ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW
Call: W6PH
Operator(s): W6PH
Station: W6PH
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Lone Pine CA
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 116
40: 188
20: 271
15: 551
10: 14
------------
Total: 1140 Sections = 83 Total Score = 189,240
Club: Southern California Contest Club
Comments:
FTdx3000 plus AL1200 first 13 hours, LK-500ZB second 11 hours
Win-Test
Antennas: 80m 1/4 wave sloper below 40-2CD at 55 feet (AB-577 nr 1), 20m 3el
yagi at 50 feet (AB-577 nr 2), 15m 5el yagi at 55 feet (AB-577 nr 3), 20-10m
A3S at 40 feet (permanent Rohn 25).
I got back from Bonaire (PJ4X)late Monday night and made a road trip to Pacific
Grove on Wednesday and Thursday which gave me Friday to raise the temporary
antennas and get the station in order. High winds were forecast for Friday, so
I started at day break to get the antennas up. The wind really started blowing
as I was raising the third mast and I had to get my wife to hold the up-wind
guy wire while I was cranking the elevator. She's a trooper. No mishaps and
the antennas all had good SWR. (I have them all marked for quick assembly.)
I tested everything on Saturday morning and everything seemed fine. I got a
slow start as it has been a year since I operated SS and I was behind last year
after the first hour. But 15m was a bottomless pit of callers and I stayed on
the same frequency for four hours before finally heading to 20m. As the sun
went down I checked 40m occasionally but it didn't sound real strong and the
stations that I heard had already been worked. Finally 20m slowed down and I
headed to 40m. A highlight was being called by VE8EV around 7 UTC with a
number 21. I quit with only ONN, SK, and PR missing at 1 am and got 5 hours of
sleep. I turned the radio back on at 6 am (still PDT)and heard a weak VE3CX
(ONN) calling CQ on 80m. I called him and he came right back. The computer
was still booting up so I wrote the info on a piece of paper and entered it
when Win-Test came up. I didn't want to miss one of the last three sections
that I needed. A little later I worked several VE5's and didn't pick up PR
until 23 UTC when I caught NP3A giving me nr 1019. I never heard him before
that!
So why the two amps listed above? About 7 or 8 am I started hearing a raspy
noise on the receiver thinking someone had turned on a device in the
neighborhood, so I decided to take a 30 minute break. As soon as I shut off
the AL1200, the noise was gone. I turned the amp back on and the noise came
back. At that point I decided to swap out the amp with an LK-500ZB that we use
for K6Z CQP. Fortunately it worked fine for the rest of the SS.
I hit 1000 contacts two hours ahead of last year and finished with 53 more
contacts than last year. Fifteen meters was my gold mine. I swept 10m a
couple times to work any stations that weren't in the log already. Forty
meters never really worked for me. There seemed to be quite a bit of
atmospheric noise and signals were generally weak (except for K1ZZ who sounded
like he was across town). During the last hour I checked 80m and I thought I
had lost my antenna. There wasn't a single station on the band which I thought
was unusual at the end of the SS.
As my friend W6SX opines, you should be doing it for the fun of it. At 72, I
am still enjoying the fun of contesting just like everyone else with a CK
number in the 50's.
73, Kurt W6PH
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