ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB
Call: VE7FO
Operator(s): ANN ARCHER, VE7FO
Station: VE7FO
Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: BC
Operating Time (hrs): 21
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 68
40: 14
20: 320
15: 29
10:
------------
Total: 431 Sections = 72 Total Score = 62,064
Club: British Columbia DX Club
Comments:
Well, this was different. As part of my strategy for creating more contesters
(I have decided that this is the best use of my retirement years) I open my
station to members of a club to which I belong. This club was formed
specifically to provide communications for the City of Vancouver in the event of
an emergency/disaster. The members are mainly VHF ops and have little in the
way of HF experience, other than FD. So, some time before a phone contest an
e-mail is sent to the members telling them how much fun and how useful it will
be to participate as ops at my station. I initially started with State QSO
parties but there just isn't enough action (as seen from VE7) to keep newbies
interested so I swallowed hard and now invite them to the big contests.
This time, I got 3 nibbles. One had to bail because of work committments. The
remaining two, Ann and Kathryn, showed up. Ann has very recently joined the
club, doesn't have a licence and has, as far as I know, no radio experience
whatsoever. Kathryn is somewhat older, got her Basic ticket a couple of years
ago but hasn't done anything with it.
Ann decided she wanted to come at 2100Z on Saturday. While this is prime SS
time, I didn't want to put any blocks in the way so I agreed.
As I was contemplating how to structure the experience for them I realized I had
better tidy up the shack as there are piles of paper on every flat surface,
including the rig, and I haven't vacuumed the carpet for a couple of months or
dusted anything in living memory. Now, a guy probably wouldn't care but I
thought that a woman would probably not want to be sitting in a pig sty with
some old guy she had never met until that moment.
As my wife was going to be out when Ann arrived, I had to be upstairs so I could
hear the doorbell ring. So, I had the shack as tidy as it was going to get with
half an hour to spare and went upstairs. Now, on weekends here, there tends to
be a lot of newspapers littering the place. As I looked around I thought I'd
better tidy the front room. While doing it I noticed the carpet needed
vacuuming. Hmm... according to my deep understanding of women that all hams
share this would not provide a good first impression and would colour everything
else that happened, so I vacuumed the carpet (not something I do very much of).
Oh, oh, the dining room table is a mess so tidied that and, noticing the dining
room floor was as bad, vacuumed it too. As I was carrying the vacuum through
the kitchen I realzed that the kitchen table needed some attention. Not only
that, the floor needed sweeping. So I took care of that. Then I realized that
I'd left toast crumbs all over the kitchen counter from breakfast and my wife
had left water in the sink with a bunch of dishes in it. So I cleaned up the
counter, washed the dishes and cleaned the sink. Such dedication to furthering
the aims of ham radio.
Ann arrived shortly after and off we went to the basement shack.
My wife returned a little while later, saw how neat and tidy everything looked,
went upstairs, woke up my daughter and asked if she'd cleaned up the kitchen.
Daughter replied, "No. I did think I heard Daddy vacuuming but decided that
wasn't possible."
Spent the first hour of SS orienting Ann to the protocol for making contacts in
general and in contests as well as the use of phonetics, overview of contesting
in general and SS in particular, and logging. To illustrate I made and logged
an SS Q. (K5TR - you couldn't get a better example of a snappy Q.) I also had
her practise tuning the receiver to turn the quacking into intelligible speech.
We then ran through a scenario (no radio - verbal) where she was the run station
while I pretended to be a number of S&P stations calling. I felt this would be
helpful preparation for that nerve wracking "first contact". I have to say she
was very patient.
2225Z Enough theory, time to get into it. I'm going to tune, I'm going to log
and she's going to make the Qs. I give her the headphones with the mic and I
tune around on 15 to find a nice loud sig for her to call.
2226Z There's KY5R. "OK, listen while he works a few people so you get the
rhythm and figure out the right time to call." "Well, that was the right time
but that's OK, wait for him to finish with this guy and then call him."
2227Z Bingo, first Q ever and KY5R is in the log. It didn't hurt to be able to
point out that KY5R, being in Al is just about as far away as you can get from
VE7 and still be in NA.
Next Qs at 2230, 31, 34, 42, 44, 46, 47, 52, 53. Hey, we're getting some rate
here!
At this point Ann decided she wanted to get some logging experience so I did
some S&P. S&P because I could wait until she had successfully logged the Q
before feeding her another one. Harder to do when running. Along the way we
managed to work PR and VI which added an exotic edge to the experience. KH6
would have been nice but didn't happen until after she had left around 0015.
We didn't get as far as her tuning the Rx to a call, duping it, calling it and
logging it but we came a long way in 3 hours as she learned to turn the
phonetics into log entries. I think she enjoyed the experience and will be back
for Lesson 2. ARRL 10 is pretty well the next possible one but activity may not
be sufficient. Then again, if there's any at all, it might be good as there
isn't likely to be much QRM (as opposed to the zoo on 20 in the last 4-5 hours
that it was open - voice channels with 500 Hz spacing - cell system designers
eat your hearts out).
