ARRL November Sweepstakes Summary Sheet
Contest Dates : 18-Nov-00, 19-Nov-00, 20-Nov-00
Callsign Used : N5XU
Operators : KB5LBN, W5JLP, N3TNN, KT5I, K5PI, WM5R
Category : Multi-Single
Default Exchange : # M N5XU 21 STX
Name : University of Texas Amateur Radio Club
Country : United States
Section : South Texas (STX)
BAND Raw QSOs Valid QSOs Points Mults
__________________________________________________
80SSB 19 19 38 2
40SSB 49 48 96 1
20SSB 547 541 1082 17
15SSB 484 481 962 28
10SSB 332 331 662 32
__________________________________________________
Totals 1431 1420 2848 80
Tentative Claimed Score = 227,200 points.
Equipment:
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Kenwood TS-850SAT
Heathkit SB-220
Force 12 C-4 @ 100'
40M dipole fixed N/S @ 90'
80M dipole fixed N/S @ 90'
W9XT Contest Card
Heil Proset
TR LOG 6.55
Soapbox:
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The contest, for me, really began at 10AM on Saturday, when I put on my
climbing harness and went to the top of the tower in 40F light rain in order
to swap out our rotor for one K5TR loaned to us. I'm not sure what's wrong
with our rotor, but it doesn't rotate anymore, even though all of the
electrical checks on it check out. So, swapping out the rotor in the
rain took no longer than it did the last two times I did it not in the rain,
I was just somewhat miserable while doing it. But it was absolutely worth
it for the contest. I was dry and warm again by the time the contest started.
K5TR, of course, takes good care of our little club, and we are very grateful
for the loaner rotator. It wouldn't have been nearly as much fun without it.
Meanwhile, K5TR operated SOHP from W5KFT and made 2180 QSOs!
We got off to a much slower start this year than last year, but things
picked up in the next couple of hours, peaking with a 129 hour I had at 2300,
my personal best in this contest, and the best hour the station has had in a
Sweepstakes in at least 10 years. I probably shouldn't have tried to go to
40 in the 0100 hour, as that dropped the rate dramatically for about ten
minutes. After the first five hours of the contest, we were still about 50
QSOs behind last year's pace.
We pursued a different off-time strategy this year, opting to operate
until 1AM, start again at 6:30AM, and then take the last half hour off. In
retrospect, we didn't make as many QSOs between midnight and 1AM as we would
have made in another hour of operating on Sunday. On the other hand, we worked
our only VE5 during that hour.
We had more operators this year than in many recent years. Our three newest
contest operators are Monique N3TNN, Johanna W5JLP, and Louisa KB5LBN. All
three of them operated the contest last year - their first contest experience
ever. This year, they did fantastic. Monique in particular had at least
three full hours near 60/hr, even on Sunday afternoon, and once had the rate
meter (based on the last ten minutes) up at 90/hr. All three are getting
much better at handling the run frequency, getting calls out of the noise
and QRM, and are getting over their hesitations while operating. This was a
very cool thing to hear.
We had a much better Sunday than last year, including an 83 hour on Sunday
morning! I had actually gotten into a frequency fight with a prominent WcF
superstation on 20, when he zero beated me, and started calling "CQ Contest."
When I told him the frequency was in use, he told me that he had been there
for 50 minutes. I told him he was wrong (I had made 20 QSOs on that frequency,
including several stations in Florida) but he was insistent on stealing my
frequency, and after seven full minutes when neither one of us made a QSO, I
let him have it. I tried to find another run frequency, got an inferior one
for a while, and after a little bit decided to go to 15M. When I got there,
I found that the band was longer than the "K5TR South Texas Sweepstakes Sweet
Spot Metric" would suggest was a good place to be. I was working W1, VE2,
VE3, Minn., Mich., and not the Oh, In, Il, WPa, MDc stations. But, the
band was still sparsely populated, I was able to get a good clean frequency
near 21230, and it seemed like _everyone_ just found me. It was great. Mostly
they came one right after the other, and not in clumps. And I think by
getting there early, that as the band shortened and more stations moved up
from 20, I was able to keep a clean frequency longer, closer to the bottom of
the band, and that really helped me work stations faster. It was just a
tremendous morning!
