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Intentionally left upside down as this was how things turned out.

It was Saturday morning and I was just beginning to call CQ TEST when my dear wife came in and announced "I think I hear water running come and have a listen". Those words are any given day are not what you want to hear. The contest came to a grinding halt and it was taken over by contractors, plumbers and various odds and ends.  I was able to get in and out of the contest but only for very short times. The outcome was a poor showing but a better and upgraded plumbing! 

For the limited time I was in the contest here are some of my take a ways from it:

As said the conditions on Saturday were poor and I found myself calling CQ TEST and as time past with no answer my mind began to wonder. Looking around the shack, looking at the operating desk and icons on the desktop. Then all of a sudden an answer came and I was not at all ready for it. Thus repeats and some frustration. 

I really wanted to work in the contest at improving my run abilities and it was just not happening as I was calling CQ TEST sometime for over 10 minutes with no answer. I then went to search and pounce and did up my score that way. Lesson learned....go to search and pounce when calling CQ TEST is just not happening. 

Murphy did hit me with the plumbing issue as well my own carelessness...for example when I setup my CW macros and tested them before the contest I turned the power out to zero. Well this ham radio guy forgot to turn the power back up to 100 watts and for about 20 minutes I was calling CQ TEST with ZERO output!! To boot the radio have a LARGE meter showing zero out and my LDG tuner has the same. Lesson learned to pay attention and not to wonder. 

Not much else and since this is not a home repair blog I will skip the very expensive plumbing repairs.

Below is the final score. 

Intentionally left upside down as this was how things turned out.

It was Saturday morning and I was just beginning to call CQ TEST when my dear wife came in and announced "I think I hear water running come and have a listen". Those words are any given day are not what you want to hear. The contest came to a grinding halt and it was taken over by contractors, plumbers and various odds and ends.  I was able to get in and out of the contest but only for very short times. The outcome was a poor showing but a better and upgraded plumbing! 

For the limited time I was in the contest here are some of my take a ways from it:

As said the conditions on Saturday were poor and I found myself calling CQ TEST and as time past with no answer my mind began to wonder. Looking around the shack, looking at the operating desk and icons on the desktop. Then all of a sudden an answer came and I was not at all ready for it. Thus repeats and some frustration. 

I really wanted to work in the contest at improving my run abilities and it was just not happening as I was calling CQ TEST sometime for over 10 minutes with no answer. I then went to search and pounce and did up my score that way. Lesson learned....go to search and pounce when calling CQ TEST is just not happening. 

Murphy did hit me with the plumbing issue as well my own carelessness...for example when I setup my CW macros and tested them before the contest I turned the power out to zero. Well this ham radio guy forgot to turn the power back up to 100 watts and for about 20 minutes I was calling CQ TEST with ZERO output!! To boot the radio have a LARGE meter showing zero out and my LDG tuner has the same. Lesson learned to pay attention and not to wonder. 

Not much else and since this is not a home repair blog I will skip the very expensive plumbing repairs.

Below is the final score. 

This weekend during the contest was similar to me using a string and tin can for communications. I did hear some UK stations but no EI stations at all. When I did hear a UK station at one moment they were solid and then in the mud. Generally I made contact with them and then the contest report at both ends was in the mud and needed many repeat backs. 

Well such is the life of a ham radio op they say....and what I add to that is any day on the radio is a good day! I was able to get some CW practice in and overall the time I spent in the contest (about 2 hours) was a nice time spent. 

I made 23 contacts for a score of 833. The picture above is my ADIF  log projected on a map to show contacts for the contest.

This weekend during the contest was similar to me using a string and tin can for communications. I did hear some UK stations but no EI stations at all. When I did hear a UK station at one moment they were solid and then in the mud. Generally I made contact with them and then the contest report at both ends was in the mud and needed many repeat backs. 

Well such is the life of a ham radio op they say....and what I add to that is any day on the radio is a good day! I was able to get some CW practice in and overall the time I spent in the contest (about 2 hours) was a nice time spent. 

I made 23 contacts for a score of 833. The picture above is my ADIF  log projected on a map to show contacts for the contest.

So what whats in the box? I will be waiting until the weather warms up a bit more until the assembly and tuning starts.

So what whats in the box? I will be waiting until the weather warms up a bit more until the assembly and tuning starts.

It's hard to believe that we are 3 months into 2022, winter should soon be on its way out and the warm summer breezes will soon be greeting us. I ended 2021 with a year in review posthttps://ve3wdm.blogspot.com/2021/12/looking-back-and-looking-ahead.html. In this post, my 2021 goals were to get less FT8 contact and more CW contacts. Not that I have an issue with FT8 but I did find I was paying way too much attention to this mode and my CW skills suffered. The plan was to shore up my CW skills, get into more CW contests and increase my CW contacts.

 As far as the past three months go my CW contest copying skill has gone from an average of 22 wpm to 36 wpm and 38 with some repeats. This was accomplished with daily practice of about 30-50 mins. Taking part in weekly CWops mini-contests on Wednesdays. In these contests I operate search and pounce as at this point calling CQ in this fast-paced contest is not in the cards as of yet. On Friday evenings K1USN radio club runs a slow-speed CW contest or SST as they call it. It is a slow speed contest but practice is practice and in this contest, I hold a frequency and call CQ SST for contacts. 

I am very pleased with the first 3 months of 2022, my CW contacts almost match the number for all of 2021! I am very happy with my increase in CW copying and my move away from FT8 and more CW. In the chart above from Club log it does show for 2022 a certain percentage for phone operation. Well, I don't have a mic in the shack and I am figuring my logging program logs the occasional QSO as SSB. It has done this in the past and this year I may not have caught this before uploading a log.