[SJDXA] ARRL 160 from N2CW midway report

[Bob Schenck N2OO]

Friday night, I operated N2CW in the ARRL DX on 160 single band single op
from the site.

First up, I want to thank Marty for helping me set up WinTest, skimmer, and
filters! Marty! It is working FB! Real FB!

Also, I want to thank Bob W2ARP for coming up Friday and helping with set up
in the morning. We are ready for the SSB contest now for next weekend! Only
things to do will be to set up the radios and computers for SSB and MAYBE
tweak the transmit antennas for higher in the band, but not sure yet.

After testing carefully with Bob (ARP) I have decided that the issue
previously noted by the CW team with a jumping SWR is really a "jump" in
resonance. When the SWR rises, the resonance actually centers about 30 khz
up in the band, so it is moving back and forth. Scratch your heads on that
one! But, the antennas are working fine (CW) at least! It is not enough of a
problem to worry about this year.

I operated straight through from 45 minutes before the contest (warmup)
where I worked EY8MM along with a slew of EU's! But I did not work him "in"
the contest. I hope to snag him this evening early!

Conditions: I would say that conditions were steady and decent. I was able
to work EU right from the start all the way to when I quit at around 0830
UTC (330am). Midway point, I have 250 stations worked and (I think) 67
countries. What I noted was that several folks "swung by" during their all
band efforts (ie P40W who is doing a low power entry all band with 100
watts) . So, catching them quick was important in between CQ's. I don't feel
I missed anything that was on the spots, at least with the exception of the
first hour or so when I was still "warming myself up".

One issue I had was that every time I sent CQ with the CQ F key, it
progressively sent slower. After 3 CQ's in a row, it would drop to maybe 10
wpm! Drove me crazy! But, then I saw the problem was two dashes - at the end
of the message in the F key setup. I removed them and all was swell after
that!   Ugh!

I'll be back in it for the night starting maybe around 4-5 pm and going all
night if I can. I did work KH6, KL7 just before quitting. The 2 stations in
the USA I heard the most were W3LPL and K1LZ. The rest were scattered calls.

If anyone wants to drop in for a visit, the gate will be closed (but not
locked). 

 

See ya' in the Pileups!

73!

Bob Schenck, N2OO

President SJDXA

GO SJDXA!!! www.sjdxa.org

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/sjdxa/attachments/20130216/c8ae7af7/attachment.html>