ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB
Call: K4XD
Operator(s): K4XD
Station: K4XD
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: Raleigh, NC
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 433
40: 354
20: 139
15: 75
10:
------------
Total: 1001 Sections = 80 Total Score = 160,160
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
Here we are at K4XD, Sunday afternoon, with 79 sections in the log, sounding
only slightly desperate (OK, sounding really desperate):
"See Cuuuuuuuuuue, Seeeeee Cuuuuuuue, Seee Cuuue, See Cue. See Cue SS...
looking for Puerto Rico .... has anyone seen PR?!?!" I actually considered
taking up a quick collection to buy one of our friends in SFL a plane ticket to
PR. After so much talk about how hard it was to bag NT during CW SS, who would
have thought PR would become the "rarest section" just two weeks later?! But
based on cluster "not-spots" (my term for a 'spots' like "KP4XXX" with the
comment "NEED PR!!!!") and comments heard from many ops, it was in the
most-wanted column Sunday afternoon. It sure was in mine. How did it all come
out? Read on and see.
For some reason, SS has become one (two?) of my favorite contests, if not the
favorite. This is a total change for me, as I got into contesting because it
seemed like a good way to collect DX entities (and it is), and then slowly got
sucked into watching my totals climb, trying to beat myself year-over-year in
the same contest, and even surprising myself with a couple of section and
division wins in what I call the "little pistols need some wallpaper too"
categories. Categories like the IARU single op mixed-mode high power NC, a
tightly fought race with one contestant, me! Hey, no one who looks at the
framed "#1 in NC" certificate will know the difference... but SS is its own
little world -- nothing else seems to get the clubs as fired up, provides a
playing field where little pistols can rack up some nice scores, takes
mult-chasing to a high art (how many people even try to work every possible
mult in CQ WW??), and hey, it comes with its own start on a place setting, the
highly prized Clean Sweep Mugs. This year in genuine imitation lead crystal,
no less!
I think having SS start late Saturday only adds to the excitement, because you
have all day Saturday to check and re-check your station, get pre-game jitters,
try (and fail) to nap so you can still vocalize the convoluted exchange at 2AM
without getting tongue-tied, and in general annoy the heck out of your family
who give you that funny look that says "should we just humor him or is it time
to seek professional help?" After all, you are just going to sit at the radio
"like always" and say the same thing, over and over and over, with no one else
in the room, sounding increasingly agitated, and... hmmm, maybe it is time for
professional help!
So you get the picture of my pre-SS Saturday. Tinkering with the DVK, trying
to decide whether to run the sound card voice keyer through WriteLog that can
automate an entire QSO, or the better-sounding, to my ears, one in the EZMaster
that is limited to only four messages and can't do the serial numbers, etc. I
did an on-air check Thursday night and everyone thought the sound card one was
fine, so I decided to let that be my default. I had WriteLog configured so I
could do a totally automated, microphone-free QSO or automate any part of it,
from the CQ to the exchange to parts of the exchange. It's really pretty cool
how flexible WriteLog is in this regard. Stick "%C
<number.wav>%<exchange.wav>" in a macro and WriteLog happily spells out the
other guy's call (%C), sends the wave file that says "number", then sends the
serial number, then the pre-recorded exchange file with precedence, call, check
and section. I tried several variations during the contest -- the totally
automated version does sound like "robo-ham" and probably doesn't do much to
attract the casual band-scanner, but it sure helps when the XYL serves you
breakfast (thanks!) but it's shredded wheat (uh-oh... look thankful). Just try
SSB contesting with a mouthful of that.
I think the best overall combination was to use the recorded CQ, then say the
other guy's call and the serial number part of the exhange, and then punch a
key to let WriteLog send the precedence, my call, check and section. It
probably sounded a little disjoint, but I noticed many others doing it that
way, and I had zero requests for fills on the pre-recorded part of the exchange
so it must have been easy to copy.
