September 2003 VHF contest:
This was a hairy one. It all started out ok, but in the middle of making a nice constant run, the Eitzen power decided to click off at around 7pm Saturday. Apparently an underground line gave up the ghost. I waited for an hour and started to pack up...it started raining, and by the time 9 pm rolled around, I was wet but packed. Throughout the day on Friday and Saturday, every fly from the tristate area came to visit, decided it was a nice place to retire, and stayed no matter how much I tried to persuade them to leave. I ended up shuttling the horde back to Eau Claire on Saturday night, and eventually bug bombed them from existance on Monday. I set up the stack and everything on Sunday at the home QTH and proceeded to run at the house. Not a very decent contest event for me, but it was a learning experience in that I realized that I should try and bring a generator next time.
The setup was essentially the same as the June contest except for one feature. I did run a computer to decode CW, and had a test drive of my switchbox for the CW keyer and soundcard for multiple rigs. I ended up submitting 2 logs, one of which (EN44) was used for points, the other in EN43 was used as a checklog. Both were essentially about the same in points, but the EN44 was a slight bit higher, thus the points submittal there.
Contest results are as follows: N9TTX 1,776 points; 69 Q's; 16 Mults; Class A; State: WI. 340 out of 521 overall; 141 out of 266 class A; 20 out of 30 in class A in Central Division; 10 out of 12 in class A in WI. No pictures, but the setup looks the same as June 2003.
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