ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB
Call: K8BL
Operator(s): K8BL
Station: K8BL
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: OHIO
Operating Time (hrs): 21
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 538
40: 217
20: 157
15: 126
10: 0
------------
Total: 1038 Sections = 80 Total Score = 166,080
Club: North Coast Contesters
Comments:
I don't have a lot of enthusiasm for Phone Contests and I don't really know
why. Perhaps, it's because it's difficult to munch and drink coffee while
talking so much - hihi. But, since the advent of Voice Keyers, it's quite
a bit better. I can grab a swig of java and down a cookie often while the
Voice Keyer sends my CQ's or the Exchange. Lunch and dinner go OK as long
as my XYL brings them to me (!).
Sweepstakes are my favorite Contests by far. I've been doing them almost
without exception for over 40 years. Some years, when it was not possible
for me to operate during the entire Contest, I would try for just getting
a Clean Sweep. When I had the stamina to go the entire 24 hours, my objective
was to better my best previous scores.
During SS-CW this year my objective was Clean Sweep and 1000 Q's. But, I took
too much sleep time and breaks and struggled to get to 900 Q's.
For SS-PH, I forced myself to get up after only 5 hours in the sack. My hope
again was to get a Sweep and 1000 Q's. Unfortunately, I got hooked on watching
part of the Browns Game during a sandwich break and started to get worried
when I realized there was only 2 1/2 hours left and I was at the 900 Q mark. A
mental calculation told me that my rate currently wasn't good enough to make
another 100 Q's considering many stations were running out of time and going
QRT so late in the Contest.
However, I lucked out and found a couple of nice holes in the QRM on 80 and
pulled off some real nice CQ runs. Sometimes my rate would sneak over the 100
mark which is rare for me as an "A" category station. I think that since I did
so much S&P that I was a new run station for a lot of folks and almost like
"fresh meat". Often, I had some mini-pileups where I had to go back to what
partial Calls I could hear.
My last 4 hours were spent on 80M except for a quick peek at 40M, but it had
gone way too long and not much hope of a decent rate. The holes I found in the
QRM closed a few times when stronger stations closed in from either side and
their splatter became unbearable. Luckily, I found other ones higher or lower
in the Band where there was less activity. Only a couple times did "Net Cops"
chase me away for being closer than 2 KHz to "their frequency" (!!).
I finally hit 1000 Q's at 2126 EST and gave a quick thought about going QRT
because my voice was cracking from speaking so much. But, there was still a
nice queue of stations calling and I figured I could go another 36 minutes. At
2200 EST when SS ended, I had 1038 Q's - YAHOO!!
Some of the milestones from this year's SS-Phone:
- When I hit the sack at 0200 EST, I had 457 Q's & 78 Sections.
- 800 Q's at 1700 EST, 900 at 1930 and 1000 at about 2130.
- Found the oftenmost difficult Section - NT - on my 20th Q, on 15M!
- 2nd last Section was PR at 0830 EST on 20M in Q 470.
- Last Section for Sweep was AB at 1050 EST on 20M in Q 607 !!
I made some station improvements this year that seemed to really help. The
biggest was the new IC-7700. The receiver is incredible. I set the bandwidth
to 1.9 KHz and was able to pull through a lot of weak stations from the midst
of a lot of QRM. The bandscope would show me both where the stations were to
work as I cruised the Bands or where the holes were for hopefully starting
a run. I built a remote keypad for the 7700's Voice Keyer and had it next to
the computer keyboard to easily launch CQ, Exchange, TU-QRZ and Call.
Antenna-wise, I replaced both my 80M and 40M Inv Vee's with new Double
Bazooka
Inv Vee's for each band. What's nice about these antennas is that they are
very broadbanded so they operate very well without a tuner across the entire
Band.
Conditions for the Contest were very good - hardly any QRN, propagation was
good for single-hop and not too good where DX was a problem, 15 & 20M stayed
open long enough to easily work the further Sections. Although 40M went long
fairly soon after sunset it was really good during the day. After dark, 80M
was really the money Band and propagation was great out to about 700 miles
where the great bulk of W & VE Hams are located from Ohio.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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