1996 ARRL CW SWEEPSTAKES
Callsign : N5RZ
Category : Single Operator High Power
Section : West Texas
BAND Valid QSOs Points Mults
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80CW 344 688 3
40CW 334 668 5
20CW 748 1496 70
15CW 5 10 0
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Totals 1431 2862 78 = Claimed Score = 223,236 points.
Equipment: FT1000D + AL1200, TS430S + L4B
Antennas: 80M: 4 Sloper System 40M: Cushcraft D40 Dipole Fixed E/W @85'
20M: TH6DXX @ 105' fixed NW, 204BA @ 65' Fixed NE, Power Divided
KT34XA @ 75' Fixed East used for a very few QSO's on 2nd Radio
Comments:
This is one of my favorite contests and one very favorable to my geographic
location. Due to a number of events which happened this year, radio has
taken a back seat:
1) Consulting since May 1 & hired Oct 1 as full time employee of a
fast growing start up independent oil & gas company = not much
free time.
2) Lightning hit last May wiped out 40M yagi and all rotators on the
3 hf towers (along with a host of household appliances).
3) Acute case of bursitis in my hip has kept me off the tower.
4) My XYL & I made the decision to put the house on the market after
SS, so it wasn't worth the effort to try to fix the antennas only
to have the towers come down the weekend after phone SS!
5) etc, etc.
However, I almost went crazy watching K5GA operate from here last year &
missing it to make 11 qso's off the moon!! Tree's decision to return to
W5WMU got me thinking what this crippled station could do. I really didn't
get too fired up until about a week before the contest. Decided to start
putting the station together Wed eve & spent about 8 hours total Wed Thu &
Friday nites getting the station rebuilt while packing away lots of gear for
storage.
I knew I'd have to work Saturday morning, but hopefully would be able to get
out by noon (3 hrs before the SS) - Wrong!!! Finally got out of a
meeting at 2:30 saying I have plans!!
Get home about 15 mins before test starts with several cables left to hook
up & having to configure N6TR logging program. Made the decision at 2055 to
start on 20M after hearing N5JJ & a cupla other 5's with huge "pre-contest"
pileups. I find a spot & lay out a few CQ's hmmmm only one or two answers
& no pile up. 15M sounds crappy, so at 2100Z it's off to the races. No
pile up & only have 17 qsos in the first 15 minutes & only 42 qsos in the
first half hour. Looks pretty paltry compared to K5GA's 113-121-112 first 3
hours in 1995!!! Things start picking up & end up with 97 the first hour &
310 by 0000Z.
The first 2nd radio qso was made on 40M at 0003Z; 20M was still good, but
activity was going to the lowbands quickly - lots of 6's & 7's already
staking out their holes on 40M. I stayed on 20M until 0049Z after getting
VY1JA & KH8/N5OLS in the log. Forty meters was gangbusters for a while, but
about 0150Z, skip started going loooooooooooong & only the west coast was
there. Made the first 80M qso at 0203Z & tried to figure out what I needed
to do.
Only the FT1000 was keyed by the computer and since I was only planning on
using 80M as a 2nd radio band, I didn't have the 80M array available to the
FT1000. Knowing I couldn't effectively run 80M on the TS430S, I ended up
killing 10 minutes from 0220-0230Z to find the cables & make the switch. If
anyone told me before the contest I'd make more QSO's on 80 than 40 I'd have
told them they were crazy - but look at the results. 80M was tremendous &
I ran there for the next 5 hours, averaging about 8-10 second radio Q's on
40 each hour.
I had 76 sections worked at 0303Z, needing only KP2 & WY. I found K8HVT on
the second radio & staked him out for the next "clear shot" to dump my call
in. It was almost 10 minutes before the timing was right, and only when I
worked Hal did I realize he was /KP2 - what a surprise!!! Got NA7R on 80M
(pipeline path from here) at 0610Z for the sweep, my earliest ever on CW.
Thanks gentlemen!!
The rest of the contest was quite fun only having to concentrate on rate.
The off times really make it interesting to determine how you compare to the
pack. I quit at 0925Z about 40 behind WMU, but when I heard him mid Sunday
Morn, I was up on him by 70 QSO's. Rates were generally good Sunday with
several full hours over 50. Tried 15M several times, but 15M blocked out
the second radio completely so stayed to CQ CQ CQ CQ on 20M (the money band)
all day & tuning 40M for hard fought QSO's - just a bit too far west & had
many East Coast stations CQ in my face.
