The main ham radio activity this weeked at KB6NU was the FISTS Winter Sprint. It was really a blast. I did way better than the Fall Sprint, scoring 11,670 points on 79 QSOs and 30 multipliers. I followed pretty much the same strategy I did in the Fall Sprint. I operated just enough on 20m and 15m to add to the multiplier total and then banged away on 40m to roll up the QSOs. I didn’t work any DX this time, but I did increase my multipllier total from 21 to 30.
I even got to camp out on 7.058–the FISTS calling frequency–for about 30 or 40 minutes towards the end of the Sprint. I had a nice clear frequency for a while, but then N3BBO set up shop a couple 100 Hz away. Fortunately, I could filter him out pretty well, and it didn’t seem to stop other stations from hearing me and calling me.
My last QSO of the contest was with K4KSR, who was running QRP. When N3BBO transmitted, he covered him up completely. K4KSR stuck with me though, through several repeats, to complete the QSO. Thanks, Bill!
For those of you not familiar with the Fist Sprint, let me note that the exchange is kind of long. Stations must exchange a signal report, their sections, their names, and their FISTS number. On top of that, some operators will also send their FISTS Century Club number. Since this is not required, it annoys some guys. I must admit that it annoyed me, especially right at the end of the Sprint, when I really wanted to add a few more Qs to the log. Then, I remembered that one of the charms of the FISTS Sprint is the laidback nature of the contest. I took a deep breath, and the irritation melted away.
Yet Another CW CourseThis afternoon, I finally got around to checking out the K7QO CW Course, gracoiusly sent to me by KC8SVB. This course is somewhat different than others in that there’s no program involved. Instead, it’s a series of .mp3 files, which you play either on a computer, or if you burn them onto a CD, a portable CD player.
This latter feature makes it useful to those who want to study in the car or on a plane, but don’t want to haul around a laptop. You can get the course from http://puffin.tamucc.edu/k7qo/. You can download a PDF of the manual from http://puffin.tamucc.edu/k7qo/manual.pdf.
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