What an eventful contest for me....
I hadn't done RTTY in over a year so I was quite a bit rusty. The practice
last night was quite useful as I realized that I had to make some major
changes in the ergonomics of my shack if I was going to have any chance of
operating the full ten hours.
So early this morning, I moved the rig around, swapped out the monitor for
a larger one, and using some skillfully arranged books, got it to the
perfect height.
Then, about an hour before the contest, my lawn guys (who are wonderful and
keep my lawn nicely manicured to keep the HOA happy with me) came and
inadvertently destroyed with their weed wackers the 80 meter antenna I had
put up last week. (It was a "fence-tenna," NVIS to the extreme, but I
thought it would give me a chance to work at least someone on 80 meters.)
Well, that was not to be. :D
As the contest started, I quickly got back in the scheme of
things....although I did trip over N1MM's Enter-Sends-Message a bit, but
once I got used to it, I don't think I'll ever operate a contest without
it! I'm left handed so it is very natural and ergonomic to keep my left
hand on the mouse and right hand over the Enter key.
My macros weren't as tuned as I thought they were, so I found myself
pulling out to tweak them, but once I got them there I fell into a
wonderful S&P rhythm. I love it when everything comes together. An
efficient RTTY exchange is like dancing or playing catch; when both parties
are in perfect sync it is a fun and wonderful thing.
And then, a little bit before 1 am UTC, I did something I have never done
before in a contest: I called CQ. I ran for the first time! I finally
got over my "mic fright"! My first few QSOs running were absolutely
exhilarating! (Although, while successful, they weren't perfect. I
bumbled my macros a bit and took some time out to tweak them, making my
subsequent run attempts much more fluid.)
I even had one small run when the calls just kept coming to my TU & QRZ
macro. That was some of the most fun I've had in ham radio.
While 196 QSOs with 15,000 or so points is fairly modest, I met my goals
for this contest: operate the entire time, optimize my macros, and try to
do an average of 20 QSOs an hour, and mostly importantly, try to run.
Goals for the next NAQP are to increase my rate, put up some dipoles
(current antennas are all verticals on 10/15/20/40), and try to have
something on 80 meters.
73,
--
/*/-=[Michael / KT5MR]-=/*/
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