NCCC SSCW Practice Recording

I couldn't make the NCCC SSCW practice session tonight, but I did turn on the receiver and set up audacity to record it. The left channel is the main receiver of my K3, parked on 7.040 with the wide (2.8 KHz) filter on, and the right channel is the subreceiver on 3.540. Here's what it sounded like from Mountain View, CA

SSCW Practice, 11-6-2009 (10mb mp3)

QRV for SSCW

Ok, I think I'm pretty much ready to go for the ARRL Sweepstakes CW Contest this weekend, with a few minor exceptions. The checklist:

• I'm pretty comfortable with basic operation of my new Elecraft K3. I can do all the things I *think* I'll need to do to the radio during the contest: tune either VFO, adjust the filter bandwidth, adjust receiver audio, use RIT. Other stuff I need to do via the computer: turn on/off subrx, log, etc. I think I'm good to go. The manual is handy if needed, though.
  
• N1MM logger is set up reasonably well.
• I've practiced with the SO2V support in N1MM enough to believe I can tune around for S&P QSOs while CQing. The KRX3 has some restrictions about which bands it can be on relative to the main RX that may make it hard to do multi-band SO2V in the heat of battle, but I'll see how I do. If all else fails, I can abandon SO2V (so I'm not "Single Operator Distracted").
• The Secret Weapon (2-el triband wire yagi) has been built and tuned. I just need to hang it from the tree Fri or Sat, and I should hopefully be one S-unit louder at 70 degrees.
  
• And last but not least: the shack is CLEAN (it was a real pig-sty last week):
  

I'm planning to operate from 9pm Saturday local time until the end of the contest at 7pm Sunday (22 hours). I realize this will leave me out of the initial action, but I've got to referee my son's soccer game on Sat afternoon, and this schedule just worked out best for the family duties.

The overall goal is to make 500 contacts between the CW and SSB weekends, although now that I've secured 22 hours for CW, I think I should raise the bar a bit.

Still to do:

• Get all the Butt-In-Chair support ready, which I think will be: energy bars, water, ham sandwiches (no pun intended - I often crave them*, a pot of coffee, and some leftover Hallloween candy for late in the contest.
• Look over W0YK's packet spot filters and figure out how to use them.
  

For the curious:

• That's a Yaesu FT-857D next to the K3 (in case a meteor lands on the K3 during the contest).
• The WinKeyer and paddle are to the right and behind the wire inbox tray.
• No, I don't have an amplifier (yet).
  
• Yes, the shack is narrow: the room is 5 ft by 10ft. It's a little room at the back of a detached garage on our property. I like to think of it as "cozy."

* - When I've done 24-hour cycling distance events, I always seem to end up craving ham sandwiches with about 6 hours to go.

Another one - P29CW

I worked the P29CW New Guinea DXPedition last night on 30 and 40 meter CW. Both bands were dead with no signals at all, and a lot of local noise, until after midnight, and then they both opened up nicely. The P29CW crew is running 100w to a wire antenna, so it was especially nice to get them. I think on both bands I happened to find them right when they came up, because they went split right after I worked them.

What is K4M saying?

I've been listening to K4M from my desk at work (via skype to my rig at home), and I'm hearing the op send some very high-speed CW (I think) interspersed with the normal QSO traffic. It always seems to be at the end of a QSO, and I've only heard it on 20 meters. An example: listen

I isolated just the high-speed part: listen

and slowed it down 4 times: listen

It sounds to me like he said "SD5AE". Huh?

And on 17m today: listen

Just the high-speed part: listen

Slowed down 4 times: listen

That one sounds like "RL-R"

Confused

Approaching DXCC

I finally worked K4M (Midway Island DXPedition 2009) today on 40m CW. While logging the entry, I noticed that I'm up to 98 countries worked, including all my old WB8YVI contacts from the 70s. I guess there's something to be said for perseverance!

KM6I CQP 2009

The weekend of Oct 3-4 was my first-ever California QSO Party, and man, what a blast. I set a couple of personal bests:

• My first 300+ QSO contest (in 9 hours, for an average rate of almost 35/hr)
  
• A new one-hour rate record - 65 contacts

It really helped that it was allowable to work a station once per band/mode combination, so it might be optimistic to assume that I'll be able to equal these in the November Sweepstakes, but hope springs eternal...

I was able to get a few nice runs going, and even managed a run of 7 contacts on 80 meter phone, which I would have never thought possible with 100 watts to a dipole at 60 feet.

Other things:

• It was really instructive to listen to the real pros like K6XX and N6TV. I'd love to be a fly on the wall of their shack while they're operating.
• I couldn't believe it when I was running on 20 CW and was called by DL5YM.
• My best hour wasn't solely running - there was a lot of S&P as well, so I'm apparently getting better at S&Ping quickly.
• I was only called by 2 dupes the whole contest. I was pretty impressed with the quality of the operators.

Conway Reef

I got Conway Reef (3D20CR) tonight on 40 CW, on the 3rd or 4th call. I really wasn't expecting to hear my callsign come back, since the Desecheo and Glorioso DXPeditions were such busts for me, so I'm pretty excited. Thanks to the good ops on the island for hearing my 100w and dipole!