The rest of Sunday, we had a couple of slow hours near noon, but otherwise
were steadily gaining on last year's QSO total all day. K5PI worked
our last mult, VY1MB, giving us a clean sweep. Our second-best hour on
Sunday was a 76 that KT5I worked at 2300, on 20. Monique N3TNN took us past
last year's QSO total around 0130, and then we just went in a flat-out sprint
to the end.
This is the second highest QSO total ever for the club station (the highest
was set 11 years ago, coincidentally) and it's the highest claimed score ever
(in 1989, there were only 77 multipliers available, of course.) In 1989, the
University of Texas (then W5EHM) finished in the top ten in the M/S category.
Our three newest operators together operated around 8 of the 24 hours, and
would have operated more had they been around the shack more.
Some surprises: we worked 13 stations in North Dakota! We worked 20 stations
in Kansas! Unusually, Ohio wasn't the #1 section for us, but Illinois took
that spot this time.
It was a fantastic contest.
2000 ARRL November Sweepstakes Phone - N5XU
HOUR 80SSB 40SSB 20SSB 15SSB 10SSB TOTAL ACCUM
---- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ----- -----
21 0 0 0 10 46 56 56
22 0 0 0 36 63 99 155
23 0 0 0 129 0 129 284
0 0 0 62 42 0 104 388
1 0 10 54 0 0 64 452
2 0 0 53 0 0 53 505
3 0 0 52 0 0 52 557
4 0 0 48 0 0 48 605
5 0 22 14 0 0 36 641
6 18 10 0 0 0 28 669
7 1 0 0 0 0 1 670
8 0 0 0 0 0 0 670
9 0 0 0 0 0 0 670
10 0 0 0 0 0 0 670
11 0 0 0 0 0 0 670
12 0 7 5 0 0 12 682
13 0 0 29 19 0 48 730
14 0 0 0 83 0 83 813
15 0 0 0 71 0 71 884
16 0 0 0 57 0 57 941
17 0 0 0 17 8 25 966
18 0 0 0 20 8 28 994
19 0 0 0 0 56 56 1050
20 0 0 0 0 52 52 1102
21 0 0 0 0 46 46 1148
22 0 0 0 0 46 46 1194
23 0 0 69 0 7 76 1270
0 0 0 69 0 0 69 1339
1 0 0 55 0 0 55 1394
2 0 0 37 0 0 37 1431
TOTAL 19 49 547 484 332
2000 ARRL November Sweepstakes Phone - N5XU
1. Il 88
2. Oh 66
3. Mi 61
4. Mdc 54
5. Va 53
6. Mn 50
7. WNy 44
8. NNj 38
9. In 34
10. Em 33
11. ENy 32
12. WWa 32
13. Scv 30
14. Ia 30
15. Ep 29
16. Ct 27
17. On 27
18. Wi 26
19. Lax 25
20. Co 24
21. Sv 23
22. Mo 23
23. SNj 22
24. Tn 22
25. Nc 21
26. NLi 21
27. WPa 20
28. Or 20
29. Ks 20
30. Ga 19
31. Ky 18
32. Wv 17
33. Org 17
34. Az 16
35. Nh 15
36. WMa 14
37. Sjv 13
38. Nd 13
39. STx 13
40. Sb 12
41. SFl 12
42. Sf 11
43. Ok 11
44. Eb 11
45. NFl 10
46. Sdg 10
47. Ne 10
48. Id 10
49. Nm 10
50. Al 10
51. Mt 9
52. Vt 9
53. WcF 9
54. Qc 9
55. Ut 9
56. Ms 9
57. Nv 8
58. Bc 8
59. Ri 7
60. Ew 7
61. Me 7
62. Sc 7
63. Ab 6
64. De 6
65. Sd 6
66. NTx 6
67. NNy 5
68. Mb 5
69. Wy 5
70. La 5
71. Pac 5
72. WTx 3
73. Ar 3
74. Nl 2
75. Vi 2
76. Ak 2
77. Mar 2
78. Pr 1
79. Sk 1
80. Nwt 1
--
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Kenneth E. Harker "Vox Clamantis in Deserto" kharker@cs.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin Amateur Radio Callsign: WM5R
Department of the Computer Sciences President, UT Amateur Radio Club
Taylor Hall TAY 2.124 Maintainer of Linux on Laptops
Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
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