VAQP and Hamvention
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title: DAYTON DAYTON DAYTON
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layout: post
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date: 2023-04-22 17:05:45
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tags: Blog
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excerpt_separator: <!--more-->
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---
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That's right...Dayton Hamvention is about 4 weeks away; and after planning a trip then canceling due to lack of funds
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I was able to put a trip together. I will once again be attending the festivities this year.
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I'm riding down with a friend from Chicago; so I actually have to fly a whole state west in order to get here; but
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there are reasons this was preferable to flying directly to Dayton or adjacent cities. AFAIK, I'll be down there
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from Wednesday to Sunday. Sunday we head down to Cincinnati where I'll fly home Tuesday.
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The turnout last year was quite large...much larger than I'm used to for a hamfest; then again none of those were
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Dayton Hamvention. I'm anxious to see if the numbers are even higher this year.
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title: VA QSO Party
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layout: post
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date: 2023-04-22 17:03:26
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tags: Blog
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excerpt_separator: <!--more-->
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---
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I really intended to write this last month, right after the contest. But I got lazy. Wrote a version...never got the photo
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code inserted...mostly lost it. I go through times where I'm really horrible blog maintainer, and periods where I'm
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somewhat prolific in my writings. This post is shorter and more to the point than the previous drafts...which may or may
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not be a good thing.
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I waited so long...preliminary log data for submitted logs is out. How'd I do? Well...there's a story.
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<!--more-->
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I know I was around for VAQP. But you know who wasn't? Murphy. Not being around to enforce his laws meant my untested
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operating setup gave me zero problems; and where I expected a little casual fun, it all turned in to a serious drive
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for QSOs and a performance far beyond what I remotely expected. Oh, I had fun; almost a little too much of it. What I had
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assumed would work against me would be not being a very serious contester, losing much of my drive and interest after day 1,
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and the fact I was using a bunch of mostly untested homebrew adapters for an operating setup I hadn't done a whole lot.
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I'd had a passing interest in doing a hands-free setup with a headset and footswitch; I just didn't have the money to
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buy a high-dollar headset; not that I thought I really needed one. All I really had to do was figure out how to wire
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whatever headset I get up to the radio. I could build my adapters; and probably get what I really wanted. I ordered some
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connectors, a cheap "gaming" headset, and started a few days before the contest.
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## The Failures
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<div class="img-row">
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<div class="img-column-2">
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<a href = "/images/electretconnector.jpg" target="_blank">
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<img src="/images/thumb/electretconnector.jpg" style="width:100">
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</a></div>
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<div class="img-column-2">
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<a href = "/images/electretboard.jpg" target="_blank">
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<img src="/images/thumb/electretboard.jpg" style="width:100">
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</a></div>
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</div>
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My attempts to interface my cheap headset with the radio failed. I'd adapted electrets to work with dynamic in the past;
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you just have to feed power to the element and couple it in to the rig. So I managed to cram the required components into
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the Yaesu mic connector. It worked...but it wasn't very sensitive and had a lot of noise. So I figured I was doing things
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wrong and decided to look this up. The PCB version is the result; using a number of OM said worked. It didn't....not work;
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but it changed nothing. The output was still noisy. Well, this wasn't going to work; but there was a second solution.
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## The Alternate Solution
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<div class="img-row">
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<div class="img-column-3">
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<a href = "/images/interfacebox.jpg" target="_blank">
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<img src="/images/thumb/interfacebox.jpg" style="width:100">
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</a></div>
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<div class="img-column-3">
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<a href = "/images/micboom.jpg" target="_blank">
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<img src="/images/thumb/micboom.jpg" style="width:100">
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</a></div>
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<div class="img-column-3">
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<a href = "/images/micbox.jpg" target="_blank">
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<img src="/images/thumb/micbox.jpg" style="width:100">
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</a></div>
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</div>
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The box contains no real electronics now; just two quarter-inch phone jacks to connect send PTT and Mic to the Yaesu, a
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quarter-inch jack for the footswitch, and the 8-pin mic jack. With the headset itself being a no-go; I had to think of
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another way of keeping hands-free. The mic I have for my Yaesu actually has a RJ-45 compatible jack on it with a cable
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to an 8-pin plug. I made an Ethernet cable and used a coupler to extend the mic connection for the boom, and just shoved
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the mic in the boom.
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I was worried about noise and RF using a standard Ethernet cable; but I didn't have any. The footswitch worked as intended
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and I got no audio complaints. If anything I had guys complimenting my audio. It had the desired effect; I could key the
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rig while keeping hands free to log. This made things so much more easier.
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## N1MM Voice Keyer
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A couple of months ago when I was building the digital interface for the Yaesu; I settled on using the DVS-2 port method
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as it provided more bandwidth; but it also would allow me to use a PC based voice keyer. I wouldn't have to do anything
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except press a button in N1MM. It took me a little work to get N1MM keying interfaces figured out config wise; but that
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was it. Press button, play CQ. For those who don't know: the FT1000MP had an optional voice module, the DVS-S. Essentially
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a standalone voice recorder; it has some control over which audio is routed to/from the rig. So it can play your voice
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recordings, let you preview them without transmitting, record from the mic, or record from the rig. But the nice thing is
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when transmitting from the DVS-2; it automatically mutes your microphone. I make use of this for digital; as the 6khz width
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is nice. But, easily enough; the control lines are just pulled high when transmitting from the unit. So they're tied in to
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the RTS line on my digital interface.
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It took me a couple of minutes to get it setup in N1MM; but once I did...it gave me no issues. I press button, rig transmits
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a wav file.
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# The Basic Operating Report
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## Saturday
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I had no intention of running a frequency at first; and didn't. I kind of searched up and down the bands working guys
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already running. Naturally, the QSO rate was quite low. So after finding a spot on 40m, I decided to set-up and call
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CQ. Well...that's when things got serious. At a rate of about 60 an hour; the few hours before dinner resulted in some
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pretty decent numbers. I jumped down to 80m after dinner and despite the QRM; I ended the day at 369 QSOs. The bands
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were overall in
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## Sunday
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I spent the first hour or two running a 40m phone frequency before taking a quick break. Finding myself a new frequency,
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I would spend the next six hours on that frequency, pressing button, slowly getting QSOs. The band was..okay. I was
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getting in to the NE well enough some guys responded just to tell me how much over 9 or how good my audio was. A couple
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of mobile ops made regular stops to my frequency after crossing county lines. It was a far slower day than Saturday,
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that's for sure. But I did the grind and came up with 653 QSOs.
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Overall conditions were better than they had been in the past. I only had problems hearing the local guys...and one early
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40m Oregon station.
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# Preliminary Results
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Prior to this past week I'd been relying on scores submitted to 3830 to gauge how well I did; and those results were
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telling me something I didn't expect; I was actually leading a category. My 103,224 points was the highest submitted
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for mixed-band low-power phone. Yeah...I don't know how I did that; but I decided to save my excitement for the final
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results. A draft version of the log data came out on the 17th. Know what it said?
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I had the top score for mixed-band low-power phone.
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I carefully converted the PDF in to something I could work with; and after verifying my data filtering and sorting at
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least three times; I got the same result. 29th highest score out of 620-some logs; 24th highest number of QSOs, and 1st
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for mixed low phone. Far far beyond what I expected to do.
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Chances are I'll come away with a plaque; as mixed low phone is a plaque they give out. That was not a goal I was actually
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reaching for; but I guess it's one of those few times you "miss the mark" and hit a better target. There were a lot of
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things that should have worked against me; but everything worked for me.
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Talk About This Post [here.](https://forum.nq4t.com/viewtopic.php?t=19)
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