North American QSO Party, SSB
Call: VE7FO
Operator(s): VE7HAK, VE7FO
Station: VE7FO
Class: M/2 LP
QTH: BC
Operating Time (hrs): 1
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160:
80: 16 9
40:
20:
15:
10:
-------------------
Total: 16 9 Total Score = 144
Club: British Columbia DX Club
Team:
Comments:
Those of you who occasionally follow the exploits of VE7FO as I try to make my
way into the upper tertile of contest scores (is that the right word for upper
third?) may recall that I have decided that my life's work is to grow
contesters, preferably young ones. Some time before each phone contest I issue
an invitation to the shack-toting members of the emergency preparedness club to
which I belong to get some high intensity HF operating experience under
difficult cndx to increase the skill set which they may offer in a real
emergency.
In the NAQP CW (they mostly aren't ready for CW) I was on my own. The
propagation predictions I did were hopelessly out to lunch on 40. When I redid
them for a min TO angle more realistic for my low dipoles (middles at about 35
ft, ends at about 20ft and 10 ft) they made more sense. So, how can I do better
in the SSB leg? Figured out a way of getting the 10 ft ends up to about 40 ft.
Got all excited and modelled it. Hmmm.... 1.5 dB or so. While I believe that
to be a very worthwhile improvement, it isn't the night and day difference
between a TO angle of 13 deg with 2 F hops to W4 with SNR of 29 dB in 250 Hz BW
and path availablity right to the end of the test and TO angle of 22 deg with 3
F hops, much poorer SNR and path availability < 50% after 0130Z. So, what can I
do to improve the score in the SSB?
Well, I did get responses to my request for ops so now I'm multi-two (with one
Tx). Aha, I can use spots. Hooo boy, just think of all those juicy mults I'm
not going to miss. Time to figure out how to get spots into TRLog. Internet
spots aren't going to work as I would need a couple more serial ports which I
don't have. However, I do have an IC-25 2m rig I got at a swap meet as well as
an old PK-232 which already has a serial port dedicated to it. So, I should be
able to pick up spots off the 2m packet network.
Now, all the station audio lines terminate in a 48 jack patch panel. So,
obviously, I'm going to want the IC-25 AF In and Out to appear there along with
PTT and Squelch. The PK-232 AF In and Out lines already appear there but not
the Sq/PTT. Not only that, if for some reason the IC-25 doesn't work with
packet, I'm going to want the same lines from the IC-706 which I won at the 2003
PNW DX Convention (you should have been there, maybe you would have won it
instead - oh well, you get another chance in 2006). So, I assess what I need.
I don't have enough room on the patch panel! How could this be? It's only a
modest single op station - how could there possibly be enough audio lines to
almost fill all 48 jacks? MkV - A & B audio, Patch In, Pkt In & Out (for RTTY)
- total 5; 75A4 AF out; 4 ch mixer - 4 In, 2 Out - total 6; 4 line xfmrs take 2
jacks each - total 8; MkV Spkr out, Spkr and Phone Patch - another 6; PK-232 AF
In and Out - another 4; sound card Line In and 2 sets of Line Out - another 6;
AC VTVM and Freq Meter - another 2 each; Computer Spkrs - another 2. Took more
than 400 ft of Beldfoil shielded to wire it all.
So, on Friday afternoon go buy another 48 jack patch panel and 50 1/4" mono
plugs. I think I have enough Beldfoil cable. (The jack panels are Behringer
Ultra Patch Pro PX 2000. Only $79 Can. Very versatile. I highly recommend
them. Usual caveat.)
The existing patch setup actually had 2 panels - one a tip-ring-sleeve type I
use for phone lines, modem and phone patch, and the other the aforementioned
Behringer unit. The one for the phone lines sits in an alcove on a shelf above
the 2 op position monitors and near the ceiling. The Behringer unit lays on top
of it with some cardboard in between so the phone lines don't get shorted out.
There is a door at the back of the alcove which provides access to the back of
the shelves.
