Well, first time in a long time for a rtty contest, even if it was only a few
hours of S&P operation... The last rtty contest used WF1B ver 2.0 running under
DOS (original, paid for and registered) driving a PK-232 into an Omni 6 and a
Henry 3K, but the world moves on...
Being that I operate 80 and 160 and have no working antennas for other bands
I decided to throw up a dipole for 40 and 20...
Decided to try N1MM - MMTTY (hey, free is good) with the MK-V and Henry 3K...
Small thrash to get it all going - about an hour of head scratching - but it
finally smoothed out and began to play... Shortly before the start of the
contest I decided to fire up the amp and check for RFI (didn't expect any but
you never know)..
Hit the power switch on the Henry control console, 3 seconds later there is a
solid 'thump' from the amp deck and the console lights go black... Whut the
hey?
There is the definite smell of 'magic smoke' departing some components - and
when you are out of magic smoke you are out of luck... So it appears that the
Henry is not going to play in this contest...
OK, time for plan B... I eyed the other operating bench with the
Orion-Titan... They are not set up for digital but in my wasted youth as a
street racer 'ya run what ya brung'... OK, I got out the thumb drive and loaded
the software into the computer on that bench... Lessee, the Rig Blaster is
wired to the MK-V and I don't feel like making new harnesses to move it... So,
a search of the goodies box turned up a line cord that will get audio from the
Orion into the computer sound card.. And another cord from a previous rig will
put output audio from the soundcard into the AUX mic connector on the Orion, so
AFSK it will be... It already had a PTT from the serial port for CW contesting
so I was in business...
Then I went into lets make the software work, mode... Actually this turned
out to be relatively painless since I had just solved getting it to run on the
MK-V... Well, painless once I remembered that the AUX audio input has to be
turned on by menu command in the Orion... Never the less at 2350z I am ready to
go - making power and no RFI....
Let me say this package of software works like gangbusters... After the first
5 minutes I forgot about WF1B...
Results... This was a part time, S&P operation... It was perfect fall weather
and I have a big list of work that needs to be done before the weather goes
away.... I spent way more hours outside than I did operating... I would pass
by the bench, sit down and work a pass across the band and then go back
outside...
Anyway the N1MM screen shows this:
172-56-30-56
44,020
Looking at the results it is clear I was DXing not contesting...
Orion II
TItan III
80 meter dipole at 100'
40 meter dipole at 70'
20 meter dipole at 35'
cheers ... denny - k8do
denny / k8do
---------------------------------
Fussy? Opinionated? Impossible to please? Perfect. Join Yahoo!'s user panel
and lay it on us.
_______________________________________________
RTTY mailing list
RTTY@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rtty
|