09-25-2016, 09:59 PM
I was having a great contest until about 2130 UTC on Sunday when I started to have more problems with my SteppIR, it looks like I am QRT. More on that later. First the results:
START-OF-LOG: 3.0
LOCATION: CT
CALLSIGN: N1API
CLUB: Meriden ARC
CONTEST: CQ-WW-RTTY
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OP
CATEGORY-ASSISTED: ASSISTED
CATEGORY-BAND: ALL
CATEGORY-MODE: RTTY
CATEGORY-POWER: LOW
CATEGORY-STATION: FIXED
CATEGORY-TRANSMITTER: ONE
CLAIMED-SCORE: 303774
OPERATORS: N1API
NAME: Al
ADDRESS:
ADDRESS-CITY: Meriden
ADDRESS-STATE-PROVINCE: CT
ADDRESS-POSTALCODE:
ADDRESS-COUNTRY: UNITED STATES
CREATED-BY: N1MM Logger+ 1.0.5924.0
Score Summary:
Band ------ QSOs ------- ZN ------Cty ------SP
14 --------- 471 ------- 22 ------ 71 ----- 31
21 --------- 116 ------- 15 ------ 51 ------ 5
28 ----------- 1 -------- 1 ------- 1 ------ 0
Totals ----- 588 ------- 38 ------ 87 ----- 36
Score: 303,774
I ran most of the time. Saturday on 20 meter they just kept coming. Must have run four or five hours without a break. My highest rate was 120 per hour. My highest run was 141 Qs. No real surprises on the multis, you could call this one WAE 2 without the QTC. Mostly Europe, USA, SA and Central America. Very little Asia and Pacific.
Now on the antenna problem that has be QRT again. Yesterday I got a "Driver Chip 1 Error on the SteppIR Controller. After panicking and emailing Fluid Motion I remembered that I had purchased some spare chips before the last rebuild when we were not sure if the problem was the box or the antenna. I replaced the chip and the box was back to normal, I took it as a possible bad chip that just failed and I "got lucky" Everything was working fine until the last contact at 2129 UTC. I then got the "Driver 1 Chip Error" message again. I decided to take one more shot a replacing the chip with the second spare. To my chagrin the driver chip message came back as soon as I tried to adjust the antenna. Well, "three dits, four dits, two dits, dah", I'm royally screwed ya, ya, ya". (If you aren't a ham you probably won't understand that last sentence). This evening I checked the cable and I have a ground from pins 3 and 4 to ground, which is one leg of the Driver Motor. Next step is to open the box I put on the side of the house, separate those two wires from the cable coming in the house and check the cable coming in and the cable to the antenna. If the ground persists on the tower then the antenna has to come down again. I don't know if I was able to retract the elements. I tried to home the antenna. I guess I could take a shot and put the last chip in and retract the elements. If the problem is on the antenna then the box may just need the other chip. but I may need to send the driver ECU back again.
Right now my enthusiasm level is zero as you can guess.
That's all the info I have for now.
Al - N1API .