Tag Archives: update

WPX: Final Stretch Update

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I feel like I am sitting in traffic and not going nowhere quick. That is how I compare the past 5 hours I have operated in the CQWW WPX CW Contest. This time yesterday I was putting up some good numbers, but the sun, being unpredictable has thrown a wrench into my plans.

While my time should be better spent in front of the radio, which is where I am currently sitting I have modified my goals a few times since yesterday. Hell, a few times since this morning for that matter. I am hoping to break 500,000 points as a final score. Currently I am just over 465,000 points. Typically I would say this would be a snap to get with the scoring being weighed in my favor. Unfortunately the solar conditions have taken a turn for the worst and I have one band to work, that’s 15M.

I continue to spin my dial and listen to stations I have already worked and logged. Right now I am making contact with maybe 10 stations an hour. Talking about dreadful! Still it beats being at work. Maybe things will pick up as the afternoon rolls on. Although I expect I will have a challenging time with these last 35,000 points I am chasing. I will provide a complete synopsis at the conclusion of the contest.

 

WPX Update

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As expected, things did not go as planned. Currently sitting here on a break since conditions have deteriorated since yesterday and I am not able to keep up the sort of rate I expected. So I will give it an hour (or two) and get back to the radio. This puts me at about 5.5 hours off from the contest, leaving me with 6.5 remaining to use up of my total of 12 hours.

Unfortunately the overnight hours were not kind to me. I as hoping for better on the low bands (40M and 80M) but the antenna and solar conditions did not allow me the luxury of keeping a reasonable rate. There seemed to be a bit of local noise, which kept me on 20M well into the late hours of the night. Oddly enough I was working Europe after the sun went down. Wish I could be working EU on 15 or 20M now, but there does not seem to be an opening.

Based on my projections I will probably come up about 350,000 points short of 1 million. Last night I believe has done me in. I didn’t see a reason to spin through static and noise making very few contacts, so I dropped out at about 0930z (230am) and returned about 13z (600am). I put up one good hour and one crappy hour, only to find myself here, typing about why I won’t achieve my goal.

With daylight brings the return of the high bands (10/15/20M), which are all lower scoring than 40 and 80M, so exchanging out 6 point contacts for 1 and 2 point contacts won’t help my overall position. Still I will be pleased with the effort so far. I am on pace to beat last year’s mark before hitting the 25 hour mark, which is how much time I put in last year.

Still 36 hours in front of the radio is better than 2 days at work. So no further complaints from me. As I said yesterday, numbers can be manipulated to reflect anything you want. In this case, I was probably a bit off in some of my predictions, which will cause a major scoring change. I decided to run low power, unassisted, meaning not using any spotting resources like a DX cluster of the Reverse Beacon Network. All search and pounce for the the rest of the contest.

Progress Report: T6F

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Progress! I have made some good headway in updating content here on the site. Thankfully I have found a treasure trove of great news from way back, we’re talking 1999-2001. I know many don’t give a rat’s ass about this news, which is archaic. But what is great is the fact I still have much of the content from The 6th Floor when I first brought it to the Internet.

Over the course of the last 3 days I have been busying updating links and images, moving news and adding categories and tags to all my posts. So while it doesn’t look like much has been accomplished (in the way of new news), quite a bit has been updated. I still find it rather hard to believe this I have what I liken to a diary since 1999. Sure much of the news I brought out early on was strictly game related and it was much that way until 2005!

Thankfully I am able to combine the old with the new and create a unique experience for anyone who visits. While I am not sure to what length I will go to when it comes to old content, posts will be included, I doubt many (if any) of the links included will even be valid.

So again, thanks to all those who stop by. I continue to post content, almost daily and for the most part I am back on track with the web site.

The Sunday Update

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These are posts I should not have to be writing, as a web site transition and hosting should be seamless to the end user. With that said I seem to have got my hosting issues under control for the time being. Last thing I want to do is have to change hosts or correct broken image links in some 1000+ posts I currently have in this database. But, with that said I have decided to remain with IPOWER as my host but will use a redirect my domain name, the6thfloor.com to WordPress.com where I have my “blog” currently.

I have not had good luck using the WordPress.org software that IPOWER has to install any version (or theme) for my site. I ran into issues with image hosting and redirecting the domain name, as well as an FTP to upload the 6th HamCAM to. As I my site set up now is how I intent to keep it. I can use my FTP while retaining the services that WordPress.com has.

The only problem I face now is going through all my posts and editing all the images I currently have on my FTP. While somewhat tedious, it should be done in a week or so. All the pages (Ham Radio, Antennas, 1968 Cougar, About & For Sale) have already been corrected to include the images I previously had.

The only remaining issue is that of my radio logbook that is currently hosted at HRDLog.net uses Javascript, which not allowed on WordPress.com hosted sites. So I am continuing my search and have a few possibility, but I will continue have a link pointing to HRDLog for hams who want to confirm they have made my log after a QSO.

I would love to update my web cam software and get a streaming video or updated images going on the site. I have not really explored my options there. I am just pleased to have the 6th HamCAM up and running on the site. The only way to update the image is to refresh the page. Again, not ideal but what the hell it works!

Update on Hosting

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After taking a few months to manually move all posts starting in 1999 over to WordPress, I now need to go back through EVERY post in order to add the images. After some housecleaning on my host I felt it would be to my benefit to trash my previous web site design, as nice as it was and go completely with WordPress.

Unfortunately I have been going back and forth with how and where to host in order to use what WordPress.com offers and what I already have in a host at IPOWER. If I transitioned the site to run at IPOWER, I would end up losing some of the functionality I currently have as I would be considered a WordPress.ORG user and no longer a WordPress.com user. Confusing, read about the difference? Don’t feel bad you are not alone.

I have spent the better part of the last 2 hours working on updating images, nothing else. While I have yet to start going back post by post, I have got all the pages (at the top of site) functioning with their appropriate images. Not sure it’s worth my time to go back and edit each post, especially from anything related to gaming.

So look for more changes shortly, I am pleased with the support I continue to get on the site, thanks to all for taking the time to stop by and read what’s going on in my world.