ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW - 2022
Call: K7GK
Operator(s): K7GK
Station: K6LRG
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: EB
Operating Time (hrs): 24
OpMode: SO2R
Remote Operation
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 90
40: 283
20: 347
15: 251
10: 217
------------
Total: 1188 Sections = 84 Total Score = 199,584
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
The first person I'd like to mention in the write-up is John, W6JZH, a friend
and elmer, whom we lost this year. I operated his station on several occasions,
mostly in Sweepstakes, over the last dozen years. This contest was definitely
not the same without him.
After mentioning to Chris, N6WM, that I'll be looking for a chair in early
November, he suggested I try a remote operation using the local hilltop station
K6LRG, which he would facilitate. It is very much a privilege and an experience
to operate this very capable station and see how hilltop magic plays out in a
domestic contest. In short, it's promising. Its pileup-busing power was
certainly called upon on several occasions in this contest, and with great
success, I might add ,where it really counted. More on this later.
This was the first full-blown SO2R operation from this QTH and I wasn't certain
how the station will behave, given that no bandpass filters are deployed there.
Despite that fact, the interference was very manageable, at times hardly
noticeable. Well done, LRG gang! It was a single-radio FLEX 6600 SO2R operation
with Maestro/RRC combination at home and PGXL back at the location to supply the
muscle. The equipment worked pretty much flawlessly. I was bracing for
connectivity issues and expecting to jump troubleshooting something in the heat
of the battle, but fortunately it was not to required. Whew! Thanks for all your
support, Chris!
The combined remote and the SDR delay was certainly noticeable, but it didn't
cause any real issues. I find that doing SO2R on Flex is more mentally
challenging than on the trusty old DXDoubler. It's not a fair comparison,
admittedly, since I had a dozen years of practice with one and practically none
with the other. More practice could even things out.
Before the starting bell I was debating if I should start on 15 or 10, leaning
towards 15. About 15 minutes before the start I gave a few CQs on 15 and a
couple on 10. It just so happened that I got responses on both and the last one
was on 10, so I just rolled with it. And rolled I did, the first hour was my
best hour in Sweepstakes at 120. Unfortunately, it went pretty much downhill
from there. Before the night break I was down almost 40 Qs to my result from two
years ago. I was also missing 3 mults – NL, VT and LAX. I thought, LAX,
really? It turns out it was really scarce this year. At some point with a few
hours to go I heard a huge pileup on an LAX station, which I couldn't really
break to get my insurance contact. I only worked one LAX up to that point. I was
fortunate to ultimately work 3 of each, both VT and LAX. But what about NL? This
section gives me perennial trouble. This hear I was looking for NL the entire
time and finally found VO1HP on 10 with a bit pile of callers. Again, bracing
for the worst, I gave a call and heard him coming right back. I couldn't believe
it! I don't know what really made that happen, the aforementioned hilltop magic,
unique delay due to being remote, just dumb luck, or a combination of all
factors. Whatever it is, I'll take it. In other pileups I didn't have quite the
same magic touch, but was certainly getting through. Speaking of NL, I found
VO2AC on 40 late in the contest with a similar crowd, but this time I gave up
after a few tries not hearing him respond to anyone west of W1-W3.
This year I was disappointed with low bands, especially 80. Last year with low
power I worked almost 50 more Qs on 80 and about 25 more on 40. Of course, 10
was practically non-existent then, but this is quite a dramatic turn of events
in one year.
All-in-all, I'm happy with the result and certainly enjoyed my CW contesting
fix.
Denis – K7GK/6
Cabrillo Statistics (Version 10g) by K5KA & N6TV
http://bit.ly/cabstat
CALLSIGN: K7GK
CONTEST: ARRL-SS-CW
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OP
CATEGORY-TRANSMITTER: ONE
OPERATORS: K7GK
-------------- Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour 160 80 40 20 15 10 Rate Total Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
2100 0 0 0 0 0 120 120 120 10.1
2200 0 0 0 0 59 31 90 210 17.7
2300 0 0 0 25 69 0 94 304 25.6
0000 0 0 2 98 0 0 100 404 34.0
0100 0 0 16 62 0 0 78 482 40.6
0200 0 6 59 1 0 0 66 548 46.1
0300 0 8 55 0 0 0 63 611 51.4
0400 0 24 31 0 0 0 55 666 56.1
0500 0 18 21 0 0 0 39 705 59.3
0600 0 8 8 0 0 0 16 721 60.7
0700 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 721 60.7
0800 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 721 60.7
0900 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 721 60.7
1000 0 3 6 0 0 0 9 730 61.4
1100 0 13 15 0 0 0 28 758 63.8
1200 0 10 7 0 0 0 17 775 65.2
1300 0 0 24 9 0 0 33 808 68.0
1400 0 0 19 20 0 0 39 847 71.3
1500 0 0 0 26 10 0 36 883 74.3
1600 0 0 0 16 19 0 35 918 77.3
1700 0 0 0 22 12 0 34 952 80.1
1800 0 0 0 0 8 23 31 983 82.7
1900 0 0 0 6 28 4 38 1021 85.9
2000 0 0 0 3 10 24 37 1058 89.1
2100 0 0 0 4 10 15 29 1087 91.5
2200 0 0 0 4 12 0 16 1103 92.8
2300 0 0 4 13 14 0 31 1134 95.5
0000 0 0 8 16 0 0 24 1158 97.5
0100 0 0 7 20 0 0 27 1185 99.7
0200 0 0 1 2 0 0 3 1188 100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 0 90 283 347 251 217 1188
Gross QSOs=1194 Dupes=6 Net QSOs=1188
Unique callsigns worked = 1188
The best 60 minute rate was 120/hour from 2100 to 2159
The best 30 minute rate was 130/hour from 2104 to 2133
The best 10 minute rate was 150/hour from 2104 to 2113
The best 1 minute rates were:
3 QSOs/minute 33 times.
2 QSOs/minute 228 times.
1 QSOs/minute 633 times.
There were 273 bandchanges and 135 (11.4%) probable 2nd radio QSOs.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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