ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW
Call: VE7FO
Operator(s): VE7FO
Station: VE7FO
Class: SO Unlimited LP
QTH: Vancouver
Operating Time (hrs): 21.5
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 41
40: 77
20: 387
15: 9
10:
------------
Total: 514 Sections = 80 Total Score = 82,240
Club: British Columbia DX Club
Comments:
Other than a few guest op stints at VE7UF, this appears to have been
my first contest in over a year due to other things in my life taking
up all my available time. Boy, am I rusty. I expected to be able to
take up where I left off and have all the skills available. Hah!
It didn't take long to realize that I'd better confine my activity to
S&P for a while as I was unable to copy exchanges at more than about
22 wpm and get them right the first time. So I would pick a station
and sit there until I got his exchange right and then call him. Felt
like I was beginning all over. It was amazing to see how the
slightest wavering of attention turned the remainder of the exchange
into a stream of incomprehensible gibberish. The SS exchange is, of
course, much harder to copy than endless strings of "59K". Don't get
me wrong, though, I think the SS exchange should stay exactly as it
is. Kinda' like the ham radio equivalent of an aerobic workout.
Well, thoughts of actually being competitive having been banished
right from the start, I decided not to take it too seriously and turn
the S&P exercise into an attempt at a sweep, having managed to do that
only once before since I got back into ham radio. (I guess Serious
would be 24 hours as opposed to the 21-3/4 hours I did.)
As I enjoy using spots, especially with the great spot handling of
N1MM and tha fantastic spot filtering program, VE7CC, when used with
CC Cluster, I decided I'd enter the Unlimited category, LP. "Say,
what category did you enter in SS?". "Oh, I was in the America's Cup
Class." Gotta love it. It was only after the test that I realized
that in the U category there are no power levels. Hm... could have
run the MkV at 200W instead of the 150 I used. I wonder, how many
more Qs does 1 dB gets you? It's gotta be some.
So, I started on 20, jumping from spot to spot. If I saw a spot for a
mult I normally have difficulty with, I went there first. A bit
before the start I heard WD0T so I parked there until 2100 and called
him. I don't know if he was excited to have a VE7 as #1 in his log
but I sure was to have SD as #1 in mine.
Once I'd worked all the spotted mults I could I then worked all the
other spots that I could. If someone hadn't been spotted for half an
hour, I spotted them. Following that, I tuned through the band to
pick up non-spotted stations and spotted them as I worked them (or
even if I didn't work them). I also re-spotted stations I'd
previously spotted if their last spot was a while ago. By 0200Z I had
managed to work 121 Qs and 58 sections, including SD, Wy, Vt, WMa, Ms
(missed Ms for a sweep once), ND, WTx, NH, NWT.
Usually when I'm chasing spots I jump from one to the next to the next
until I find one just finishing a Q and call him, rather than wait for
an entire Q to run to completion and then calling. This doesn't work
in SS due to the length of the exchange. You could run through the
whole list a couple of times before finding one that was ready. This
makes S&P even slower than in most other contests. However, I
persevered as, while the rust flakes were falling away, I still didn't
feel ready to run.
One thing I found in past SS efforts was that any western mults not
worked by Sat night can be pretty hard to find on Sunday so I put a
lot of emphasis on these during Sat evening. I went to bed happy,
having bagged them all.
Back at it at 1530Z (0730 Local time). By 1641 I'd knocked off the
remaining New England mults plus NL leaving me only On, WPa and Ne for
the sweep. Imagine needing only VE3 and not getting it? Well, On was
next, followed by WPa and, finally, Ne.
Felt pretty good to have the sweep relatively early (by my standards).
Pretty easy, though, with spots and even a modest station such as
mine. Certainly a much more significant accomplishment for those who
can't maintain a run frequency for long periods and don't use spots.
Once my confidence was pretty much restored I made a few attempts at
running. First one lasted 15 min, 2nd one 30 min, 3rd & 4th 60 min,
and then starting around 2100Z on Sun a fabulous 3 hour run on 20
yielding 117 Qs. Well, fabulous for me. It wasn't the rate that was
so great, in fact it was quite modest, but the fact that I could hold
a frequency on 20 (14028) for that length of time.
One thing I found during this run that I wasn't used to was that I had
to keep chasing people off the frequency. It was a particular problem
when trying to work a QRP caller as, with the long SS exchange
repeated several times, quite a while goes by when the frequency
appears to not be in use. I finally realized that I couldn't afford
to spend a lot of time with any one station if I wanted to keep my run
frequency. Sorry guys, there were quite a few of you I could have
pulled through with more time.
Towards the end of the run the rate started falling off to 1 every 3
min and there were lots of unworked spots so went S&P. Rate still one
every 3 min but more fun than listening to my CQs. Probably should
have kept CQing as run rates do tend to go up and down.
Shut down an hour early as I was really tired. At one point I was
wondering why I wasn't turning the VFO knob, given that I was trying
to S&P. I then realized it was because my hand had fallen off the
knob when I fell asleep.
All in all, I was reasonably pleased with this. Got the code speed
pretty well back up. While I was chugging along at about 25 wpm I had
no trouble with the odd caller doing 30.
Felt good to be back.
Thanks for all the Qs (and the patience during the early part).
73, Jim VE7FO
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