Antenna-wise, my Spiderbeam is up about 45' on an AB-952 military "launcher"
mast, and turned by a mighty Channel Master rotator that normally works just
fine. But I added a thrust bearing to reduce stress on the rotor and the thing
hasn't worked right since. The thrust bearing is binding, and as a result the
direction the mast is pointing slowly gets out of synch with what the rotator
control says. After a couple of days I'll notice that Europe sounds really
weak when it should be blasting in on 20M after dawn, and when I go look at the
antenna, it's pointing S or SW instead of NE. I was going to remove the thrust
bearing Saturday morning but it was rainy and windy, and in one of my saner
moments I decided standing on the wet rungs of a 12' ladder and man-handling a
pair of crossed 32' long antenna booms was probably not the brightest idea. I
figured I was going to use the beam to work the West coast for the most part,
so I just pointed it at northern CA and was glad that a Spiderbeam is the
equivalent of a 3 EL Yagi, i.e., it would paint a pretty big swath of the left
coast with enough RF to get the job done.
OK, it's almost time ... gentlemen, start your radios! Twenty minutes to go
and you could feel the excitement building on the bands... like race car
drivers spooling up their engines and taking test laps, you could hear people
"warming up" a frequency ("well, it's 2050 UTC on a Saturday, of course I
always get on 20M and start running stations for random fun, don't you?"). The
signals were dancing on the Icom 756 Pro II's scope, and I watched as the holes
between signals slowly began to disappear... no wonder everyone starts getting
nervous about ever getting a good run frequency and jumps on early -- they're
right! To make sure I didn't jump the gun, I went to the US Naval Observatory
time page (Google "Naval Time" and you'll get a link to it) and made sure my PC
and radio clocks were synched up with the good old USNO. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.. Go!
My pre-game strategy was simple -- spin the dial up the band on 20M and find a
nice clear spot to run, rather than S&P'ing my way up the band and finding that
all the "frequencies are in use." OK, start tuning. Panic! All the frequencies
-are- in use! If there wasn't a station every kHz, it was only because there
was someone with a 4 kHz wide, S9+40 signal covering that slot up. OK, a
choice low frequency was not to be found -- spin the dial like mad and see if
there is anything higher up. Aha, looks like a valley on the Pro II scope at
14265, right between two mountains of RF on either side. Nestling in between
these stations I could just about hear myself think, so I punched the CQ button
in WriteLog and in rolled the West. I managed to hold the frequency for 50
minutes and 59 Q's, then got squelched by a neighbor and slid up the band for
ten more Q's. Squeezed out again, I couldn't find a hole and S&P'ing was
s-l-o-w, so I jumped up to 15M to see if I could get something going there. I
did -- a bit slower than 20M at the start, but managed another 50 minutes and
40 q's.
I run Bandmaster on a second monitor because it displays the cluster spot notes
right on the band map, making it easy to see things like VY1EI's presence. I
saw him spotted and dropped my 15M run to go work him -- success! Even though
I had a long way to go for a sweep, it felt really good to get NT in the log
before 0000 Sunday. That was the only section I missed in SS CW.
Around 2315 I went back to 20 and got 30 more Q's in 30 minutes on 14183. I
checked out 40M but I was too late -- I could not find a decent run frequency
and ended up spending about 30 minutes trying different things, none of which
worked very well. At 0040 I bagged 40M and went down to 80. On the positive
side, I had half of the 80 sections needed for a sweep in the log, including
ND, NT, PAC, MT, ID, EWA, WY and the sometimes-elusive SB!
I surveyed 80M to try and decide where to play. 3800-3810 has been described
as the "prime real estate" but it was already packed. 80M has enough space
that I wasn't panicked about finding a slot somewhere, so I did some S&P to
sample the band. Pretty much heard the whole eastern half of North America,
from SFL to ME, and WTX to MN. Reminds me of a comment I heard Sunday evening
on 80M from a MI station -- "what a band, I can sit here and work the whole
continent!" I guess living in the "RF black hole" has at least one high
point!
So after what was, in retrospect, probably entirely too much S&P, almost 2
hours worth, I settled in at 3798 and started running. Probably a dumb
frequency to pick, right below the Generals, but it was open for a while and in
I went. Had a good 30 min stretch there but a big gun decided he liked my dumb
frequency choice. I could still be sitting there now calling CQ and "proving"
that I could stand his splatter, but it was kind of pointless. While somewhat
satisfying to hear him asking for lots of fills, I couldn't hear people
answering me, so I decided discretion was truly the better part of valor and
tucked my antenna between my legs and slid on up the band, in search of a
friendlier place to CQ.
