[PVRCNC] K4OV NAQP SSB SO LP

[Robert Katz]

NAQPSSB Summary Sheet

    CallSign Used : K4OV
Operator Category : SINGLE-OP
             Band : ALL
            Power : LOW
             Mode : SSB

     ARRL Section : NC

        Band     QSOs     Pts  Sec   Mt2
         3.5     198     198   34    0
           7     275     275   45    1
          14     177     177   31    0
       Total     650     650  110    1

            Score : 72,150

I went by "Bob" in this one because I always get lots of repeats with "Rob."  Of course, I didn't realize this would confuse people who already know me.  Oops.  I'll probably go back to "Rob" next year (and keep everybody on their toes).  I enjoy saying hi to the NC folks, and it's great hearing the voices behind other callsigns I know.  Will gave me his callsign very quickly as "AA4NC" instead of using phonetics, and I couldn't process it.  My first thought was "I hate when these new guys won't use phonetics..."  In my (weak) defense, it was towards the end of the night and I was tired.  Good to work Bert K1IMI/K1? twice from ME.  And all the other familiar hellos made this an enjoyable night.

Conditions felt terrible.  I checked several times and heard nothing (and saw nothing on the P3) on 15 or 10.  I worked 20 until the skip reached the unpopulated West, then moved to 40.  I worked there until 1:30Z and moved to 80m.  I CQ's almost entirely above 3800 with no intentional QRM- a great benefit of low power!  Spent a couple of hours on 80, and then bounced between 40/80 to build up my mults.  I mostly ran, but made S&P passes when switching to a new band or when moving my CQ frequency to a different part of the band.  I was getting tired toward the end, and almost gave up with 2 hours to go.  I kept telling myself "Butt In Chair, Butt in Chair" and made little goals to keep me going (mostly around adding new mults).  It payed off with six new 80m mults coming within 9 QSOs in my final hour.  As it was, I threw in the towel with one hour to go and went to sleep.

I missed the first hour on the contest.  When I turned on my radio just before the contest started, I got no signals.  Not just on 10m & 15m, but on any band.  I finally traced it to a loose connection in some control wires.  I also spent a couple of periods during the contest getting N1MM+ and DVK working after upgrading my shack computer to Windows 7.  Most of my wire antennas are down, in the midst of upgrading.  I didn't need them on 10 or 15!  I did get my 80m wideband antenna up, but it's only SSB so far.

73,
   Rob  K4OV

--
Dr. Rob Katz, Director
Legacy Center, Inc.
919-678-6000
rob.katz at theLegacyCenter.com