked in my face on 20, wished we had put the lower beam up
fixed on a leg at Dayton.....oh well, that is why they call it "20/20"
hindsight, right?
Got the new 80 meter dipole up, and went with a sloper on 80 on the main
rig....80 is NOT a money band for SS from FL, but when the going gets slow it
pays to advertise everywhere (F1, F1, F1)...unlike the Northeast where you
catch the population centers on 80, from this far away from there you do it
on 40....and there IS no meters like 40 when it comes to SS from
FL.....unless you reinvent the wheel like K1TO did last weekend and do it on
20!
Spent the wee hours of my vacation listening to rock and roll at the
timeshare while soldering up a new toy - not excatly state of the art - but a
new horizon for me.....finally got the Omni VI to tell the computer I was on
a given band, and also thanks to K8CC/DATOM now have two other techno goodies
associated with that....automatic bandpass filter selection of my ICE filter,
and my antenna is automatically selected for me (no calling CQ on 80 into the
40 meter antenna and wondering why no answers this year!)....
Main conclusion drawn from doing SS this year (other than K1TO is still
whipping my butt just like he did in SS 25 years ago) is that I wish I had
automated years ago....this is cool stuff....found myself finding a new
running freq on the second rig - would type that freq on the main rigs
computer numeric keypad and hit <enter> and, I was there, moved the second
station to a new band, and ....would push the linear standbye switch, and hit
F1 to CQ and secure the frequency....while CQing I would through the
bandswitch/tune/load on the Titan and then hit the switch to bring it back on
line....by the time I did this I was QRV HP....vy quick bandchanges possible
with this automation stuff....and the computer was on the right band - no
worrying about Alt-F1/Alt-F2....the NA sotware already knew I was there!
Cancel Cool....make that Neato! Goal for net year.....to afford a new rig
that is also equipped with a DB25 connector for the second rig so it can
build another wonder box, too! Way cool, I mean neato.
The antenna switching was done via a DATOM (K8CC/NA) RBC-1 board, see
DATOMS's web site....it and the other goodies along with a bunch of terminal
strips were squeezed into a printer A/B switch box....it came out nice....and
worked flawlessly all weekend long....neato.
First hour on 15 meters was an SS dream realised.....finally I had broke the
100 Q mark and had 106....YES, three digits! I was off to a fantastic start
and then I dropped down to 20 and the sorrow began......I felt like a was a
Porshce on the Autobahn that had hit a brick wall....the rate plummeted on 20
and I could NOT get anything going....I was not "owning" my frequency, it
hurt.....after such a rapid start and not even 60 QSOs in the second
hour....I damn near KO'd myself (sorry, Trey) - spent the next several hours
beating myself up for starting at a winning pace and then blowing it in the
second and third hours....it was immediately apparent that 20 meters was a
problem....but I didn't want to drop down to the QSO rich 40 too soon, since
that was where I would be all night long....I couldn't leave 20 too soon but
I stayed there way too long....I should have cut my losses.
40 as always was a blast - gawd I love the combo there - if only I was
kickin' it on 20 like I kicked on 15 and 40.....oh baby, oh baby.........
After a night of beating myself up over the crappy start I went to bed a
little early at 07:45 and decided to break an SS rule of thumb picked up from
K1TO years ago....always take a short off time on Saturday night so you can
have a lot of half hour off times on Sunday.........well, with the mental
anguish I was in I decided to take a LONG off time of 5 hours and try and
start Sunday as fresh as possible....with a clean "outlook" - like I said I
had beaten myself up real bad Saturday night....I was even with Dan, but I
had to leave those deamons behind.....Sunday would be a "new" contest with a
fresh "outlook".
Sunday AM is time for 20 meters into the Northeast from FL....and
unfortunately again I wasn't cuttin it....20 just was NOT playing, great I
started off the day with negative reinforcement......as the mults moved off
the screen I had Yukon/NWT to go....and knew that VY1JA would be on - he
always is, right?
Yes, he was....
Gigantic El Grande Mega Non Stop Lid Filled Pileup on VY1JA on 15
meters.....no problemo....I found where he is listening and I joined the
hoards....what - Jay - calm down, no don't - Jay NO please don't - oh #^$%,
Jay was "mad as a hornet" at the unruly pileups so he simply through the
switch....no VY1JA meant I was up a creek without a sweep for sure......mebbe
there would be a VE8 showing up.... mebbe........ now what?
Quck - change gears - I know!
Change categories and enlist Ma & Pa to scan for a VE8/VY1....what the
heck.....20 is a bust, gonna have to milk forty Sunday night....hmmm.....yeah
they can help me look for the Sweep......I will jump back to "96" mode and be
a multi-op again....by this time I had listened to K1TO enough on the second
rig to know he had both his yagis up and was running em on 20 while I was a
second class citizen......for a while I listened to K1TO and WC4E side by
side CQing - K1TO was running and WC4E was dry - after the contest was over I
started griping to WC4E about how I had blown 20 and Jeff told me how he had
had the same problem......"lackatwenty"........Jeff's yagi is at 120 feet and
mine is at 112 feet............we probably were loud into Asia, but NOT into
Dayton!
With no sign of the sweep in sight it is back to the Sunday
doldrums......thank gawd 15 was still producing some QSOs......and several
sixes on 28 MHz were really kicking up the s-meter.......the strong opening
on 15 coupled with life on 28 bodes well for the return of the spots....next
year should be a blast......I predict at least five single ops will have 1500
+ QSOs..........call me OJ the Greek!