The sight of all those unworked stations on the bandmap led to another hour of
S&P (when will I learn?), followed by a twenty minute run on 3737 that netted
as many Q's as the hour of S&P.
Unlike last year, 80M "worked" for relatively local contacts throughout the
evening. MDC stations were loud, and NC stations were fine too. I heard
nothing west of TX until 0308, when an SJV and an SV popped up. Throughout
this period, although I had SO2R, by the time I got everything ready for a QSO
on the second radio, I had another QSO that needed attention on the primary rig,
so I only made a couple of Q's an hour on the second radio. The guys that can
blast through two bands at once, alternating rigs, have my full respect.
That's a skill that has eluded me so far...
Although I did use the DVK, I also just said the exchange a lot -- and as the
night wore on, and wore me down with it, I noticed that the exchange took so
long to say that my mind started wandering in the middle of saying it. I would
catch myself, the way you do if your mind is drifting during a long boring drive
to work, and suddenly notice that the light had changed... but now I would
wonder what my mouth was saying, and whether it was still putting all those
letters and numbers in the right sequence or if I was muttering gibberish like
a mad man. Other than having someone ask for my precedence and having me give
them my check, I don't think my "robo-mouth" got too far out of synch.
Somewhere right above my spinal chord there are now some nerve endings that
know how to do a SS exchange without calling my cerebrum for help.
80M began stretching out after local midnight, and stations from WWA to ORG
started to appear. My rate stayed above 30 with bursts over 50 until about
0700, at which point I began having those two, three, and four minute dry
spells. The ones that feel ten, fifteen, and twenty minutes long. It was
getting harder to keep my eyes focused. I rationalized to myself that I like
working the pre-dawn stretch on 80M so I decided to pull the plug at 0730, with
400 Q's and 75 sections in the log and a goal of catching 3 hours sleep.
Four and half hours later, I was back at the dials. Yup, when the alarm went
off at 5:30 the logical half of my brain said "you like that pre-dawn stretch
on 80M but you like your pillow better" and so there I stayed for a ten minute
snooze that lasted an hour and a half. I guess that thing about sleeping in 90
minute long cycles has some merit.
Finding a run frequency on 80M at 1200 was a piece of cake compared to the
night before, and being 4.5 hours older and commensurately wiser, I ignored the
urge to S&P my way merrily up the band and went straight to work, letting
WriteLog's DVK CQ its little heart out on 3748. MS called in at 1218, which I
didn't realize at the time would also be an elusive section for many. Section
76, four to go: AK, PR, SK, MB. MB had been a little tricky for me in years
past, but I didn't give a second thought to the other three. Little did I
know...
At 1330 80M was slowing down, and I figured if I didn't get up to 40M soon I
was going to miss a slab of stations that don't do much on 80, so up I went. I
decided to run at the high end of the band, and found a hole at 7279. Boy was
that a good idea. 2 hours and 200 Q's later, I think I worked more 2x3 calls
than I had in the whole previous contest, and over half of my Q's were with
stations with serial numbers under 100. Very interesting element to the
strategy!! I'm beginning to "get the picture." Yes, you guys have told me all
this, but "seeing is believing."
Oh yeah, my run was broken once -- by a spot of MB on 20M, which I pounced on
and worked in two minutes. I was sure that was the last "tough one" and I
would easily put AK, PR, and SK in the log by the afternoon. Oh how naive...
At 1730 I decided to have a look at 15M, and it sounded so nice and quiet
compared to 20M I decided to give my ears a rest and spent a half hour there
with some S&P. At this point the "where the #$@? is PR??" spots were starting
to show up, and some of the guys I ran across on 15M were talking about needing
it as their "last one" but PR was no where to be found. I ran a spot history
search on PR and got a sickening feeling -- not a single contest spot for PR
since the start of SS, at least nothing in my cluster history database. Uh-oh.
My worries were momentarily interrupted by a spot of SK, and he was pretty
easy to work with only a short wait. Two to go...
