IF YOU ARE NOT A CONTESTER AND NOT INTERESTED IN OPERATING IN CONTESTS, EXIT
NOW AND DELETE THIS MESSAGE.
This past weekend I did what I once swore I would never do again: I worked
an SSB contest.
THE BIG ONE: CQWW DX SSB
First of all, the only one in our group whom I worked (that I know of) was
once again Barry, N1EU.
Nice to work one of the members!
I used my Eagle, and Heathkit SB-1000 amp. Ran 750w, max legal power in DL.
I do not have a voice memory box or even a headset with mic.
It is all manual here, picking up the mic to talk, then laying it down to
type.
AND NO, I am not interested in suggestions for improvement because I swear I
will never work another SSB contest again!
In the past, in CW contests I set up the radio and never touch it, except
for VFO and RF gain. - well that is normally, except in the past it didn't
quite work right; when I double clicked a call sign in the bandmap, I had to
hit the mode switch once or twice to put it back into CW mode because it was
jumping to LSB mode.
So for CW contests, I never touched the bandwidth (left it at 100 Hz), nor
the Bandpass. which did not work anyway when running the logging software
(Win-Test) in "Orion2" mode. It had no Eagle mode due to no OmniRig
support.
John Henry fixed the OmniRig support.
Now everything works.
I could not have survived the SSB contest without using the Passband Tuning
often.
In the past it never worked; now it does.
RESULTS: Well all things are relative. A lot depends on the location and
the antennas. At my QTH I have only an 80m Windom and a 160m Inverted-L.
Although I have several beam and vertical antennas, they simply do not work
from this location, which is in a valley, on a 40% incline up the mountain.
The only thing that works is a high angle (low) dipole.
845 QSOs and 500k points in 20 hours operating.
Breakdown by band:
BAND QSO CQ DXC DUP POINTS AVG
------------------------------------------------
160 52 4 27 1 51 0.98
80 123 8 44 1 140 1.14
40 177 13 61 1 255 1.44
20 188 17 65 0 274 1.46
15 151 16 61 0 238 1.58
10 154 21 55 0 329 2.14
------------------------------------------------
TOTAL: 845 79 313 3 1287 1.52
================================================
TOTAL SCORE : 504 504
The interesting column is "DXC" which shows number of countries worked by
band.
OK, this doesn't break any records, but considering the QTH, I am happy with
the results.
I worked 100% search and pounce (S&P).
Operating was different than many would expect.
My setup had the Eagle pulled right up next to the keyboard on the left.
I tuned mostly with the mouse, simply clicking on the station (shown in the
bandmap) that I wanted to work.
A double-click jumped the Eagle's frequency to that stations QRG. This now
works properly thanks to John Henry's efforts.
Occasionally I tuned the Eagle's VFO with my left hand, which is easy after
an hour or two. In the past the radio has been on the right and I used my
right hand.
I navigated the band with the scroll wheel of the mouse, double clicking on
the juicy ones.
This of course was with the right hand.
ONE SORE POINT REMAINS: The procedure to shift VFO tuning from 10 Hz tuning
to 1 Hz tuning is painful. It requires pushing the step button 4 times. It
needs to be a "toggle" function - up one level, or down one level. Easy
fix: short push to go up (as it is now), long push to go back down.
I really look forward to CQWW CW in 4 weeks.
Hope to work more of the gang in that one.
I'll finish like I started with a BIG THANKS TO JOHN HENRY!
73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt am Main)
_______________________________________________
TenTec mailing list
TenTec@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
|