CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB
Call: N4TZ/9
Operator(s): N4TZ
Station: N4TZ
Class: SOAB LP
QTH: IN
Operating Time (hrs): 33
Summary:
Band QSOs Zones Countries
------------------------------
160: 25 6 9
80: 74 13 40
40: 114 20 52
20: 290 28 89
15: 347 28 93
10: 72 8 21
------------------------------
Total: 922 103 304 Total Score = 1,032,559
Club:
Comments:
Warning - this year's CQWW SSB Contest falls on Halloween!
That message should have been splashed across the CQ magazine
cover. I had been having some problems leading up to this
year's contest. So, what else is new? I managed to have my
prop pitch motor rebuilt (thanks to Kurt, K7NV) and reinstalled
this past Saturday, only to find that the controller also had
some issues. A trip to the big city scored some parts
Wednesday, but I still had some concerns about reliability.
Before the repairs, the motor would run even with the controller
idling, and the antenna cannot be seen from the house, even
in daylight.
I had noticed some heavy S5 QRN in all directions a few
weeks ago, but attributed it to the lack of rainfall for the
past 3 months. We got about an inch of rain this week, so
I thought it should be ok. When the contest started, I
realized that the problem was not QRN but rather much higher
gain on my second rig (about 20dB greater than my other rigs),
which caused overloading even with the attenuator inline.
So, after battling it the first few hours, I settled down
to SO1R which is pretty slow on the low bands with low
power. Saturday morning, the remaining Orion started to
lock up every few minutes, at first every half hour, but
by late afternoon every 5 or 10 minutes. I tried to do
a master reset but ended up with a rig that didn't work
at all. Rather than do any permanent damage in my sleep-
deprived mode (36 hours since my last nap), I elected to
pull the plug just as Halloween officially arrived at 0000Z.
Sunday morning, I decided to try to troubleshoot my problems.
I managed to successfully reset the Orion so that I could
see what was causing the need to reboot every few QSOs.
Many hours of off-and-on operating failed to disclose any
definitive problem; however, after swapping my external
tuning Pods, I managed to keep the Orion on the air for
the last two hours with no need to reboot, so that may
be it. I guess I'll operate some in SS to see whether
that does it while I keep plugging away on the other
rig to see what it's problem is.
Total time in chair about 33, including troubleshooting.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
______________________________________________
3830 mailing list
3830@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/3830
|