2005 ARRL November Sweepstakes (Phone)
12/14/2005 |
N4TP
N4TP is one of the two callsigns of the Tampa Amateur Radio Club, having acquired it upon our merger with the Tampa Bay Amateur Radio Society. The other, W4DUG, has been TARC's club call since the 1930's. We are blessed with a self-contained clubhouse facility with meeting room, classroom, operations center area and space for large antennas (see www.hamclub.org for more information about TARC).
The club recently undertook a year-long project to improve HF and VHF capabilities from our clubhouse, resulting in the acquisition of some pretty exciting gear!
This contest was the "shakedown cruise" for our brand new complement of antennas (Force12 C31XR at 102ft and M240X at 110ft), antenna switching boxes and networked computer logging equipment. It was also our first use of our new contest logging software, N1MMLogger, in an actual "production" environment (Thanks Tom, it works Flawlessly).
While we were "serious" about this contest, being a "full service" club, we wanted to allow all club members that stopped by the opportunity to see how the station works in contest mode. Because of this, we entered as Multi Op-Single TX Assisted Low Power. We did a fair bit of "tour guiding" for visitors and mentoring to a couple of new prospective future contesters, live on the air during this contest, and used our second HF position to show them how everything worked, as well as for casual spotting, so it wasn't all "bang out the qso's" this time.
Propagation wasn't so hot! But we are happy to set a decent benchmark score for next year's effort.
Having been involved in contesting in the late 70's and early 80's, I have been inactive save for a couple of field days since moving here. It was nice to be "back in the saddle" again for a (somewhat) serious effort. Boy, things have changed!
The "magic" DSP filters on our Icom 756Pro2's rock! Computer controlled stations with networked logging software rock! Our new 40-meter beam really really Rocks!!! And best of all, no more Dupe Sheets!
There are some pitfalls with this "new" system, though... Everyone has to pay close attention to typos when using computerized logging. There is a big difference between LA and LAX and NTX and NWT. The latter cost us a sweep!
We were kicking butt and seeing all the mults light up the little red dots in the multiplier display on the logging software. Early on, when I took a shift, I noticed that NWT was lit! Super! That's a tough one!
Since the little red dot was lit on the computer, we didn't think we needed it, and we all assumed we worked it, so we didnt go after it. However, late in the contest, I noticed we were missing LAX and started to search for a station there. One of my fellow ops wondered why I was doing that as he had worked a LA station much earlier in the day. I showed him that the red light wasn't on, and he agreed it wasn't but he was absolutely sure that he worked the Los Angeles section.
Upon investigating closer, we found his LA station... logged as LA - Louisiana! I corrected this and didn't think at the time to look at other section typo issues further.
After spending two hours trying to work Alabama for what we thought was the final mult for a clean sweep (Hey, Alabamians! Point your Beams south every once in a while, will ya?), no one asked anyone if they actually WORKED NWT. When doing the log check after the contest, I discovered that we worked someone that QRZ showed was in NTX but logged it as our only NWT contact! I asked the operator who told me that the guy had said he was in the North West Texas section... and, sure enough, our op dutifully copied it verbatim! And of course, the computer ASSUMED we knew what we were doing and logged it as North West Territories!
Garbage in, Garbage out!
Next time, all section abbreviations will be posted at the operating position and will be required reading before operating!
All in all, we had a lot of fun! Got two new converts to contesting, too! Thanks to our operators, Picot Floyd-AG4JK, Jason-KD4ACG, Tenacious 15 meter op Jodi Pecorraro-KI4FWJ who wouldn't give up on Alberta, Bill Bode-N4WEB, HF Station Trustee Warren Elly-W1GUD, the official voice of the TARC voice keyers and Jim "Holy Smoke" Gerhart-WA3DIT ("Relieve me! I need a cigarette break!"), Who slugged it out in the trenches for hours hunting for and finally working Alabama. You guys were great!
