I, in a fit of good-intentioned madness, invited five 12-year-olds into my
hallowed radio room for a 24-hour spin through CQ WW as a multi-multi SWL
entry. This was inspired by Bob Leacher's column in the September
CQ-Contest. They were to log every band-country once and only once, with
1 point for intra-continental QSOs and 5 points for inter-continental
QSOs, no zone multiplier. So at 0000Z (Mr. Silver, what's Z mean?) off
we went.
It helped that one of the ops was my Novice buddy, Sparky Harrigan,
KC7IXZ, who was able to explain excruciatingly basic stuff to Jordan and
Charles, who had never really been exposed to Big-Time Radio before.
Lowell and Webster were old hands at this, but tended to get wrapped up in
technical details. Two teams of two (headphones and splitters were in
short supply) attacked 20 and 15 meters at the git-go.
15 lasted surprisingly long, and 20 hung in there for hours. We logged a
number of very interesting things in the South Pacific and that whetted
everyone's appetite. Oh yes, the Chief Operator was in the kitchen
preparing macaroni-and-cheese for the hordes with Webster assisting.
Post dinner, one team went to 40 meters and began to learn about
split-frequency operation and the marvels of low-band QRM and QRN. Not
like 20 meters at all, no sirree! When 20 faded, I got three of the guys
to their sleeping bags while two of the others logged. I listened with
the 40-meter op to help get him synced in. We had a serious problem of
confusion about who was calling who. Contest operators tend to leave out
those annoying details...like saying your callsign. We had a whole run of
stations logged with a zone of 31. Unfortunately, the operator got locked
onto KH6BZF's pileup and copied the wrong end of the exchange! Bzzzzzt!
Also unfortunately, the sleeping schedule broke down and most of them
stayed up nearly all night trolling on 80, 40, and 160. Nobody was fresh
at 8AM, although Sparky made a big effort on 20 as it opened up. Charles
turned out to be the real sleeper (pun intended) of the bunch, pulling in
a ton of juicy European countries in the morning opening. By 10AM,
everyone had stumbled into (and out of) the shack, gotten fed, and logged
at least for a while. Bear in mind that we're competing with Saturday
morning cartoons, here, guys. Pretty good show for ham radio ;-)
Then we hit the noon blahs. Jordan had to leave for a church outing and
so we were down to four. I'm restraining myself from doing much more than
coaching and helping to understand phonetics with unusual accents.
Everyone dug through it in half-hour shifts until things started hopping
again at 2100 when several deep Africans were logged in a ten-minute
interval; 3DA, ZS, 9J, V5, ZD8, 5H, FR, and ZD7 logged while calling in to
KC2X. Lowell's funny bone really got tickled by 'Swaziland', so he
giggled and snorted for five minutes after logging the 3DA.
And then we wound down with a little run on 40, picking up some Europeans
and 5N0MVE. At 0000Z (nobody asked this time) the closing bell rung and
like all good contesters, we totted up the score:
QSOs Cty Zone
160 3 3 3 including a JA!
80 14 9 9
40 33 26 17
20 67 61 21
15 33 33 15
10 nary a whisper
QSO Pts:609 x 132 = 80388 points
Ops - Sparky (KC7IXZ), Charles, Jordan, Webster, and Lowell
Not bad for two raw recruits, a green Novice, and some veteran Radio
Rascals. Pop survived it all, got some sleep, got the dishes done and
quit in time to watch the end of the World Series.
I highly recommend this approach to introductory contesting. No mike
fright, no PTT or VOX troubles, no frustration at pileups. If you heard
it you logged it! Everybody went home happy and when they do decide to
try transmitting, they'll already know the basics. You don't even need to
have a contest going on to try it. By the way, Jamboree On The Air was
also great fun, camped out in the van with the mobile. K2BSA was
operating from a major fall camporee in NJ with over 1500
scouts...yowsers! I thought 35 was about 34 too many ;-)
See you in the CW SS next week!
73, Ward N0AX
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