The third radiosport weekend in August offers up a mixed bag of events spread from Friday afternoon (west coast time) thru Sunday afternoon. Over the years, different events have come and gone over that weekend, while the NAQP Ssb GiG occurs right on schedule. The weekend schedule included:
- [X] - International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend
- [X] - SARTG RTTY Contest
- [X] - North American QSO Party (NAQP) Ssb
- [X] - CVA HF Dx Cw Contest
- [X] - ARRL Rookie Roundup RTTY
along the Central California coast, making NAQP Ssb contacts along the way, using the same
"Ron in CA" exchange from all location stops.
and Lighthouse stations probably because I am engaged in other radiosport events. Technically,
the ILLW is not a radiosport contest, it is an Operating Event (which is why it is never on the WA7BNM Contest Calendar).
8-hours on, 8-hours off, 8-hours on, 8-hours off and 8-hours on. With the 8-hour breaks, it gives everyone the opportunity to sleep or engage in other activities outside of the SARTG contest.
Thanks to the 10-hour (Max) operating limit for Single-OPs, the main time allocations were
deemed to be:
- Forgo the 1st 2-hours of NAQP and work the SARTG RTTY contest.
- Forego the 1st/Last hour of NAQP, using those hours for SARTG.
- Begin NAQP @18:00z, taking a mode-break whenever the rate drops, propagation
shifts unfavorably, Space-Wx worsens, or mode-fatigue (Ssb or RTTY) sets in. - When boredom sets in on a mode - time to switch to the other
the final 2-hours can be (and usually is) painfully / excruciatingly Quiet
a reasonable opening to EU on 15-meters. Typical of this period in the solar cycle,
10-meters was nearly a now-show (RTTY-wise at any rate).
has been devised to generate/decode RTTY tones on my end thru the internet to the radio, which
is controlled on the remote end by software on my end (instead of using the software on the remote end).
during radiosport contest weekends?
goal was to put in 8 to 10 hours for NAQP, while looking for RTTY openings in between lulls
in Ssb activity.
a per-band basic, when K6AM (John)
called me on 75-meters, he offered to walk
me up the bands for a contact on each.
for 80 & 10 meters. Altho WQ6X was QRP,
his QTH is within the groundwave distance
to Ramona on all 5-bands (no 160 yet @KN6NBT).
RTTY computer audio.
entry in the NAQP GiG, resulting in a 1st-place for that category by default.
more RTTY activity to round out this weird contest weekend.