W4PA CW Sprint
LOW POWER
220 x 40 = 8,800 claimed score
QSO's by band:
20: 31
40: 106
80: 83
Equipment: Two Ten-Tec Omni-VI transceivers
Cushcraft R5 vertical on 20
dipole at 20 ft. on 40
dipole at 30 ft. on 80
Team: Tennessee Contest Group
Comments: While not written into the rules, (and this discussion took
place after the last CW Sprint), there should be uniformity to the
exchanges sent depending upon whether or not you are the soliciting
station or the solicitee. A number of times I heard an exchange go by
like "...156 NAME STATE W5XXX" and responded with my callsign, only
to find that this was the first half of a contact. Or, the same happened
after I responded to a CQ, so I wasn't the only one who was accidentally
fooled by this happening. The sample exchange in the rules *works*.
Just a thought, not ticked about it or anything.
Operating comments: The R5 doesn't cut it as well as a yagi. With
only 100 watts, calling CQ on 20 during the peak time (first hour +)
was fruitless. Almost every 20m contact was me responding to someone.
I think with a yagi I could be very competitive low power in this
contest. Maybe next year! The most difficult part of running low
power in this contest is when the initial "rush" on each band starts.
With several callers on each station, I had to poke around the edges
and CQ more even though I knew it wasn't as productive at that moment.
I ended with 40 mults, but heard at least seven more that I missed,
including (of all things) Washington. Activity level seemed very high.
It's too bad we couldn't do this three times a year instead of two!
Hope everyone had fun, see you next weekend for ARRL DX CW.
Scott Robbins, W4PA
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