Greetings y'all!
I know my major SS CW QRP competition (W4PA) will shake in his boots knowing
this, but I just gotta share this with the list.
The Omni VI I bought from Rich Lucchesi, WA2RQY, arrived on my front doorstep
late last week.
After getting it unpacked (whew! What a job, Rich!!) and on the operating desk,
I did some preliminary checks. FB!
The next day, after work, I rushed home, pulled the Delta II and it's power
supply off the desk, and put the Omni VI in place. I connected the PC and
bpf/antenna/keying control box cables and did some more testing. FB!
I had to leave for Houston. ARRL DX CW was underway...boy! Did I hate to have
to leave.
Saturday morning, I got up, fired up the radios, computer, hooked up antennas
and ran through a good checkout of the two radios (oh yeah, my first radio is
an Omni VI (with upgrade 3). This was waaaayyy cool. Two Omni VI's
side-by-side.
I couldn't spend as much time in ARRL DX CW as I wanted, but what time I did
showed me that (1) Rich's Omni VI performed like a champ, and (2) I still have
a lot to learn about two-radio contesting. For 15 hours of QRP operation, I
made 463 QSO's with 185 mults. So cool!
I noticed a couple of things:
1. I definitely need a 500 Hz filter in the second Omni VI (285 -- anyone have
one they want to sell me?). A lot of my operating of my original Omni VI is in
1.8kHz filter bandwidth. However, there are a number of times during a contest
when I'm dropping down to 500Hz.
2. My Model 305 remote vfo control has been an ergonomic lifesaver for my
original Omni VI. Not having to reach up from the keyboard to the radio to
tune around has been a real blessing. Not being able to use it with the second
Omni VI really left a void.
3. The nearly identical layout of the radio controls on the two radios and
their similar 'sound' made operating much more comfortable and consistent.
This evening, I fixed item number 2, above. I added a DPDT toggle switch and a
second cable to connect to the second Omni VI. It works like a champ. I can't
wait for the next contest to try it out.
73,
Dale Martin, KG5U
kg5u@hal-pc.org
http://www.hal-pc.org/~kg5u
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/tentecfaq.htm
Submissions: tentec@contesting.com
Administrative requests: tentec-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: owner-tentec@contesting.com
Search: http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search.htm
|