Some people say six meters is the "Magic Band", but I have to disagree.
For me, it's 20. Friday night, about three hours after sunset there
came one of those magic moments when 20 is seemingly open to the whole
world at the same time. In less than a half hour I worked all
continents except Antarctica, and no doubt could have worked that if
someone had been on. Perhaps these moments happen more often than I
know - they just become apparent during a contest. Anyway, it was
great! No offense intended to six meters - I spent the first years of
my ham career there and enjoyed it thoroughly. But 20 is in another
league.
Had to work the first 1.5 hours of the contest plus Saturday, so decided
to do something different. Single band. Came out pretty good for just
under 12 hours on the air. But NEXT time, work is going to have to
give. <g>
One fellow I called told me I was a dupe, and despite lots of begging
and groveling, refused to work me again. First time that has ever
happened to me. Might have been a language problem. He's from one of
those countries way over there.
For those who haven't used RiTTY by K6STI with WriteLog, you ought to
give it a try. The later versions have an algorithm which looks back at
the previous characters and attempts to make sense out of the jumble by
checking for shifted case, missing or flipped bits, etc. Many times I
saw where the call was not recognizable, and about a half second after
the transmission stopped, up popped the call, correctly. I'm not a
programmer and I don't know what tricks Brian uses to make it happen,
but it works. Not 100%, but pretty close. The contester's friend.
The usual disclaimers apply. I count Brian as a friend, but have no
financial interest.
_________________________________________________________
2002 World-Wide RTTY WPX Contest
CALL: W7TI
LOCATION: California, USA
CLASS: Single Operator
High Power
Single Band: 20m
One radio
HOURS OF OPERATION: 11h 47m
Band QSOs Pts Prefixes
80m: 0 0
40m: 0 0
20m: 391 801 257
15m: 0 0
10m: 0 0
Totals: 391 801 257
Score: 205857
Station Description:
Rig: Kenwood TS-870S
Amp: Command HF-2500
Ant: Cubex 4-el quad
S/W: WriteLog v. 10.30b + RiTTY by K6STI
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