OK, time to take a 30 minute lunch and strategy break. AK and PR... hmm, which
way to point the beam?! Would be nice to have that independently rotatable
stack... I came back from lunch and saw a spot for Corliss, AL1G. On an
extremely sad post-contest note, I read her 3830 writeup and learned that she
received a phone call during the contest and learned her husband Frank KL7FH
had suffered a burst blood vessel in his brain. He passed away the next day. I
don't know Corliss but have had a couple of SS QSO's with her and I am truly
sorry for her loss. Corliss is an extremely patient and good op. Bless her,
she was working stations in the middle of a monumental amount of splatter and
QRM. My first few calls didn't bust the pile, but she seemed to be willing to
listen through the mess and I could hear her about 80% of the time. Then
someone suggested she should QSY and it was a good move -- only about 1 kHz up
the band and I could hear her almost 100% of the time. I managed to get
through the mob in a couple more tries and now it was down to me and PR,
mano-a-mano.
I saw a spot from someone running on 15M saying a PR station had called him for
his sweep, so I jumped back to 15M, a few kHz above the lucky sweepster, turned
my hexbeam to 142 degrees (the hex rotor worked), and started CQ'ing like my
sweep depended on it. Thanks to the broad pattern of the hex, basically a 2EL
yagi, I was able to work stations from EWA to SDG while pointing at PR. But 45
minutes went by, and no PR Santas stopped by to deliver my sweep. And then I
saw it... a spot of a PR station running on 15M! I abandoned my run frequency
like W3LPL had just moved in half a kHz away, and headed for the PR spot. This
should be easy, PR is usually one or two calls at most. Eegads, not this time.
The pileup was reminisicent of the mobs calling VY1EI during CW SS. KP4SQ was
patiently working stations, but it was slow going through the QRM and the mob
was getting anxious, starting to call on top of the other guy's exchange,
forcing KP4SQ to ask for repeats, and when the mob heard one guy call, then
another, they all broke loose like ships in a storm. On top of that, his
signal was starting to take some dips. Please, please, don't QSB away or go
QRT! I would have understood completely if he had, the crowd was really
unruly. I was starting to get nervous that this was my last chance, and even
running QRO, it was only to a hexbeam and it was clear from the mob that I was
a real little pistol in that pack. I decided it was time for Spider Power!
Unfortunately, my Spiderbeam was aimed west or even a little northwest, and
while I'm sure it would have worked the KP4 in the clear, this was hardly in
the clear. So I ran out into the yard, and exercised one of the nicer features
of the AB-952 military mast -- the "oil changer" handle and strap that lets you
rotate the whole mast by hand! Dead reckoning was good enough for this
maneuver, and I aimed that puppy right at the beautiful beaches of PR.
I ran back to the shack, switched antennas and the KP4 was now LOUD! Yes!!! I
tuned up and got him on the second try. Sweep! Why is that such a good
feeling? We humans are pretty goal oriented -- and when you think about it,
pretty easy to please in some ways. We like our gold stars, merit badges,
certificates, plaques and special coffee mugs!
Now I felt a little relaxed. I could just run, run, run, help my club with as
many points as possible, but I had reached "the goal" with 767 Q's and 80
sections in the log. I had only taken 5 hours off at this point, so still
needed to take another hour, leaving 6.5 hours of operating to go. For a big
gun station, breaking 1000 Q's would be an easy goal at this point, but my rate
had slowed to 20 or 30 an hour and I could do the math -- even at the high end,
with 30 an hour, there just wasn't enough time left on the clock to make 1000
Q's likely.
I spent a little more time on 15M, then about half an hour on 20M, but by 2100
it was getting slow and I was thinking that I spent too long on 20M Saturday
afternoon, and I better head to 40M then and there. My second really good move
of the contest. 70 Q's in 60 minutes, most on 7253 where I found a spot between
two broadcasters that really seemed to work. I could hear them some in the
background but it was like listening to a radio in another room in the distance
behind closed doors, and all but the weakest stations were able to call me with
great copy. Plus, the two big broadcasters were loud enough to keep the
frequency clear on either side of me, but they caused much less QRM than a
couple of SSB splattering runners would have.
Speaking of the weakest stations, I was generally impressed by the QRP signals
I heard, although that may be a self-selecting phenomenon. Many were stronger
than a lot of the "low power" stations. Antennas, antennas, antennas. (and
location and propagation). It seems like I asked for a lot fewer repeats this
year than I did last year. Not that I didn't ask for a lot, because I did, but
overall it seems like I asked for a lot less. Maybe it's the K9AY... or
conditions, or both.
