ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB
Call: W5KFT
Operator(s): WM5R
Station: W5KFT
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: STX
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 111
40: 395
20: 964
15: 304
10: 1
------------
Total: 1775 Sections = 80 Total Score = 284,000
Club:
Comments:
Thanks to Bryan for letting me use his station this weekend, and to
Robert K5PI, who maintains the place and keeps things in good
working order. This year, I went out to the station the weekend before
the contest to set things up (configure TR Log, adjust the 80 meter
dipoles to phone length, set up the DVK, etc.) so I could just show up
on Saturday morning and not feel rushed before the contest.
I got off to a bad start. When I sat down in the chair a couple of
minutes before the start, it sounded like 15 meters was completely dead
(I could only hear one or stations, and they sounded weak,) so I decided
to start on 20 meters, which was painful and not nearly as rapid a start
as last year. It eventually dawned on me that it wasn't that 15 meters
was dead, but that my radio B was deaf. It couldn't hear anything at all
on 40 either, and I knew that wasn't right. I did a quick SWR check to
confirm that, yes, it was connected to a resonant antenna system; and yes,
the SixPack was switching things properly. So, that kind of bummed me
out - I figured the receiver was bad and I'd have to swap it out when I
took my first off-time (which I wasn't planning to take until 2AM local
or whenever the rate dropped off around then.) A long while later, when
I made the band change to 40 meters, and had been using the Beverage
occasionally on radio A, it dawned on me that maybe something external in
the receive-only chain (Beverage interface box maybe) wasn't working right.
When I did stop for the night, I squeezed around behind the table and
found the loose RF cable. The Beverage interface mod on the back of the
Kenwood TS-850 uses RCA connectors, which can come loose pretty easily,
and I must have accidentally caught it and pulled it out while I was plugging
in the coax and rotor cables before the start. Apparently, the few stations
I was hearing had been loud enough to overcome relay isolation or something.
The other thing that went wrong on Saturday was the DVK. It's a W9XT
Contest Card, and it may just be getting old. The relays worked fine,
and it may have been recording just fine, but the playback was erratic.
I'd record a message, it would play back once; after that, it would key
but not play any audio, and I'd have to use ESC to unkey. Sometimes I'd
make a new recording and it would play back once, sometimes not. I
gave up using it. At my first off time, I rebooted into DOS (instead of
using a full-screen DOS window under Win98,) tried it a bunch of times,
and then finally it seemed to record one CQ message and replay it
consistently, so I decided not to push my luck and used that memory all
day Sunday.
This year, I stayed on 20 meters a little longer than last year, and I
think that helped me catch up after a slower start. It looks like I had
actually pulled a few ahead of my QSO total last year by the end of the first
five hours. But, I lost ground on last year's total the rest of the night,
and finished 17 QSOs behind where I had been last year when I finished
for the night. The last two hours (0600 UTC and 0700 UTC hours) in particular
were painful, and well below what I did last year. I'm not sure what
happened there.
On Sunday morning, I woke up an hour earlier than I did last year, and I
think that helped a lot. I found a lot more stations on 80 meters in
the 1200 UTC hour than I would have expected. I made my first second-radio
QSOs in that hour on 40, as well, and then CQed on 40 meters for about
10 minutes before deciding it was time to find a run frequency on 20 meters.
I found a great big hole at 14.155 MHz and began to CQ.
My first 20 meter QSO of the morning was at 1300 UTC exactly, and I had
two and a half great hours, including a 79 QSO hour and an 88 QSO hour.
Around 1504 UTC, a pair of jammers decided to harass me. I'm used to
being hassled basically every contest, but this was new. I'd been
on 14.155 MHz for two hours now, and as happens once in a while I hit a
lull of maybe six or seven unanswered CQs. Jammer A says "Wouldn't ya
have more luck in the General band?" Most often, this kind of comment is
a one-off, so I call another live CQ. Jammer A repeats his question,
but another station answers with a callsign. I send my exchange to the
contester, and as I am receiving her exchange, jammer A repeats his question
on top of her. I complete that QSO and call "CQ contest" again and jammer
A is persistent about asking "Wouldn't ya have better luck in the General
band?" Finally, I ask him for his callsign, but he only repeats his
question (he never gave a callsign,) and I CQ again. Now, I hear "CQ
Contest, Kilo Five Texas Radio, Contest!" over and over again. At first
I figure George has made a mistake, is sending on the wrong VFO or maybe
doesn't hear me (we're at an awkward distance from each other,) so I tell
him the frequency is in use and give my callsign. I do this a few times
when jammer B pops in and says "I guess he's no more interested in listenin'
to you than you was to that other fella'!" He only says this once and
never sends a callsign, but that's when I begin to clue in that George (and
it is his voice) isn't really pausing enough between CQs, isn't working
anyone, and is too many bars on my S meter (again, because of the awkward
distance.) So, Jammer A recorded George CQing earlier in the contest, and
is now replaying it to harass me. It is an interesting choice to be sure,
given that George was a groomsman at my wedding. I slide down about 1 kHz
and call CQ there. The jamming recording follows me. I slide up two kHz
and the jammer follows me there. Down 2 kHz. Up 2 kHz. Very persistent.
