DRR Atmospherics | America's Cup

DRR Atmospherics

2011 CQWW DX CW | Pt. 3

Good morning from the shackadelic zone where I'm listening to the leading edge of our beach sunrise on 10 meters, at the same time, RadioSport Top Banders are winding down and taking stock of their results. My above screenshots illustrate one's single band focus during the ascent of our current solar cycle. The thrill of logging each new counter was awesome.

Learning Curve
Moving from the shackadelic antenna system to heavy metal in the sky is an amazing experience. It's like moving from a country road to driving on the 405 in Los Angeles. Every hertz on the dial was occupied even into the reaches of the former 10m Novice band. As a result one's receiver performance is sincerely tested.

I engaged the 500/450 Hz filter on the 756PRO with offset receive incremental tuning set at negative .003 Hertz when calling CQ, in contrast; when searching and logging, I set receive filter at 250 Hz, which in my opinion, helped me zero beat an operator's transmitting frequency.  Likewise, as suggested, I started searching from the highest point on the frequency dial and logged stations going downward on the frequency.

On the other hand, I didn't want my CQ receive filter setting so narrow that I could not hear low power to vapor power stations. A wide filter, such as 500 Hz, didn't eliminate interference from adjacent frequencies. It was a challenge to discern whether or not a station was calling another only a few hertz away.

Critique
My feedback for this year includes operators not identifying themselves within a reasonable amount of time. Certainly, one could debate an operational definition of reasonable from now until then, however; valuable time was lost waiting for operators to identify their station. Its impact subtracts time from my ability to search for new multipliers.

Additionally, one always operationally inspects their machines prior to any race. I suffered in my cans because of hash and key clicks generated by one's faulty amplifier. It's like showing up to a race with a flat tire or a hole in one's sail. Yes, one can race however it impacted my listening ability inside the cans.

Lastly, it is my opinion, that the assisted category be eliminated from RadioSport. I cite the example of the America's Cup who adopted new technology rather than continue along an untenable path toward irrelevancy. I'm paraphrasing from one video, "It's time to make way for the young guys."

Contest on!