After Ann left (24 Qs and 18 mults) I had a bite to eat and got back to it
around 0100. 20 died 1-1/2 hours later and I spent an hour on 40 where I only
managed to convince 5 people to complete a Q with me (but one was SD) and then
went to 75.
Oooohhhhh Yuckkkk. There's a diode somewhere outside. Every 10 kHz on 75/80 I
hear the audio from at least 3 AM broadcast stations. At most 10 kHz points the
combined sigs were S9+10. In between the S meter never dropped below 7. At the
quietest frequencies the meter bounced continuously between 7 and 9.
Remembering what my boss used to say, ("Stop whining and deal with it!") I
started making Qs. Could have made a lot more without that diode, wherever it
is. Between about 0830 and 1000 I did some running. It was very frustrating
for me and, no doubt, even more so for many callers, that I just couldn't pull
many folks through the crud. Too bad, 75 sounded pretty good. Bet I could have
made 2-3 X as many Qs without the intermod.
Somewhere along the way I relearn the lesson dealing with, "Read the rules."
I'm so used to single op I've got the MkV set to 150W and, of course, I don't
look at DX Summit. (No packet or Telnet capability here at the moment.) A
vague, nagging thought suggests that maybe M/S can use spots. I read the rules,
crank the MkV up to 200W and put DX Summit up on the other monitor. I'm
convinced the additional 30% power got me over the threshold to more stations
after I increased power.
To bed at 1000Z with 130 Qs and 47 mults. Q breakdown - 11 on 15, 50 on 20, 5
on 40 and 64 on 75. First time I've ever gone to bed with the same number of Qs
on 75 as on 10, 15, 20 and 40 combined.
Back at it shortly before 1600Z
Hmm... should have gone to bed earlier and got up earlier. Lots of activity on
20, including New England Sections. Must remember to get up earlier to get a
longer crack at them. Pretty well nothing on 15. 10? C'est a rire. S&P for a
while (gotta get that sweep). A bit before 1800Z I decide to try running. I
guess it must have seemed OK at the time because I did it for an hour. Now that
I look at the rate report I see that I shouldn't have stopped. A 76 hour on 20
SSB with 200W and a 35 yr old TH3 (original owner N/S, S/D). For me, that's
very good. But, seduced by the thought of what I might be missing, I go to 15
and S&P. 7 Qs in 40 minutes. I'm beginning to think that the best way for me
to improve my scores is to pour glue all over the tuning knob so I can't S&P.
Still, I did come out of it with my only RI Q. Gee, that's worth 6 Qs. That
makes the equivalent rate 13 Qs in 40 min = a mind boggling 19 Qs/hr. Why is it
I only figure these things out when I'm writing these stories? Oh well, back to
20 before it gets crowded.
Jumping Jehosephat, Sandy, it sounds worse than 75 did last night! But wait,
these aren't AM broadcast stations, they're hams, few of which have yet worked
VE7. So I resign my self to S&P hell. Trying to pick calls out of the mess is
truly horrible. I make a bunch of Qs, can't stand it any more and escape to 15.
This also is truly horrible. The Qs are easy but there aren't many of them.
Back to 20, pick a spot where the S-meter is minimum (S7), cast aside my
scruples and start running. Hey, I'm making Qs and getting rate! I find it
hard to believe that I can hold a frequency on 20 under these conditions, but I
can.
At this point, Kathryn (remember her) arrives. It turns out that all she wants
to do is watch and listen. Active participation will come another day. So,
with only a modest amount of orientation for Kathryn, I'm back to running on 20.
Incredible! Under these very crowded conditions with my modest station in the
00 hour I did 62 Qs! Kathryn had some understandable difficulties sorting out
what was going on due to lack of experience with the phonetic alphabet and all
the quacking of the stations only a few hundred Hz away. She was able to pick
out most of the Section names, however.
Around 0110 I thought I should go pick off VY1. Well, I had checked out the 2
VY1s' spots earlier and heard nothing from there. However, I had recently
worked a couple of KL7s which suggested that things were opening to the North.
Sure enough, there's J. Pretty weak and fluttery and telling other stations
that they have really good sigs and giving out numbers in, IIRC, the 160 range.
Being 10 short of a sweep, I didn't hang around long. I did feel badly for him
and particularly the other VY1 group. Here they are, all set up to do their
best to hand out VY1 and have fun doing it. Not only that, J can now make a VY1
Q and maybe get a sweep. But the propagation gods only let them out in the last
few hours.
Around 0200 20 dies and I move to 40. Kathryn has had enough by this time and
says goodbye. I pick up 2 more mults (SF & ID) and move to 75 around 0245. I
make a couple of difficult Qs and at 0255, not wanting to give anyone that
experience we all know when, at 0257, you get the guy who can't get anything
you're sending and runs the clock out saying, "Is your call OF7EV?" I shut down
with 431 Qs and 72 mults.
Well, I think the trainees got something out of it. I guess I'll find out when
I invite them to the next one. Thanks for the Qs everyone.
73 de Jim Smith VE7FO
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