But most of all, thanks to the TARC membership for giving us the resources and allowing us to equip the facility with world class systems. We look forward to more competitions in the near future!
73
for the Tampa Amateur Radio Club 2005 SS-SSB Participants, Lu Romero -- K4LVR
The club recently undertook a year-long project to improve HF and VHF capabilities from our clubhouse, resulting in the acquisition of some pretty exciting gear!
This contest was the "shakedown cruise" for our brand new complement of antennas (Force12 C31XR at 102ft and M240X at 110ft), antenna switching boxes and networked computer logging equipment. It was also our first use of our new contest logging software, N1MMLogger, in an actual "production" environment (Thanks Tom, it works Flawlessly).
While we were "serious" about this contest, being a "full service" club, we wanted to allow all club members that stopped by the opportunity to see how the station works in contest mode. Because of this, we entered as Multi Op-Single TX Assisted Low Power. We did a fair bit of "tour guiding" for visitors and mentoring to a couple of new prospective future contesters, live on the air during this contest, and used our second HF position to show them how everything worked, as well as for casual spotting, so it wasn't all "bang out the qso's" this time.
Propagation wasn't so hot! But we are happy to set a decent benchmark score for next year's effort.
Having been involved in contesting in the late 70's and early 80's, I have been inactive save for a couple of field days since moving here. It was nice to be "back in the saddle" again for a (somewhat) serious effort. Boy, things have changed!
The "magic" DSP filters on our Icom 756Pro2's rock! Computer controlled stations with networked logging software rock! Our new 40-meter beam really really Rocks!!! And best of all, no more Dupe Sheets!
There are some pitfalls with this "new" system, though... Everyone has to pay close attention to typos when using computerized logging. There is a big difference between LA and LAX and NTX and NWT. The latter cost us a sweep!
We were kicking butt and seeing all the mults light up the little red dots in the multiplier display on the logging software. Early on, when I took a shift, I noticed that NWT was lit! Super! That's a tough one!
Since the little red dot was lit on the computer, we didn't think we needed it, and we all assumed we worked it, so we didnt go after it. However, late in the contest, I noticed we were missing LAX and started to search for a station there. One of my fellow ops wondered why I was doing that as he had worked a LA station much earlier in the day. I showed him that the red light wasn't on, and he agreed it wasn't but he was absolutely sure that he worked the Los Angeles section.
Upon investigating closer, we found his LA station... logged as LA - Louisiana! I corrected this and didn't think at the time to look at other section typo issues further.
After spending two hours trying to work Alabama for what we thought was the final mult for a clean sweep (Hey, Alabamians! Point your Beams south every once in a while, will ya?), no one asked anyone if they actually WORKED NWT. When doing the log check after the contest, I discovered that we worked someone that QRZ showed was in NTX but logged it as our only NWT contact! I asked the operator who told me that the guy had said he was in the North West Texas section... and, sure enough, our op dutifully copied it verbatim! And of course, the computer ASSUMED we knew what we were doing and logged it as North West Territories!
Garbage in, Garbage out!
Next time, all section abbreviations will be posted at the operating position and will be required reading before operating!
All in all, we had a lot of fun! Got two new converts to contesting, too! Thanks to our operators, Picot Floyd-AG4JK, Jason-KD4ACG, Tenacious 15 meter op Jodi Pecorraro-KI4FWJ who wouldn't give up on Alberta, Bill Bode-N4WEB, HF Station Trustee Warren Elly-W1GUD, the official voice of the TARC voice keyers and Jim "Holy Smoke" Gerhart-WA3DIT ("Relieve me! I need a cigarette break!"), Who slugged it out in the trenches for hours hunting for and finally working Alabama. You guys were great!
But most of all, thanks to the TARC membership for giving us the resources and allowing us to equip the facility with world class systems. We look forward to more competitions in the near future!
73
for the Tampa Amateur Radio Club 2005 SS-SSB Participants, Lu Romero -- K4LVR
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