[LCC] NAQP RTTY K5ER

[Mark, K5ER]

North American QSO Party, RTTY - July

Call: K5ER
Operator(s): K5ER
Station: K5ER

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: Louisiana
Operating Time (hrs):
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
  Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
    80:   22    16
    40:   30    21
    20:   98    34
    15:   82    30
    10:    3     2
-------------------
Total:  235   103  Total Score = 24,440

Club: Louisiana Contest Club

Team: LCC #1

Comments:

First, thanks Don for getting the teams together and registered. To me, 
this adds another layer of fun to contesting.

I broke one of the well known contest rules - don't change things the day 
of the contest. I tried to load a new history file, and found that Writelog 
imports an ADI format, while N1MM wants a comma de-limited file. Ended up 
losing about 30 minutes at first of contest, so I accepted that this would 
be part of my mandatory time off. The file worked pretty well, with only 
about 6-7 of the names being incorrect, such as Richard rather than Dick, 
Bob instead of Robert, etc. If you use these, DO pay attention. At CTU in 
Dayton, it has been said more than once, "Pre-fill can be pre-bust - if you 
don't check each and every entry".

Speaking of breaking - if it could - it did. The cable of my headset caught 
on the keyboard and yanked the headset off. The wire pulled enough to cause 
a partial loss of audio in one speaker. Finally, I had a brief run on 20 
going when I felt a distinct drop in rate. I looked down and saw the power 
output at about 20 watts - and the SWR sky high. Better check the antenna - 
but wait, the analyzer failed while on loan the other day. After first 
dis-assembling and repairing the RigExpert (broken antenna port lead), I 
began to trace the problem. 20 meter section on the BPF was toast. Since I 
do SO2R, and don't use stubs, I depend on the BPF's to protect each radio 
from the other. Since I didn't want to go to only one radio, I took time to 
repair the unit. Got to take mandatory time off anyway, right?

Back on again with no more "off-time", so got to make it good. Not sure if 
I fat-fingered keys or what, but the computer locked up with a radio in 
xmit mode. Had to shut down comp and both rigs. I didn't initially notice 
it, but when re-starting, the band decoder locked ALL SIX relays on the 
antenna switch onto the left rig. This also instantly disabled any antenna 
from the right rig. Neither radio liked this situation. Another complete 
power off and restart seemed to fix the issue, but the BPF may have been 
damaged again by xmiting into a really strange load (antenna and 
stack-matches for all six bands at once). Dropped power levels to about 75% 
and decided to keep going.

It was about this point when my wife came in carrying her e-reader and 
charger. The shell of the charger was in pieces and the plug had 2 of the 
original 5 wires still connected. This is the lady who just that morning 
had gotten up early and cooked me home made apple turn-overs. Of course I 
stopped and fixed her device. By the time I got everything repaired, I 
believe I could have worked more contacts in the European rtty contest than 
what was left working the NAQP.

Still, a bad day in the shack beats a good day doing many other things. I'm 
thankful that I had the experience, tools and parts available to repair 
everything that broke this weekend. To my team, I think I managed to keep 
Murphy busy here, so the rest of you could enjoy a good weekend contesting 
without issue.

Nowhere near the points I wanted, but did enjoy what part of the contest I 
was able to participate in. Got up Sunday and enjoyed Church with family 
and spent a quiet afternoon with my wife. Still a pretty great way to spend 
a weekend. Will just chalk this NAQP up to experience and look forward to 
the next one.

73,
Mark, K5ER


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