Why is it that I was visited by Murphy and his damned laws today? I guess that’s how it goes. With all the advanced planning I had doing for WPX RTTY I think I might have left a stone unturned that played a crucial role. As of right now, the contact is nearly 4.5 hours old. I have operated all of about 60 minutes. To think I wasted two vacations days. Needless to say I am pissed to be sitting here, in my shack typing on my blog instead of making contacts on 40/80M.

What’s the problem you ask? Well after the NCCC practice session last night, I turned off my rig with about 20 minutes to go since I thought I was not being heard. That, I found out this morning was not the case. N6ML sent me an e-mail telling me it sounded like my RTTY signals I was transmitting were inverted. Unfortunately I did not get that e-mail until I got to work, which left very little time to troubleshoot the problem. I also figured it would be a simple fix, like a menu or setting. Now 4.5 hours later the problem is still unresolved.

I recently got my rig back, as I had been on a loaner FT-1000MP from N6RO. His rig was working well. I scored my best ever figures in the RTTY RU in January and had big plans for this weekend. I had transposed all the menus settings over to my rig and thought we were good to go. Unfortunately I guess I should have thought it odd when I was not receiving any RTTY calls. I just knocked it off to bad propagation or no one on the air.

Now come to find out I have been transmitting upside down leaves me scratching my head. If indeed the menu settings are exactly the same, I should be able to rule out the rig as a source of the problem. That leaves MMTTY or the US Interface Navigator I use to interface with a PC for digital modes.

Right now I have posts on three different Yahoo Groups to see if I can get a resolution out of this frustrating problem. I also e-mailed our reflector at the NCCC. Someone has to have an answer, because I am out of them. And I bet it is a simple solution that I am overlooking. Guaranteed!

So instead of brewing a port of coffee for that late night, early morning run I am sucking down a cold Sam Adams. Of course this won’t solve my problem but I could not continue sitting in front of my rig knowing it is not working. Guess this is always next contest.