IARU 2012

I had set up the K2/100 the night before and everything appeared to be working fine. Got into the shack just after 1200z, and when I went to change the antenna connection, it got a "not instd"response. It was pretty evident that the K2/100 is not talking to the KAT100. Tried switching the cable, turning the system on and off many times, still the same thing.

Soon I'm getting an INFO 080 error, which every K2 owner knows means that the main microcontroller can't talk to the other microcontrollers in the rig.

30 minutes into this, I still haven't worked a contact. It's clear that I have no clue what is wrong with the K2, so I go with plan B -- the venerable TS-430S. I bought this rig in the fall of 1985, just before Kenwood came out with the TS-440S. It's served me quite well. No computer control, though, so every band change is a manual event.

Worked about 5 hours, off and on. Conditions were OK. A bit sparse on 10m. 15m sounded good. I'm thinking I need a better antenna than the R7000. There were a couple of HQ stations who couldn't really hear me. Definitely more of a struggle to make contacts on phone than CW.

Operating Time (hrs): 5

Summary:
 Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Zones  HQ Mults
-------------------------------------
  160:    0      0      0       0
   80:    0      0      0       0
   40:    0      0      0       0
   20:   29      5      6       9
   15:   48     17     11      11
   10:    6      1      2       1
-------------------------------------
Total:   83     23     19      21  Total Score = 10,240

Club: South East Contest Club

Comments:

Antennas:
R7000 at 3m high (10-40m)

Equipment:
Venerable TS-430S w/ AT-250 running 100 watts