My 40M run was still going nicely at 2211 when my XYL informed me that the
guests were here for dinner, and knowing I still had to take an hour off, I
decided once again to let discretion get the better of me and reluctantly
pulled myself away from a 70+ / hour rate to take that 60 minute hiatus.
When I returned to the dials at 2313, I headed down to 80M with 860 Q's in the
log. 140 to go to hit 1000, and almost 4 hours to do it. But I recalled that
the last hours can be S-L-O-W with rates in the teens, so it still looked like
a real stretch to me. One oddity of WriteLog that I had to deal with was that
it "loses" serial numbers when you run SO2R. I think if you switch to the
second radio and fill out the info for a Q but don't complete it, then go back
to the first radio and make some Q's, then go back to the second radio and wipe
the unfinished Q, that number is gone. I don't think this is a bug -- it makes
sense, but the result is that I was giving out serial numbers that were higher
than the number of Q's I had actually made. Fortunately the gap was small --
it ended up as a gap of 24, but it meant that I was handing out QSO number 1000
when I really still had 20+ to go.
Enter 80M, the band that keeps on giving! Two hours of mixed S&P & running,
then things started slowing down, not looking good... In the middle of all
this, a PR station called me! I told him if he wanted to the most popular guy
on the band, start CQ'ing. He laughed, said "73 my friend" and wisely
continued S&P'ing.
With an hour and a half and 80 Q's to 1000, and a rate dipping below 20/hour, I
had to try something different. My normal WriteLog-powered CQ is short and
sweet -- "Kilo Four Xray Delta, Sweepstakes!" Works fine if you are getting
answered every couple of CQ's, but starts sounding like a broken record if it
runs for five minutes without a reply. I suddenly remembered something one of
my club-mates said about trying to make the CQ sound appealing and friendly to
the casual band scanner. My "robo-CQ" was anything but. So I hit the Escape
key, stepped on the foot pedal, and did my best "friendliest ham in the
neighborhood" CQ spiel -- "CQ, CQ, this is Kilo Four Xray Delta calling CQ
Sweepstakes, CQ Sweepstakes, anyone anywhere, Kilo Four Xray Delta Sweepstakes"
with enough inflections and stumbles to make it obviously live and not
recorded. Wow, it was like throwing bread crumbs into a Koi fish pond!
Suddenly stations were everywhere, I even had mini-pileups with three or four
callers. The rate meter started climbing and even topped 80 / hour! I was
stunned but kept drinking water to keep my vocal cords alive and crooned out
the most sugary CQ's I could muster. Continuing the fishing analogy, I guess
you need to use the right bait to catch the fish you're going after -- a
hard-core contester will bite a bare hook, but a bass wants a juicy night
crawler!
To make a long story slightly shorter, with 10 minutes to go I was at 985...
with 5 minutes left I was at 993... and at 0258 I hit 1000! One more in the
log at 0259 and I finished with 1001 Q's. Whew!!
Wish I knew for sure if it was just the fact that it was the last hour, or if
my "sweet talking" was the real motivator. But you know what I'll be doing
next time... when it slows down, kill the robo CQ and get on the mike. Now I
need to ask Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler to clue me in on how they keep their
voices going after that much abuse!
Of course with log checking I'm sure my number will drop back under 1000, but
it was still fun to hand out a serial number with four digits for a little
while. I improved on last year's SS SSB score by almost 200 Q's, so the
station and operator are improving (or was it just conditions!?) Next time I
need to put a big note on the screen: "Hi -- this is K4XD talking to you from
the future, at the end of this contest. Stop S&P'ing and start running, we
need the Q's!"
Thanks to everyone for the Q's, the sweep, your patience during my fumbles, and
a great SS!
Station:
Icom 756 Pro II
Tokyo HyPower KW amp
MFJ-998 autotuner
Cobra Ultralight Jr. for 40, Sr. for 80
Homebrew hexbeam at 35'
Spiderbeam at 50'
Yaesu FT-857D for a coupla second radio Q's
Bunch a little boxes doing random integration and filtering stuff
73,
Rowland K4XD
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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