WQ6X Solo-OP's NAQP RTTY - It Ain't Over 'Til it's Over

RCForb rig control + MMTTY RTTY control

As radiosport events often do, the 2019 summer NAQP RTTY contest seemed to come at me out of "nowhere".  An e-mail from NE6I encouraging me to join up on one of the SCCC NAQP RTTY teams reminded me of the 12-hour event for this weekend.  I sent an e-mail to NX6T operators in the San Diego Contest club about running a multi-OP event on Saturday (multi-OPs get to run all 12 hours
of the contest).  It would seem that everyone was either out of town or only up for sipping brewskies
on Saturday; they all encouraged me to gopherit.

The [Friday] evening before, attending the Toastmaster's SF bay area District 57 awards dinner, one of the oft-chanted motivational-bylines for the evening was four simple words: 

I  CAN  DO  IT.

It was out of that CAN DO spirit that I troasted out-going District-57 executive director Diane Pleuss with a tongue twister representing my Toastmaster club - The Alameda Tongue Twisters.

I figured, if I can do it Friday evening then I can also do it on Saturday afternoon.  If I had known what I was up for radiosport-wise, I might have just said screw the can-do attitude, pulled the covers over my head and slept through it all.


Taking my own advice from the previous Blog entry, after the awards dinner I came back and
settled in on checking things out in order to be ready for the NAQP RTTY event some 12 hours later. 
Lessee... N1MM LoG file ready?  CHECK.  Internet connection solid on both ends?  CHECK.  Wireless headsets charged?  CHECK.  Stereo contest audio properly functional?  CHECK. 
Plenty of food and rest?  CHECK.  RCForb and VNC Viewer Software fully functional?  CHECK.

Station  N X 6 T  Friday evening after a successful equipment checkout

Dennis (N6KI) went to a lot of trouble properly configuring the Expert 2KL amplifier, increasing the
3 - 5 watts output from STN-1's Elecraft K-3 radio up to a respectable full-duty 99 watt RTTY signal. 
Because most 100-watt radios can only run only about 50-watts full-duty on RTTY, I figured running
a near-full 100 watts would sound like the equivalent of running a Kilowatt amplifier in other contests. 
As it turns out, doing that was one of the things that went flawlessly right.

Saturday morning, thinking that everything was ready to go, I moved on to other things with the intention of starting the NAQP GiG at 19:00z (12pm).  Because single-OP operations may operate only 10 out of the 12 hours, I figured giving up the 1st and the last hour of the contest would leave
the middle 10 hours to be used most effectively.

At 10:00 am, a 2-hour emergency client call ran me right up to my anticipated starting time.  Bringing up all the software required to run STN-1 on RTTY, I discovered that the software and hardware were horribly out of synch.  Dennis verified only that the radio could transmit 99 watts via the amplifier and that the A/C and antennas were working properly; verifying proper RTTY operation was MY JOB on Friday nite, not Saturday afternoon - OOOPS.

I sent out a frantic "HELP!" message to NX6T's private operator information list and received a quick call from John, W6JBR.  Within an hour, we had the radio transmitting proper AFSK RTTY except that my transmit offset frequency was OFF.  Another hour later the problem was resolved and I was now on the air, presumably to run the remaining 10 hours of the contest.

My official start time was 22:00z.  I chose to begin with 15 meters and work my way down.  Unfortunately, wasting those initial 2 hours found the band to be on its way out, yielding only 5 QSOs.
Within minutes of switching to 20-meters, I was focused and in the groove, running a RUN frequency (14092.92).  About every 10 minutes I would shift the C-31 antenna another 30 degrees (clockwise or counter-clockwise) to give other stations an opportunity to work the MIGHTY WQ6X RTTY Signal.

90 minutes into the operation I decided to shift my RTTY receive offset from 1170 hz back to a more pleasing-sounding 1275 hz.  Shortly afterwards, W6JBR texted me asking why I was not responding to his calls.  It would seem that I triggered another offset problem.  With 20 minutes of futzing we solved the problem and THIS time we instructed MMTTY to SAVE the PROFILE for NEXT time. 
I so like the settings I used my SNAP-Shot program to capture the screens so I can duplicate
the proper settings for RTTY operations @ W7AYT.

What amazed me was how many stations violated BEEF #4 from my Role of Respect in radio sport list - they work me and then attempt to solicit QSOs on MY run frequency.  Some stations were so weak (slow fade-in then fade-out) I could not work them; to "punish" me they then attempted to work stations on my run frequency.  While they may have been weak at my QTH, they were often disruptive to those stations trying to work ME.

Shortly after I moved down to 40 meters, a CM8 station (who shall remain nameless) trying to work stations on my run frequency was so persistently annoying that I made a frequency shift to 7103.03, giving him his own run frequency; IF he knew how to run a frequency.  Eventually, he found me, gave me a legitimate QSO and skulked off into the QRM.

My operating goal for the rest of the evening was to periodically shift operations from 40 meters, down to 80 and then back to 40 again.  I have a policy against running RTTY on 160 meters (FT-8 is ok tho) so I stayed away from "Top Band".  Because there is a 10-minute minimum per band-change requirement, I had to be careful; making a QSO on a new band locks me in for 10 minutes. 

If no one else is hearing me then I need to find ways to use the rest of that time, like making

a pit-stop or stopping in the kitchen to top off the coffee mug.

As things started off so poorly, I was afraid my operation would end up being a no-show for my SCCC #1 team. 

However, when it was all over with, WQ6X managed just over 7 hours of actual op time, putting 290 QSOs into the log.  Had I not lost so much OP time, that number probably would've been well over 400+ (look for me in February).

During NAQP, I managed to work K6JO and WN6K on TEAM #1 and only NC6K from TEAM #2 (altho I did see K6MUG on the decoder screen at one point).

While I wanted to call it quits several times during this frustrating event, with the frequency running (and occasional S&P) flowing so well (when it WAS flowing), I transformed Friday nite's "I can do it" chant into a mere two words - "JUST DOIT!".  So remember - when in doubt, JUST DOIT!

Posting colored-stats always makes me feel a little better and gives me something to look back at
a year from now when I am contemplating doing this all over again.

What about YOU?

Did YOU play in the NAQP RTTY contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?