WQ6X Survives the IP-Jungle to play CQ-M & VOLTA RTTY

Out of nowhere a last-minute inquiry from Dennis (N6KI) convinced me to team up with him to play around in the Russian CQ-M contest.  While this was a mixed-mode contest, we focused only on CW.  My contest goals for the weekend was to Dual-OP the CQ-M GiG as well as the Volta RTTY contest; and if possible work stations in the Arkansas QSO Party - simple right? - Not Quite.

Normally when I arrive at W7AYT's QTH, all I need do is plug an Ethernet cable from the a MicroTik router into the laptop and Voila! - instant internet and easy K3/0 remote access to STN-1 & STN-2
in Fallbrook.  The fact that I had to access the internet via the on-site router (rather than thru the MicroTik) was an indication something was wrong.  It would seem that I could power on/off the
radio at STN-2 but could not control it. 

To make a long (boring) story short I needed to work with John (K6AM) to sort out a number of recently developed IP-address conflicts.  In the interim, I put WQ6X on the air from Concord for
the CQ-M & VOLTA GiGs.  Once the K3/0 finally connected up, I lost no time in adding QSOs
to the CQ-M log, picking up where N6KI left off.  Unfortunately, by this time the ARQP GiG was
long over - no Arkansas QSOs ever made it to the log.

Turning the 2-el Shorty-40 yagi towards Asia, tuning to ~7.039 the F-K--M beacons were heard, however for the 1st time ever the "K" beacon was transmitting differently than I've ever heard it.  Repeated over and over again I heard "K K K  T T T..." - why the change, I am not certain. 
I guess the question becomes how long will this difference continue to manifest.

Throughout the weekend I ran into all kinds of operating anomalies.  Typical were stations calling me not knowing the CQM was a contest.  I would send them "5NN 1234" followed by Ctrl-W (wipe from log) and they would go away. 10 minutes later they would be calling in again.  HuH? WTF?!  Several callers (obviously oblivious to the fact I was running a contest), would go into "ragchew mode".

A weird one came from K7BTW chiding us for not following his instructions. 

He sent "W6 ONLY" and then proceeded to work WB8JUI.  HuH?  WTF?!
I wrote this complaint up as BEEF #12 in the "Role of Respect in Radiosport" - Part 3.
([CLICK HERE] to read about that.

In the Volta RTTY GiG my biggest beef was finding an obviously clear frequency, calling CQ
and immediately some other station would begin calling CQ - perfectly zero-beat.  After pressing
the F-11 key ("QRL / QSY") multiple times they would move on.  WTF were they trying to accomplish
by doing that?  I wrote this complaint up as BEEF #2 in the "Role of Respect in Radiosport" - Part 1.
([CLICK HERE] to read about that.

Once the K3/0 was functional the audio out was routed to a pair of Autek QF-1A filters creating
a stereo Cw effect.  (I have written about this before. [CLICK HERE] to read about that.) 
With stereo Cw, tuning thru a signal causes it to shift from the left side of my experience
over to the right side and vice-versa. 

When running a frequency, because multiple calling stations would be at different offsets (relative
to the run frequency), some stations would appear at different locations on the "left side" of my experience, while others would appear at different locations on the "right side".   This makes it
considerably easier to sort stations out of the jumble, running the frequency more effectively.

When it was all over NX6T took 2nd place in the CQ-M contest, missing 1st-place

by only 4 QSOs - bummer dewd.  Northern California beat Southern California in this event.

While running as Single-OP (from both the W7AYT & NX6T locations) brought

me no awards, it was a good dual-OP experience overall and worth the time investment.

What about You?  Did YOU work the CQ-M or Volta RTTY contests?

Is NX6T or WQ6X in YOUR log?