Laying a third panel on top of the other two didn't seem like that good an idea,
so I cut a couple of chunks of 2x4 and screwed the panels to them, rack mounting
style. I decided it would be much easier to do this if I removed the Behringer
unit. This meant disconnecting all the audio leads from the back. No problem,
the Behringer patch panel connections in the rear aren't solder tags, they're
standard 1/4" mono jacks. So, just yank 'em all out. They're all nicely
labelled so should be no problem getting them back in the right places.
So now I've got the 3 patch panels all nice and stable with the whole assembly
sitting on the shelf in the alcove and I start plugging the cables into the back
of the Behringer unit. Hmm... read the label on jack #1 on the front of the
panel, go out the hamshack door and into the back of the alcove, find the cable
with the same label and try to plug it into jack #1 on the rear of the panel.
It's doable but difficult, as, with the bottom of the shelf only 9" from the
ceiling, it's hard to see what I am doing. I realize this is going to take
hours, more than I have. Then I get the bright idea of hinging the 2x4s to the
shelf. Wow, now (an hour or so later), while standing in the shack looking at
the front of the patch panel assembly, I just pull the top of the assembly
towards me, the whole thing pivots forward and down and now I'm looking at all
the jacks on the back. So, just pull all the cables over the shelf and into the
shack, plug them all in, tilt the rack back into the vertical position and I'm
back in business.
OK, let's start running the additional cables required. Hmm..., it's midnight,
10 hours from start time. First op is arriving at 9:30 am. I decide to just
wire the PK-232 directly to the IC-25 and forget trying to use the new patch
panel for now. Get that done and tune the IC-25 to VE7CC's 2m packet freq.
Lights on PK-232 flash encouragingly. Decide to get TRLog all setup and other
stuff ready for first op before spending time trying to figure out how to
receive packet and get spots into TR.
Start TR, computer crashes. Well, computer has been somewhat flaky lately, even
crashing during the boot process so just reboot and try again. As usual lately,
I don't see the normal DOS stuff going by on the screen (Win 98) during bootup,
just a dark screen until Win starts up and asks for password. Once Win is
running again, rather than starting TR through a batch file, I just try
accessing the DOS prompt. Crash. A few days ago I found a workaround when this
happened occasionally. This is one of those mysterious ones. I found that when
accessing the DOS prompt crashed the machine it would be OK as long as I started
MS Word first. So I tried that - crash. Tried again - crash. It's now 2 am, I
don't have spots and I don't have TR. I go to bed, feeling more than a little
upset.
First op shows up at 9:30 am. I explain, apologetically, that we're toast.
Turns out he has computer smarts so we spend the next 4 hours trying to fix the
problem. It appeared that the Matrox graphics card wasn't sending the wake up
signal to the monitor when in DOS. In the meantime I call the 2nd op to let him
know there's not much point in coming. Can't get hold of the 3rd op, whose
shift starts at 3 pm. Sometime around 1 pm the 1st op leaves. We have an idea
of what's wrong but things like reinstalling drivers didn't help. I take a nap
until 3pm when 3rd op arrives. I once again explain that we're toast and why.
He asks to see the computer. Turns out that he fixes them for a living. To cut
a long story a little shorter, we stole a graphics card from my daughter's
computer, installed it and got DOS back. Then we got an updated BIOS from the
Matrox site and loaded it into the Matrox card. Removed the other card,
rebooted and, voila, we're in business. We don't have spots but we do have TR.
At 9pm, with one hour of contest left, my newbie op starts making Qs.
Well, not exactly what I had in mind. It's disappointing to read that cndx were
pretty good and we weren't there. Sure hope there were some other VE7s on to
hand out the mult. It is also very disappointing that, the first time I had 3
newbies agreeing to come out, I couldn't make it happen for them.
Next big ssb test is ARRL DX in March. Normally don't go in the UBA but it
looks like there's enough activity to make it worthwhile for op training, so get
ready to hear VE7FO mangling calls and exchanges with abandon in a couple of
weeks.
73 de Jim Smith VE7FO
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