20M activity cratered about 2330Z on Sunday & I was looking fwd to running
on 40M & picking some of the last hour wonders on 80M. When I switched on
80M I was greeted by 30 over 9 line noise which persisted the rest of the
evening - ugh! Since 20M was dead, the last two hours seemed like an
eternity being stuck on 40M with no second radio!!
Many, many Q power stations really made things challenging. Many had good
signals, but insisted on calling slightly off frequency falling into the
passband of my 40 over 9 neighbors. Another pet peeve was repeating sent
information several times. Send it once! QSB was quite bad all weekend on
both 40 & 20M & I turned away several qso's cuz the guys just faded out.
The two biggest irritants:
1) Getting fills was a tremendous amount of work. Guys obviously
cannot copy the code - in fact I had to throw out a number of
QSO's where
I never got a fill.
2) Frequency stealing. Part 1: A CQ'er plops down on the
frequency, sometimes nanoseconds after I let up the key - No
QRL or anything!!
Part 2: The QRLer who ignores my dits or quick "R" when I'm
trying to dig out an exchange & lays out a nice long CQ. C'mon
guys if you hear a loud 2 or 3 dits in response to ur QRL?, go
away. I shouldn't have to send a dissertation like "Yes OM, the
frequency is in use; thanks for asking, 73"
Here are my rates & section distribution, probably quite different from the
other top scores. Congrats to W0SD & N6TR; Thanks KR0Y for not turning on
the amp. And to the killer team at K1ZX.
Thanks to all for the QSO's - hope to be on the phone weekend, but we'll see.
73, Gator N5RZ
N5RZ Rates:
HOUR 80CW 40CW 20CW 15CW TOTAL ACCUM
---- ------ ------ ------ ------ ----- -----
21 0 0 97 0 97 97
22 0 0 107 0 107 204
23 0 0 106 0 106 310
0 0 23 49 0 72 382
1 0 73 0 0 73 455
2 45 11 0 0 56 511
3 74 9 0 0 83 594
4 59 9 0 0 68 662
5 47 7 0 0 54 716
6 49 5 0 0 54 770
7 33 17 0 0 50 820
8 15 26 0 0 41 861
9 9 10 0 0 19 880 off 0925Z
10 0 0 0 0 0 880
11 7 25 0 0 32 912 on 1123Z
12 6 12 0 0 18 930 off 1215Z-1245Z
13 0 7 47 0 54 984
14 0 1 28 0 29 1013 off 1431Z
15 0 6 45 0 51 1064 on 1503Z
16 0 2 17 0 19 1083 off 1623Z
17 0 10 25 0 35 1118 on 1701Z pitiful rate
18 0 3 23 0 26 1144 off 1837Z
19 0 0 12 4 16 1160 on 1936Z
20 0 0 54 1 55 1215
21 0 2 54 0 56 1271
22 0 1 49 0 50 1321
23 0 13 35 0 48 1369
0 0 37 0 0 37 1406
1 0 25 0 0 25 1431 off 0137Z
TOTAL 344 334 748 5
1. MI 66
2. OH 64 Are 8's important??!! Yessir!
3. IL 53
4. MDC 52 PVRC!!
5. WWA 49
6. EM 43
7. VA 42
8. WNY 41
9. EP 40
10. WI 39
11. SCV 35
12. STX 34
13. CO 32
14. NC 30
15. NTX 30
16. NNJ 29
17. NH 28
18. CT 28
19. EN 27
20. MN 26
21. KY 25
22. OR 25
23. TN 25
24. IN 24
25. WPA 24
26. MO 23
27. ORG 22
28. GA 20
29. NFL 20
30. NLI 20
31. LAX 19
32. SV 19
33. AZ 19
34. AL 18
35. SFL 18
36. SNJ 18
37. SDG 18
38. EB 17
39. ON 15
40. WV 14
41. SF 12
42. SB 12
43. AR 12
44. NV 11
45. RI 11
46. OK 11
47. SC 10
48. KS 10
49. WMA 9
50. UT 9
51. AB 9
52. NM 9
53. IA 8
54. ME 8
55. BC 8
56. LA 8
57. SJV 7
58. EW 7
59. ID 7
60. VT 6
61. DE 6
62. NNY 6
63. MS 5
64. ND 4
65. PQ 4
66. NE 4
67. MAR 4
68. MT 4
69. SK 3
70. AK 3
71. PR 3
72. WTX 2 Whew - One Local (AA5TN) & N5DO 90 miles away
73. NWT 2
74. SD 2
75. PAC 1 KH8/N5OLS
76. MB 1 VE4GV
77. VI 1 KP2/K8HVT
78. WY 1 NA7R
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