Thanks to 40 meters I salvaged what would have been a real bust.....and as I
type this W1CW is preparing the final touches on the lower 20 meter beam
sidemount.....if only SS had been two weeks later.....oh
well.........probably will put the lower beam sidemount up this
weekend.....mebbe the beam, too if it goes quickly.....but as far as SS
CW.....too little tooo late (if you only knew all the job related snafus of
the two months prior to SS - gawd)
The Goodies:
The station is configured as two independant stations - one running station
(on my left) and the S&P station (to the right)......the keying lines are
both brought into a y-connector into a box with a toggle switch - when the
toggle switch is pointed at the left rig, it keys......when the toggle is
pointed at the the right rig it gets keyed.....low tech keying selection but
foolproof, it is impossible to be multi-transmitting.......I know you can use
the linear relay line to open a relay so the keying is interupted on the
other keying line, etc.....but, this is simple and works for me!
Audio from the two rigs when going SO2R is brought into the same box as the
key lines, it goes into a three position rotary switch - when the knob points
to the left of vertical you get the left rig in both ears of the stereo
headphones....when the switch points to the right of vertical you get the
right radio in both ears......and, for the real fun - when the switch is in
the middle/upright position you get the left rig in the left ear, and the
right rig in the right ear.....THIS IS WHAT SS IS MEANT TO BE......two radio
contesting is SO cool. What other contest can you call two CQs on your run
freq while the guy is sending you your exchange on the S&P rig! AND WHAT DO
YOU DO WHEN YOU GET AN ANSWER ON THE MAIN RIG - oh SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE***
The main station, on the left:
Omni VI
Titan
ICE Switchable Bandpass Filter
K8CC/Datom Band Controller Board for auto-antenna selection
486 Clone
80 - Sloper - top at 125 Ft
40- 40-2CD @ 135 Ft
20 - 204BA @ 112 feet (too high last weekend, wait til I get the lower one
and the WX0B box to switch em in and outta phase....!)
15 - 4L W1CW Yagi @ 100 Ft on Ringrotor
10 - 10-4CD w/W1CW Dime mods @ 140 Ft
and on my right:
TS430S (pbly up to over 10,000 contest QSOs - I have gotten my moneys worth
:-)
Alpha 374 "No Tune" linear(the soft finals in the 430 drive it in broadband
to 1KW out)
386 Samsung
A B&W coax switch
80 - Dipole at 50 ft
40 - Dipole at 40 ft
20/15/10 - KT34A @ 55 ft
Software: NA - computers are networked so I can S&P on the second keyboard
and check for dupe-ism and piecemeal in the exchange info while running on
the main computer.
On the subject of software.....I made a big mistake this year, not with NA
which performed flawlessly all weekend long on both computers, but....while I
synchronized the clocks on both of the computers to WWV, I had one computer
that thought SS started on 8/14/97 and the other thought it was
10/31/97....well you know what I will be working on now......how much do
batteries for computers cost, anyhow?
Thanks to everyone for the QSOs - and congratulations to WC4E on a personal
best SS, KN4T for doing it the "A" way and to K1TO for a superlative effort
from a half built station.....watch out for Dan next year!
SS CW - don't get NO better....nope!
Like Schwrazenager said:
I'll be back!
Jim K4OJ
w/ W1CW & W1YL (aka Mom and Dad)
-if I get it right, the summary sheet is attached-
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1997 ARRL NOVEMBER SWEEPSTAKES
=
Call used: K4OJ Location: SFLA
=
Category: Multi-Single Xmtr Mode: CW Power: 1500 =
=
Multi-operator, calls of all operators and loggers:
=
_______ K4OJ + W1CW + W1YL _____________________
=
Exchanged Information: nr B K4OJ 70 SFL
=
Hours of Operation: 24:00
=
band QSOs points
=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=
=C4=C4
160 0 0
80 49 98
40 775 1550
20 268 536
15 280 560
10 8 16
=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=
=C4=C4
TOTAL 1380 2760 X 79 multipliers =3D 218,040
=
Group Name: Florida Contest Group, an ARRL Afilliated Club =
=
Comments:
=0D
Higlights: First Hour @ 106/hr - first time in triple digits in SS,
and it was on 15 meters.....c'mon Sunspots! 120 second radio QSOs.
Enlisting W1CW and W1YL for the Sweep - thought VY1JA was CL - but
he came back...thanks J!
=0D
Lowlights: Lowsy second and third hours, and the weekend long
realization that time deadline pressures resulting in our
installing only one of the two yagis of the new 20 meter stack,
and picking the top one to go up first was the wrong choice -
yup, "20/20" hindsight! Poor manors in VY1JA pileup, thought he
and the Clean Sweep were not to be....when a stn asks others to
standby, it is for a reason!
=
=
Extra special thanks to W1CW for all his work getting the station
ready for SS this year, and to W1YL for letting him do it!
=
I have observed all competition rules as well as all regulations for=
amateur radio in my country. My report is correct and true to the=
best of my knowledge. I agree to be bound by the decisions of the=
ARRL Awards Committee.
=
=
Date_________ Signature_____________________________ Call___________=
_
=
=
Name: Jim White Call: K4OJ =
6607 Flicker Ct =
Seffner, FL 33584 =
=0C
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