N5YT

On Saturday I went to the local Radioshack and picked up a pair of 1:1 isolation transfomers and a few 1/8th inch stereo plugs. I already ordered a CAT cable for my FT-100 on eBay a few months ago and have been using it with Ham Radio Deluxe for rig control.

After I got my audio cables finished, I plugged everything into the FT-100 and tuned to 14.070 USB. After making a few contacts on 20meters, I QSY’d to 40 meters and worked several EA stations during their PSK31 contest. I had a blast. This is a fun mode and you can even copy stations that are very weak, by watching the “waterfall”. I tuned into some RTTY stations and copied them but never transmitted.

Right now the software that I am using is the DM780 that is included in Ham Radio Deluxe. It took some figuring on how to get it setup but I have it working. If now I can figure out how to get the DM780 log to write into my HRD log. I talked to several locals who use PSK31 and really like MixW and Digipan. I will be trying those out to see how I like them.

Hope to catch you on the waterfall!

73,
N5yt

Well I operated almost the entire 12 hours of the Mississippi QSO Party. I mainly operated 20M and 40M with results that I was happy with. I made a total of 302 contacts. I started the morning out on 20M SSB and made about 30 or so contacts but things were slow for me. I then moved to 40M CW. Thats when things picked up for me. I made QSO after QSO on 40 using CW. I then moved back to 20M CW and had success there as well. Before I headed to the low bands, I checked out 10M where I worked a PY2 and VP2. (I hope that band picks up).
When the sun began to go down, I moved to 80M and made a couple of SSB contacts before
moving on to CW.
I had a wonderful time operating the contest and can’t wait to get my log turned in and scored to see how I came out. I looked online for past MS QSO Party results but didn’t have any luck finding any. If anyone comes across some, please forward the link to me.