2002 ARRL November Sweepstakes (CW)
11/17/2002 |
WI7N
I decided before the contest that I was going to move into the 21st century (20th Century?) and use my computer to send contest information instead of doing it by hand. I'd cleaned the carbon off the coil in my antenna tuner earlier in the week, so it tuned less erratically and worked better. On Friday evening I started to set things up and remembered that my TS-940 doesn't have a direct computer interface. I'd need to go through the TNC to get to it. It took me a while to remember where I'd stored the TNC, but I finally found it in the garage and got everything connected by late Friday night.
I was getting ready to power everything down when the computer started to make funny noises. The displayed message said something to the effect that "Your Disk Controller or your Hard Drive are toast!" DARN! I stole the computer from my son's room and replaced the one that had gone bad. Now my monitor wouldn't work! I got the monitor from my son's room also and the hardware finally worked properly.
Then I couldn't find the floppy disk with the software needed to communicate with the TNC. I spent 2 hours looking through boxes of diskettes and finally found it. I installed it and gave it a try. It demanded Activation Key information that had to come from the manufacturer. I spent another hour looking for the sheet of paper where I'd recorded the activation key and finally found it. It still wouldn't work, so I sent an urgent email message to the software manufacturer. It was now well past midnight on Friday night so I went to bed.
I got up early Saturday morning to find an email response from the software manufacturer saying that the software Activation Key that was previously provided "ought to work". Well it doesn't, darn it! I searched through hundreds of floppys and found an old (circa 1990) DOS program that should allow me to communicate with the TNC and installed it on the computer. The only data I could get back from the TNC was garbage characters. It was now almost time for SS to start so I gave up and went back to my old stand-by memory keyer. I moved the computer and keyer to a rickety old card table that I placed next to my station. I wanted to avoid the shoulder pain I'd experienced in previous contests when stretching back and forth between the keyboard and the keyer.
I had everything ready at the SS opening bell and operated "Search and Pounce" for a couple of hours. Then I called CQ SS for a while. I operated on 10 Meters first, then 15, then briefly on 20. When those bands closed down I moved to 40 and then to 80. By midnight I'd worked all but 6 sections. I was pretty demoralized because I still hadn't worked the San Francisco (SF) section. Usually SF is common and very easy to work from Oregon.
My teenage daughter came back from a party shortly after midnight. She'd had a big fight with her boyfriend and was fairly distraught. I spent the next hour listening to her tales of woe. Essentially, her boyfriend had been flirting with other girls at the party. I patiently explained that teenage boys 'sometimes' did that... I received a poor response to this explanation. I finally explained that all teenage boys are worthless pond scum and not worthy of her attention. That seemed to calm her down some and I went to bed.
I got up about 9 AM Sunday morning and got back into the contest at about 10 AM after eating breakfast and doing some morning chores. I worked a few more of the sections I needed (NLI, MAR, QC) but still needed NL, NWT and SF. My computer monitor kept flickering on and off and displaying raster lines instead of data. I had to 'whack it hard' several times whenever that happened. My old MFJ memory keyer is more than 10 years old and is getting pretty worn out. I sometimes had to push the button 4 or 5 times really hard to make it send CQ SS. I accidentally knocked the keyer off the ricketly card table a few times in the middle of an exchange and sent gibberish while trying to get all the pieces back together again and cables reconnected.
By 2 PM on Sunday I was ready to give up completely so I watched football games on TV for a while. Finally I turned my radio back on, heard VO1MP, and quickly worked him. I was down to only 2 sections needed! After a while I decided that there was 'no possible way' that I was going to get NWT, so decided to just have fun and called CQ SS for a while. About an hour later VY1JA answered my CQ!!! I was down to 1 section needed! How can I possibly still need San Francisco??? About 30 minutes later I finally worked SF for a Clean Sweep! I was tired so I stopped operating about an hour and a half before the end of the contest. My final score was 510 QSO's and all 80 sections. I hate to admit it, but it was a pretty typical SS experience for me...
73,
Gene -- WI7N
I was getting ready to power everything down when the computer started to make funny noises. The displayed message said something to the effect that "Your Disk Controller or your Hard Drive are toast!" DARN! I stole the computer from my son's room and replaced the one that had gone bad. Now my monitor wouldn't work! I got the monitor from my son's room also and the hardware finally worked properly.
Then I couldn't find the floppy disk with the software needed to communicate with the TNC. I spent 2 hours looking through boxes of diskettes and finally found it. I installed it and gave it a try. It demanded Activation Key information that had to come from the manufacturer. I spent another hour looking for the sheet of paper where I'd recorded the activation key and finally found it. It still wouldn't work, so I sent an urgent email message to the software manufacturer. It was now well past midnight on Friday night so I went to bed.
I got up early Saturday morning to find an email response from the software manufacturer saying that the software Activation Key that was previously provided "ought to work". Well it doesn't, darn it! I searched through hundreds of floppys and found an old (circa 1990) DOS program that should allow me to communicate with the TNC and installed it on the computer. The only data I could get back from the TNC was garbage characters. It was now almost time for SS to start so I gave up and went back to my old stand-by memory keyer. I moved the computer and keyer to a rickety old card table that I placed next to my station. I wanted to avoid the shoulder pain I'd experienced in previous contests when stretching back and forth between the keyboard and the keyer.
I had everything ready at the SS opening bell and operated "Search and Pounce" for a couple of hours. Then I called CQ SS for a while. I operated on 10 Meters first, then 15, then briefly on 20. When those bands closed down I moved to 40 and then to 80. By midnight I'd worked all but 6 sections. I was pretty demoralized because I still hadn't worked the San Francisco (SF) section. Usually SF is common and very easy to work from Oregon.
My teenage daughter came back from a party shortly after midnight. She'd had a big fight with her boyfriend and was fairly distraught. I spent the next hour listening to her tales of woe. Essentially, her boyfriend had been flirting with other girls at the party. I patiently explained that teenage boys 'sometimes' did that... I received a poor response to this explanation. I finally explained that all teenage boys are worthless pond scum and not worthy of her attention. That seemed to calm her down some and I went to bed.
I got up about 9 AM Sunday morning and got back into the contest at about 10 AM after eating breakfast and doing some morning chores. I worked a few more of the sections I needed (NLI, MAR, QC) but still needed NL, NWT and SF. My computer monitor kept flickering on and off and displaying raster lines instead of data. I had to 'whack it hard' several times whenever that happened. My old MFJ memory keyer is more than 10 years old and is getting pretty worn out. I sometimes had to push the button 4 or 5 times really hard to make it send CQ SS. I accidentally knocked the keyer off the ricketly card table a few times in the middle of an exchange and sent gibberish while trying to get all the pieces back together again and cables reconnected.
By 2 PM on Sunday I was ready to give up completely so I watched football games on TV for a while. Finally I turned my radio back on, heard VO1MP, and quickly worked him. I was down to only 2 sections needed! After a while I decided that there was 'no possible way' that I was going to get NWT, so decided to just have fun and called CQ SS for a while. About an hour later VY1JA answered my CQ!!! I was down to 1 section needed! How can I possibly still need San Francisco??? About 30 minutes later I finally worked SF for a Clean Sweep! I was tired so I stopped operating about an hour and a half before the end of the contest. My final score was 510 QSO's and all 80 sections. I hate to admit it, but it was a pretty typical SS experience for me...
73,
Gene -- WI7N
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