Sunday, July 19, 2020

WQ6X Works a slippery-slope NAQP RTTY Contest

This has to be one of the strangest (if not THE strangest) NAQP RTTY contest in July EVER.
It came out of nowhere and almost didn't happen TWICE.  At the very least, this weekend was
an embodiment of how important sticking to your original plan REALLY is.  The world around us
is of course still loaded with chaos; the reason I used Dilbert to headline this Blog entry.

Yesterday it seemed like I rolled out of bed - on the wall side.  A radio club bored meeting and a Toastmaster's training, for disconnected reasons did not materialize.  That seemed to pave the way for beginning the NAQP RTTY promptly at 18:00z (11am) and work the 1st ten hours of the GiG.  Amplifier problems with STN-1 (in Fallbrook) and no easy access to STN-2 from my Elecraft K3/0 setup in Concord seemed to be an off-the-air proclamation.

At 21:00z N6KI called to say that STN-1's amp problem had mysteriously been resolved. 
AWEsome.  Except unfortunately IP internet access in/out-of Fallbrook was not responsive - at
BOTH stations.  After nearly an hour of troubleshooting we resolved all this by restarting BOTH computers and I did the same on my end - Hurrah!  problem solved: 92 watts output - except,
not quite.  After making 4 QSOs on 15-meters and switching to 20, the Expert 2KL amplifier
was again non-responsive - Zero output. 

Bypassing the amplifier, the K3 was dialed back to 55 watts for the rest of the contest. 
As it turns out, there was a pipeline from Fallbrook to the E. Coast - being heard was
not a problem; however hearing back was a REAL problem.  I probably clicked the
"UR CALL AGN?" button 500 times in the 6-hour operating period.

Once on 20-meters (@00:05z) WQ6X settled in on 14114.14 for nearly an hour until some
joker moved in on top of me relegating a move down to 14113.93 for another hour.  At 01:36z the move was made down to 7087.87 until the Ssb crowd moved in, relegating a shift further down to 7083,83.  At 03:53z it was time for 80 - 3582.82 and then 3597.97.  I was hoping to work many of
the same stations from 40 & 20 again on 80.  Unfortunately, only a handful of stations actually followed me there - Bummer Dewd. 

At 05:10z it was back to 40 (7095.95) just in time for an FT-8 heckler (at 05:26) who made FT8-Squeals every time he heard a station call me.  This clown was followed up by K5LY working me (after several repeats) and then IMMEDIATELY calling CQ on my run frequency, attempting to steal QSOs with MY calling stations.  HuH?  WTF is THAT all about?  By 05:30z as quick as it
all started, they both got bored and disappeared (presumably to hassle someone else).

When it was all over 246 QSOs (w/87 Multipliers) actually made it to the log - amazing when
you consider it was originally suggested that WQ6X was to be off the air all weekend.

How about YOU?  Did YOUR callsign materialize during the NAQP RTTY GiG?

Is WQ6X in YOUR Log?

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