So I stop and listen for a bit and the jammer stops. Maybe 90 seconds later,
I call CQ again on 14.155 MHz, and he never returns. This took about five
full minutes, but it seemed like it took a lot longer.
(George tells me that he has heard from other contesters who were also
jammed this weekend with the same recording.)
I took an off-time in the 1600 UTC hour. I'm not sure if that was a great
decision or not, but my productivity on 20 meters was fading and 15 meter
wasn't quite there yet, and my rate had taken a dive. My 2000 UTC hour
was terrible. I decided to move from a slow CQ run on 15 meters to try my
hand at CQing on 20 meters for a while and troll though 15 meters on the
second radio (and maybe find Yt/Nwt/Nu,) but that was a disaster. I could
never get anything going on 20 meters, and ended up with a full hour of
only 40 QSOs. My next off-time was in the 2100 UTC hour when a line of
thunderstorms rolled by and I had to disconnect the antennas and rotor
cables for a half hour or so. I took another half hour off in the 0000
UTC hour when things had slowed down again, and took my remaining minutes
of off time at the very end.
I was beginning to worry about working a clean sweep on Sunday. I only
worked my first Pacific section station in the 1700 UTC hour, which left
me with only the Yt/Nwt/Nu section to find. My repeated second-radio
passes up and down the bands failed to find anything that resembled a
Yt multiplier pileup, though. A VY1 station eventually did call me in the
2300 UTC hour on 20 meters, for the sweep. I worked at least two stations
in every other section, and I even worked eight stations in the Maritimes,
which used to be a hard section to work, but is now much easier to work
in the Sweepstakes than Delaware.
I made 91 more QSOs on Sunday this year than I did last year, and at times I
was over 100 QSOs ahead of last year's pace. I feel really good about that.
This is a personal best score for me.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Rate Sheet
HOUR 80SSB 40SSB 20SSB 15SSB 10SSB TOTAL ACCUM
---- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ----- -----
21 0 0 121 0 0 121 121
22 0 0 114 0 0 114 235
23 0 0 120 0 0 120 355
0 0 0 132 0 0 132 487
1 0 0 116 0 0 116 603
2 0 81 5 0 0 86 689
3 4 56 0 0 0 60 749
4 0 83 0 0 0 83 832
5 0 69 0 0 0 69 901
6 7 38 0 0 0 45 946
7 37 1 0 0 0 38 984
8 0 0 0 0 0 0 984
9 0 0 0 0 0 0 984
10 0 0 0 0 0 0 984
11 0 0 0 0 0 0 984
12 32 14 0 0 0 46 1030
13 0 4 75 0 0 79 1109
14 0 1 87 0 0 88 1197
15 0 0 53 9 0 62 1259
16 0 0 5 26 1 32 1291
17 0 0 1 66 0 67 1358
18 0 0 0 69 0 69 1427
19 0 0 3 66 0 69 1496
20 0 0 13 27 0 40 1536
21 0 0 0 28 0 28 1564
22 0 0 40 13 0 53 1617
23 0 0 64 0 0 64 1681
0 0 12 13 0 0 25 1706
1 10 31 2 0 0 43 1749
2 21 5 0 0 0 26 1775
-------------------------------------------------------------
QSO Distribution by Section
1. Il 98
2. Mi 96
3. Oh 84
4. Va 75
5. Mn 66
6. Scv 55
7. Mdc 53
8. Co 51
9. In 50
10. WWa 44
11. Wi 42
12. On 40
13. Nc 38
14. NNj 35
15. WNy 33
16. Ep 32
17. Sv 32
18. Ct 30
19. Tn 30
20. Ky 29
21. Ga 29
22. Or 27
23. Em 27
24. Eb 27
25. Az 26
26. ENy 26
27. Ks 23
28. Mo 22
29. Org 22
30. NLi 22
31. Ia 20
32. SNj 20
33. NFl 20
34. Sjv 19
35. Wv 18
36. SFl 18
37. Lax 17
38. Nh 17
39. NTx 17
40. WPa 16
41. Ne 15
42. STx 15
43. WcF 15
44. Vt 13
45. Ok 13
46. Sc 13
47. Id 12
48. Nv 12
49. Me 11
50. Mt 11
51. Ut 11
52. Sdg 11
53. Bc 10
54. Al 10
55. Ab 10
56. WMa 10
57. Nm 10
58. Sf 10
59. Ew 10
60. Sb 9
61. Nd 8
62. Mar 8
63. La 8
64. Ri 8
65. Qc 7
66. Sd 7
67. NNy 7
68. Wy 6
69. Vi 5
70. WTx 5
71. Mb 4
72. Ms 4
73. Ar 4
74. De 3
75. Nl 3
76. Sk 3
77. Ak 3
78. Pr 2
79. Pac 2
80. Nt 1
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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