WQ6X Fakes another 7-Contest Weekend

Client commitments kept me in Alameda for this last weekend.  LooKing at the WA7BNM Contest calendar discovered 7 contests that could be casually operated throughout the 48-hour weekend. 
An 8th contest - The RSGB Commonwealth GiG - was not available to us as we declared our independence from the Commonwealth back in 1776.

This weekend offered up the opportunity to test run a Rockville 4-device stereo audio mixer enabling the combination of unfiltered and filtered audio to drive headphones or powered speakers.  Because the headphones have no power amplifier to power them, I built a Rainbow stereo amplifier kit that is small enough to fit inside the Rockville mixer, paralleling it's output with the mixer's output. 
The Rockville mixer is destined for my setup at W7AYT's QTH.

The contest list for the week chronologically included:

• [x] The YB RTTY Contest
• [x] Oklahoma QSO Party (OQP)
• [x] Stew Perry Top Band Challenge
• [x] Tesla Memorial Cw Contest
• [x] Idaho QSO Party (IDQP)
• [x] NA Sprint RTTY
• [x] Wisconsin QSO PARTY (WIQP)

Axel, KI6RRN also wanted to play around in the various QSO parties & SP-160 contest this weekend; we worked out a compromise overlapping-schedule allowing him to remote-in to STN-2 and use the C-31 antenna for the high bands while I remoted-in to STN-1 using the 3-el Stepp-IR.  On 160, 80 & 40 meters, at any given moment WQ6X was on one band and KI6RRN was on another.

Internet connection problems kept me off the air until around 07:15z.  Pointing the 2-el Shorty-40 towards Asia immediately put 3-point QSOs in the log, along with a few 10-point YB stations.  Working off and on (with naps in between) 40 remained open to Asia/YB amazingly until 16:30z;

even then, I could still hear them, altho they could not hear me answer their CQ YBRTTY Test calls. 

Around that time, calling CQ YB Test on 7053.53 was met with a  Cw station send log strings of dits.  Moving to 7052.52, the "ditter" of course followed me.  Immediately a YB station began calling CQ with PERFECT RTTY copy; meaning choosing the frequency was NO accident.  Then the Cw station showed up sending "V V V" repeatedly.  I'm used to intentional QRM on 40 meters; but at 2am, NoT 9:15.  Before leaving 40-meters I noticed the Russian Military "F" beacon was still being heard in Fallbrook - Amazing.

Switching to 20 meters, I ran frequencies and looked around for OK stations, until 19:30z, when after putting W7ZRC in
the IDQP LoG I called it Quits for the afternoon.

Client commitments kept me
off the air most of Saturday afternoon until 23:10z when I wrapped up the YB RTTY GiG running a 1/2 hour and then switched operating focus to
the NAQP RTTY. 

Altho the Stew Perry (SP-160) GiG began at 15:00z, the band was just fading out at that time; 160 would have to wait until later Saturday evening.  European and East Coast stations clearly have a Time-of-Day advantage in this contest.

For the NA Sprint RTTY GiG, NE6I's attempt to put together a SCCC RTTY team didn't materialize leaving WQ6X to run it alone.  Continuing to run RTTY using an Elecraft K3 into an Expert-2k amp running at around 888 watts, the bandplan was to milk what's left of 20, then spend
a couple of hours on 40 before moving down to include 80 meters.

NA Sprint contests are unique in that the events are only 4 hours long and there are no run frequencies.

While technically we are not restricted from using spotting assistance, because stations are required to QSY after each QSO, bandmap spots are all but worthless.

A secret to excelling in the NA Sprint GiGs is none other than the main tuning knob.  I often make use of VFO-A & VFO-B by using one to move up in frequency and one to move down.  Using full-blown SO2-V takes dual-VFO usage to the next level.

At 08:00z NX6T went dark, paving the way
for a run in the Stew Perry contest.  To make things easier I ran frequencies most of the time.  Because the exchange sent is a Grid Square ID there are no multipliers, each QSO is awarded points based on the Km distance between the two stations.

The remaining event (the WQP) happened
on Sunday.  For WQ6X, time was found at 19:00z on 20-meters (49 mins).  At 22:30 40-meters opened, providing 90 minutes of WQP operation.  As usual, in-state participation in their own QSO Party was noticeably lacking.




Overall, the 7-contest weekend was an interesting challenge and provided an opportunity to test run the Rockville stereo mixer before integrating it into the WQ6X portable operation @W7AYT's QTH.

DiD YOU operate in any of the 7 contests during the weekend?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

March 2021 - NEWS FLASH! 
Last Year's operation was actually worth something.