[NLRS] 10 GHz Weekend One, W0JT L O N G

[John P. Toscano]

Last things first:  I had a blast, made lots of QSO's, and look forward 
to next month for weekend two.

Now the story (in slightly abbreviated form):

I took off the week AFTER the contest instead of the week BEFORE, and it 
was too late to change it by the time I realized my mistake.  So, my 
preparations were impaired.  My shack is still in a shambles after being 
torn apart for the UHF contest.  Even my 10 GHz system was in need of 
re-assembly, because I had torn it apart to confiscate the IF radio for 
the replacement 222 station two weeks earlier, and my keyer had died.  
Replacement keyer arrived on Thursday night, but serious re-assembly and 
testing didn't begin until Friday night.  By around midnight on Friday, 
I had my 10 GHz system completely re-assembled, and everything checked 
out ok.  Batteries were fully charged (I bought a second 31AH gel cell 
because last year, one did not last the whole day, and I didn't want to 
run out of power again.)  I started loading what I could into the car.  
By the time I got everything packed that I could, and stacked the rest 
in my living room to put in the car at the last minute, it was 2 AM.  I 
set my alarm for 4 AM, so I could finish packing, drive over to Donn's 
place, move it all from my car to his, and begin the drive to our 
rendezvous spot.  Man, it was hard to get up after only 2 hours of sleep.

The drive out was thankfully uneventful.  As we drove past downtown 
prior to sunrise, the lights of the city and the (near?) full moon made 
an impressive picture.  I wish I had managed to snap a photo of it.

Anyway, we got to our first operating location and set up.  I got tuned 
to the correct frequency, and pointed my dish for maximum signal from 
Sisseton.  The adrenaline started to flow.  Finally, it was my turn, and 
I pressed the PTT button on the mic and started to call.  Ahead of me, I 
saw Donn waving madly at me and shouting something I couldn't hear 
through my headphones.  I stopped, pulled off the headphones, and he 
told me I was not transmitting anything!  Yikes, all this stuff was 
working a few hours ago!  I dropped out of my turn in the rotation, and 
madly started picking apart my system to try to figure out what was 
wrong.  I took apart piece by piece to simply everything to the 
fundamentals, and still it didn't work.  Other rovers in the pack who 
had finished their QSO's gathered 'round to offer whatever helpful 
advice and/or tools that they could.  Just about the time I had 
concluded that the radio had gone bad and I was not going to be able to 
work anyone at all for the whole weekend, Bruce casually asked me, "why 
does the display (on my IF rig) say 28 MHz every time you transmit?"  
DOH!  I had tuned to the wrong memory channel on the IC-706MkIIg, and it 
was a channel where I had been experimenting with split-band operation 
-- listen on 2 Meters and transmit on 10 Meters!  The radio didn't like 
the fact that there was no antenna connected to the HF port, and the 
radio uses two different PTT signals, one for HF through 50 MHz and the 
other for 144-450 MHz.  So every time I keyed up the mic, the PTT was 
activated for a very brief moment, keying the transverter for maybe a 
tenth of a second, but then the radio switched bands, and dropped the 
VHF/UHF PTT line because it was now on HF, and then the radio shut 
itself down due to high SWR, and, well, you can imagine the mess!  I 
changed to the memory channel I had *INTENDED* to use (no split, Rx and 
Tx at the same frequency on 2 meters), and it worked again (but with a 
lot of the accessories disconnected.  By this time, everyone else had 
worked both Sisseton and Lonsdale, and were preparing to leave.  I 
quickly worked the three operators in Lonsdale who were available, and 
decided to pack it in until the next stop to keep us from falling any 
further behind schedule.

Things settled down to a more normal pattern after that.  At most stops, 
I worked everyone available at either Sisseton or Lonsdale, with just a 
few omissions.  Many times, I barely had enough time to unpack my gear, 
set up the tripod and dish, plug in the battery, tune to the right 
frequency, find the proper bearing, tweak the azimuth and elevation, and 
make rapid-fire QSO's with the folks on the other end, then re-point 
from Sisseton to Lonsdale or vice versa, do it again, and tear it all 
down, re-pack it in the back of Donn's minivan, jump in, and go to the 
next site.  In fact, the pace stayed so hectic that I didn't take a 
single photograph the whole weekend!  :(

The only mishap on Saturday was when I was preparing to set up in a 
roadside ditch, and I stepped into a critter hole that was well-hidden 
by weeds.  Fortunately, I wasn't carrying anything heavy (like a gel 
cell battery!) or anything fragile (like my dish-mounted transverter/IF 
radio system), and did only minor damage to my shin and my pride.

Signals were up and down all day, but as has already been mentioned, 
they were generally solid enough that we didn't need to attempt any CW 
contacts, which was just as well, because once I got my system working 
at the first stop, I never stopped to re-attach the extra pieces like 
the keyer, fearing I would mess up something else and make it stop 
working.  There was only one stop (EN24LX) where I couldn't hear, nor be 
heard by, the Lonsdale operators, so I missed all 5 possible QSO's that 
time.

By Saturday night, we knew we had accomplished a lot.  We went to the 
hotel and dropped off our stuff, then went over to Jackpot Junction for 
the supper buffet.  I was amazed at how much food my skinny co-rovers 
managed to pack away when it was all you can eat for a set price!  I 
slept like a rock that night.

Sunday morning came all too soon, but I had gotten a good night's sleep 
(obviously much better than Friday night's 2 hours!), so I was psyched 
up to go.  We rolled out a few minutes ahead of schedule, and began day 
two.  Operations on Sunday were generally pretty smooth once again, at 
least until the next-to-last stop in EN24ps.  After making all my QSO's 
with Sisseton and Vasa, I stepped away from my system to ask one of the 
other operators a question, and the wind blew my system over.  It landed 
on the feedhorn, ripping the semi-rigid coax and SMA connector out of 
the feed horn.  Now I was *SURE* I was finished for the weekend, but 
Donn came to my rescue with some duct tape, and much to my surprise, in 
spite of a loose feedhorn with the connection held together with duct 
tape and a bent dish, I had no trouble at all at our final stop in 
EN24rt working either Sisseton or Vasa.  Magic!

Here's how my scores are shaping up:

              Totals              Best      Finish
                                 Dx in     in Call
Year  QSO's  Uniques   Points      Km     District 0
----  -----  -------  --------  --------  ----------
2002     6       5        555      20      16 of 16
2003    35      13      2,856     138      22 of 23
2004   196      22     32,001     332       8 of 18
2005   265      18     49,083     247        TBD

Both the QSO count and the points would have put me in the top 10 in the 
country last year, and we still have another weekend to go!  This could 
be very interesting!  Let's hope that the second weekend is as 
productive as the first.

Many many thanks to everyone who made it possible.

73 de W0JT