WQ6X Nearly Drowns Again during 2019 SEANET

Long John Yagi, Lazy 8JK Sloper & JA Sloper
(CH-250 Vertical upper-right)

You may recall, exactly one year ago today, I was complaining about how the SEANET contest went (meaning how it DIDN'T went).  I went on to detail
how beacon tracking saved me from drowning. 
([CLICK HERE] to read that write up.) 

Fast forward to 2019 and beacon tracking; the importance of it is now part of my operating "fabric". 
In fact, just 2 weeks ago I revamped the beacon discussion with some newly discovered information.  ([CLICK HERE] to read that).

While reprising a SEANET operation was indeed on
my mind, ostensibly, the actual real reason for my appearance at W7AYT's QTH was to thoroughly evaluate the antenna system and perform an audio cable shakedown in conjunction with proper CAT control of the entire operation. 
I also took the time to experiment with what I am
calling SO2-V 3.0 (more on that later).



Scrolling through the WA7BNM Contest Calendar for June, I came across 5 unique (altho mostly foreign) radiosport events which caught my attention as worthy of looking into further:

1. [O] - The 3-Part DigiFest - beginning 04:00z on Saturday
2. [O] -The [infamous] SEANET Contest - 12:00z
3. [O] - The Kentucky QSO Party (KQP) - 14:00z
4. [O] - RSGB National Field Day (FD) - 15:00z
5. [O] - Dutch Kingdom Contest - also 15:00z

While the Space Weather SFI finally rose to 69 after the contest period, during the actual weekend itself it never rose above 67 as the A-Index worked its way down from 20 ==> 5.  Here in the SF
bay area there was a lot of high noise-level;  at least the lower-level stuff was easily massaged
out by the FT-1000mp's DNR (for the L. Ear) and the JPS NIR-12 (for the R. Ear).

Contest-wise, the DigiFest never materialized; not @ W7AYT and not @ NX6T - Bummer Dewd! 
The Dutch Kingdom GiG was also a no-show for WQ6X; although plenty of European spots were seen on the bandmaps, nothing workable was actually heard.

Because the SEANET GiG is largely a Pacific Rim affair, I turned NX6T's Shorty-40 and Stepp-IR antennas to approximately 300-degrees hoping for some SeaNet Calls; there were none. 
OH NO! - 3 GiGs down, only 2 left.

Saturday morning, tuning the bands
from BOTH NX6T and W7AYT, no KQP (Kentucky) stations were heard at that time.  Additionally, 20 meters did not provide the hoped-for opening to
Europe for the RSGB and Dutch GiGs.

Client commitments kept me out of the ham shack most of the afternoon, giving me only one final hour to look for KQP stations. 

One of my biggest beefs with state QSO parties (other than CQP) is the fact that not nearly enough [target] stations participate
in their own QSO parties. 

It's one thing to blame propagation to
my area(s).  If the stations exist and for whatever reason I can't hear them, at LEAST they should appear in the logging software's Telnet-influenced bandmaps. 


The only spots found were for the TWO QSOs which eventually made it to the WQ6X KQP log. 
Let's tell the truth about it - if the SPOTs aren't there, then stations are NoT transmitting.

Despite a disappointingly low Solar Flux (SFI), in recent weeks there have been more strong
openings to Europe (on 40-m & 20-m) than we left-coasters have experienced in several years. 
During the WPX Cw contest, several European QSOs made it to WQ6X's log from the SF bay area, testament to the N-E low-angle directionality provided by the Lazy 8JK Sloper's recently-replaced 110-Ohm termination resistors.

With 4-of-the-5 radiosport GiGs behind me, it would be up to the RSGB Field Day to make this weekend worth something.  While East and Mid-West stations take working England for granted,
on the LEFT coast, England is considerably more of a rarity than an expected occurrence. 

During the 05:15z - 05:45z period two "G" stations and one "M" call made it into the RSGB FD log. 
Being weak signals to begin with, there is only so much the DSP/Audio filters can do to bring them above the noise-level to copy an exchange #.  By 09:00z on Sunday, Europe had all but faded out. 

Pointing the Shorty-40 towards Asia and the Pacific yielded numerous Japanese stations working each other in some sort of domestic JA event, however nothing was heard having anything to do with SEANET.  A tipoff that SEANET may have problems attracting players is that looking at their website, everything BUT how to call CQ for their event is documented.

Leftover for the weekend was to get some sleep and spend time practicing using split audio most effectively for running dual-RX with the Yaesu FT-1000mp in preparation for properly documenting what I am calling SO2-V 3.0 - a more balanced approach to SO2-V, taking advantage of the feature-set built-in to the 1000mp in conjunction with the external filtering.

Because the Yaesu radio sports TRUE stereo separation (and various "flavors" in between), stereo-CW (and even stereo-SSB) are very much a reality.  Admittedly it takes getting used to tracking two different happenings at the same time.  However, when one ear is copying CW while the other ear is listening for SSB, it is actually a joy to run both simultaneously.

What about YOU? 
Do you ever run Dual-receive?
How has it worked for you?