WQ6X Wakes Up from a WEIRD CQ-M+VOLTA Weekend

It's a GooD thing this was only a 3-contest weekend; I don't think I could stand any more Weirdness.  What kept things more-or-less on track was not giving up and pure focus on my part.  After a rewire of its internally inserted stereo amplifier the Rockville mixer was back @W7AYT, along with a complete reevaluation of the complex audio-cabling that allows WQ6X/6 in Concord to integrate audio from an ICOM-7000, a Yaesu FT-1000mp and an Elecraft K3/0; not to mention, the inclusion of background music streamed via Pandora.

Being another mild contest weekend, the events I played around with easily overlapped:

1. [X] - The CQ-M International Dx Contest
   
2. [X] - The VOLTA RTTY Dx Contest
   
3. [X] -  The Arkansas QSO Party

An inadvertent "warm-up"  QSO occurred at 12:50z with VR2BLEE on 28 watts (I forgot to take the KPA-1500 amp off STBY - Ooops).  With the antenna pointed to Asia, without further ado 7027.27 was found to be a [relatively] Quiet place to park a "CQ M Test WQ6X WQ6X" call.

With the audio problems fully resolved, that left only the obligatory early morning 40-meter intentional-QRM IDIOTs to make running a frequency difficult.  It all began at 13:43 when out of nowhere a station starts sending "NO TEST" after every "CQ M" call.  Ironically, he never hassled me while actually working stations; only while calling CQ.  This modus-operandi is all too familiar - I've certainly encountered this IDIOT Be-4.  (The IDIOT at the END of the contest on Sunday wouldn't be so kind.)  

At 14:10z, with 26 Asian stations in the log, it was time to check the AR QSO party.  Sure enough, there was already a swarm of AR stations.  Eventually ten AR stations made it to the log on 40-meters; eight of them from running frequencies (7043.43, 7039.39 & 7042.42) calling "CQ ARQP WQ6X/6 WQ6X/CA".  Eventually Arkansas dropped out, so after 30-minutes of shut-eye it was off to 20-meters to S&P in CQ-M before settling in on 14018.18.  Afterwards, 7 more  Arkansas stations made it to the log.

Lacking sleep I slumbered enough to be "back in the chair" at 20:30z, alternating between CQ-M
and ARQP.  By 22:15z all the CQ-M and AR stations to be worked from Fallbrook were worked;
it was time to bring the VOLTA RTTY GiG into all of this.

The audio settings at NX6T while adequate for Ssb contests were actually "over-bearing" for running AFSK RTTY resulting in an over-driven GROWLing.  Eventually a compromise was worked out between the soundcard audio and
the microphone gain/comp settings to produce just enough audio to drive the radio into the KPA-1500 amplifier.  

For some reason, the power-levels often "drifted around" on 20-meters (but not on 40).  If my signal-level seemed to fade in and out on you, that might be the cause.  From time to time
(with no fault-indicators) the amp would switch
to STBY.  NoT always noticing this, some QSOs were made at the 28 - 43 watt barefoot power level (depending on the band).

Unique to the VOLTA GiG is the sending TWO pieces of information: a serial # and CQ Zone. 

The number of points for each contact is computed by the distance between CQ zones of the two stations.  To make things easier to understand, the VOLTA website provided us with a spreadsheet (edited above for my CQ Zone 3).  These points make for what seem like ridiculously high scores;
my 15-million points being only a mid-level score.

From 04:00z to 06:00 the choice was made to run the CQ-M and not the VOLTA RTTY GiG.  In retrospect the reverse idea probably would have made more sense.  At 06:00z only 4 more RTTY QSOs made it to the log.  Listening around until the 12:00z contest end times yielded no new RTTY stations - Bummer Dewd.

Lacking sleep, the idea was to take a couple of hours off for some sleep and then run the last
3 hours or so in the CQ-M.  I didn't make it back to to the radio until 11:20z, with 40 minutes to go.  At 11:29z, moving to 7017.17 brought a new form of intentional QRM'er (who sounded local to Fallbrook) sending BG6 VIRUS" over and over again.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I was able to work stations thru this IDIOT, when he started delivering several F-Bombs, it was time to find a new frequency.  Moving down to 7015.15 everything seemed quiet; the problem being that no stations followed me down there.  Returning to 7017.17 brought more F-Bombs, forcing a frequency change to 7016.16 to add a handful of Asian stations in time for the end of the contest.

In addition to the F-Bomber, my other beef in BOTH CQ-M and VOLTA were the stations who would work me (gotta get them QSO points first), then move 200hz away and call CQ contest.  HuH?  WTF is up with that?  At the very least, that is RUDE, and certainly a violation of contest ethics.
I DiD notice that these IDIOTs never DiD work anyone (being so close in frequency I guess I was too loud for them to copy anybody); one by one they drifted away to find a clear run frequency.

According to the 3830 Scores website, in the VOLTA contest WQ6X took 19th-place overall, 8th-place for USA and 1st-place for California.  In the CQ-M GiG, having more competition found my score in 42nd-place overall, 25th-place for USA and 1st-place for California.

DiD YOU work the CQ-M and VOLTA RTTY GiGs?

Is WQ6X in YOUR Log?