2011 ARRL SSB Rookie Roundup Sunday April 17th

[KE5ZRT]

The band conditions were extremely terrible for most of the contest. I made 9 contacts in the first 4 hours, and most of my contacts were within the last 1 hour. Out of my 51 total contacts in the Rookie Roundup, I worked 18 states and 2 countries (US & Canada), for 68 contact points and 21 multipliers resulting in a total score of 1428. I am real curious to see how I rated against the rest of WTX, and I am even more curious to see how many other operators from WTX submitted results. The magic smoke released itself from my z100 auto-tuner at the beginning of the contest and a friend from down the street saved the day by loaning me his MFJ manual tuner. I didn't have any experience with a manual tuner before the contest, but I figured it out pretty quickly thanks to a quick tutorial by my friend.

Also, the RF problems I was having before were no longer present when using the manual tuner. I was able to operate the full 100 watts without any feedback over my speaker while operating on 20 meters, which is where I made most of my contacts. I think the problem was my tuner all along. Considering the poor band conditions, my toasted and smoked equipment hurdles, and the fact that I am only using 100 watts on a simple hamstick antenna, I am fairly happy with my results in this 6 hour contest. I am looking forward to getting my 4 band, stacked, hamstick dipole antenna built <http://ac0ok.net/projects/f3bhsd/index.htm> . It will give me a little directionality and better performance considering my lack of any real estate here in the RV park for a beam, a wire or a ground mounted vertical. I used www.InTheLog.com <http://www.inthelog.com/> for logging software. I don't know if you are aware of how it works, but it is an online logger that you can use a your primary contact log or as an online back up to your other logging software. It worked well, except the one time I was working a pile-up and the RV park Wi-Fi had a glitch and I had to resort to paper logs on a 3x5 card temporarily until the planets could align to make my WiFi operational again. After a considerable amount of swearing and hammer swinging, I was able to export my contest logs in ADIF format and import them into my N3FJP Amateur Contact log. A couple of locals, K5BZH and W5MJM found me on 20 meters and it was cool to get them both in the log! All in all, this was a fun and laid-back contest, and I look forward to the next one. I am really enjoying contesting, and I hope to hear you on the air soon.

73 y'all