The weekend wrapping up the month of February is always a mixed-affair. Putting out a call to the NX6T operators, determined that officially NX6T would be "dark" that weekend. Looking at the WA7BNM Contest Calendar, 4 operating events seemed viable to run remotely from Fallbrook.
These included:
- [X] - The CQ Worldwide 160 Meter Contest
- [X] - The South Carolina QSO Party (SCQP)
- [X] - The NAQP RTTY Contest GiG
- [X] - The North Carolina QSO Party (NCQP)
Luckily these event overlapped to such a degree that they could be arranged into a more-or-less
40-hour operating schedule. Station #1 was commandeered for the weekend giving me the option
to run with an amplifer all weekend; which, as it turned out, turned into a NAQP RTTY OooPs!
While I love the classic Electro Voice 664, it is primarily a ragchew microphone. Instead, as has done many times in recent months, the 664 becomes a microphone stand for the Heil headset,
held in place by a mini bungee cord. Radio Amateurs are often known for their resourcefulness.
Running High Power in Fallbrook, requires that the shack A/C system be turned on to keep the AMPs cool. The problem is that our APC switch web APP no longer indicates whether or not the A/C unit is drawing current. To resolve this problem, N6KI put colored tape (ORANGE & YELLOW) tape on the A/C unit's louver's. LooKing thru the WYZE security camera, if the colors can be seen, the A/C is off; if the slats are black, the A/C is on. Ingenious!
When it came time to submit my NAQP RTTY Log, just then I remembered that NAQP is purposely a low power contest - High Power and Assisted operations result in the entry being classified as a CHECKLOG. Oh well, at least I was able to hand out 302 QSOs to nearly 200 unique stations.
I enjoyed doing it and that is all that matters.
that high, but reasonably sensitive. The problem for the 160 weekend was the S-9 noise level. Fiddling with the various NR & XFIL options in the Elecraft was what kept the noise-level to S-9
(it was previously +20db). On the remote end, running the K3/0 audio through the compliment of
audio filters on the Concord end helped "take the tops off" of the noise, making it more tolerable.
For the 160 contest most of the contacts (a ToTaL of 98) were made during the main operating
period (02:34z - 06:35z). After 4 hours sleep another look around the band yielded 5 more QSOs - wOw! Because the NAQP RTTY required most of Saturday's evening hours, after a couple hours sleep, one more look around 160 was made at 08:35z. When nearly an hour of op-time resulted in only 3 more unique QSOs (the rest of the stations heard were DUPs), it was time to say BYE-BYE
to the CQ-160 contest.
After the monthly meeting of the Amateur Radio Club of Alameda (ARCA), transitioning to the
NAQP RTTY contest continued the fun. The ARCA meeting presentation was on the subject of
[man-made] noise and what to do about it. Running remote from Fallbrook freed me from the noise problems I normally encounter at the W7AYT QTH in Concord. Internet dropouts are the noise replacement. Luckily, this weekend, the internet was rather cooperative.
The secret to a successful RTTY contest is maximizing the SIGNAL-to-JUNK ratio, allowing the MMTY decoder to present the best copy possible. When the decoder screen is "jumping around",
it's neigh impossible to mouse-click entries into the log, so I resort to the tried-and-true method of actually typing in the data on the keyboard.
QSO Party-wise, while I listened around the Cw band segments throughout Saturday, no South Carolina (SC) Stations were ever heard. Propagation was CLEARLY open to the east coast during the day on 20, 15 and later 40 meters. Unfortunately not a single SC station was to be found.
A quick skim of the Ssb band areas also yielded ZILCH. This of course is my major complaint
with most state QSO parties - except CQP - not enough stations participate in their own events.
On Sunday, the 4th contest opportunity opportunity came in the form of the North Carolina QSO
Party - the NCQP. While there was a smattering of activity, only SIX 20-meter QSOs made it into the NCQP Log, followed by ONE more on 40. To resolve this I elected to call CQ on 14041.41 as follows:
CQ NC de WQ6X/6 WQ6X/CA
This brought callers from virtually every area of the country EXCEPT NC.
You may remember a 2020 Blog I wrote about this problem.
Based on that Blog, I ask you the following:
- Do you know what NCQP means?
Then unless you are in NC, you should not call me.
If not, then you should not call me. - Do you know what /6 and /CA means?
If so, then you know I am in CA and not NC, so you should not call me.
If NoT, then you should not call me. - When I ask you CTY? , do you know what that means?
If NoT, then you should NoT have called me.
When one particular non-NC station called. I sent him the CA exchange and then asked "CTY?";
to which he replied"OOPS".
Bottom-line: READ the RULES BE-4 EVERY CONTEST EVENT. If you don't really know why you are calling me, then you probably should NoT be calling. On the air, EVERY transmission you make should have a specific purpose. If you don't know why you are transmitting then you probably should NoT.
Over the more-or-less 40 hours of available OP time, less than 20 hours were actually run (08:38 for CQ-160, 08:37 for NAQP RTTY and 1:20 for the QSO parties). Overall, the weekend was a LoT of fun and presented some unique operating challenges to overcome.
DiD You participate in the CQ-160 and/or NAQP RTTY contests?
Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?
P.S. BTW, you are probably wondering why i used a picture of a bunch of turkeys to open this Blog. Monday morning when I wandered into the kitchen @ W7AYT to refresh my coffee, looking out to the back yard, I counted 13 wild turkeys who stopped over from their flight through Contra Costa county, looking for something to eat, to enjoy some warm sunlight, and to give the male turkeys an early attempt at wooing the lady-turkeys for the upcoming mating season. Then again, those turkeys
were representative of some of the IDIOTs I encountered over the contest events during the weekend.
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