My first SS Phone operation in 25 years! I showed up at Ken's door only
15 minutes before the contest after an hour drive from Honolulu. He and
Mike (KH6ND) had everything completely ready to go. All I had to do was
sit in the seat and run; however, I sure didn't feel like I was in any
shape to compete after arriving in Honolulu on a 10 hour flight from
Australia in the wee hours of Saturday morning less than 10 hours before
the contest... All of that was quickly solved at 2100Z then the
adreneline began to pump from the excitement of a huge roaring pileup!
15 meters is magic with Ken's stacked 8 element 15M Telrex Yagis at his
fantastic QTH (previously owned by KH6XX) on the north shore of Oahu;
however, as Mike suggested would be the case, the contest was all downhill
after 15M closed at 0100Z each day. Despite Ken's equally impressive 20
meter antennas, it was really hard to get decent rates on 20M until the
east coast began to fade away, but shortly afterwards 20M closed at 0200Z.
Sweepstakes would be a wonderful contest from Hawaii if it ran only eight
hours each day from 1700-0100Z!
This contest began with a roaring 15M pileup at 2100Z, a pileup
so heavy it was very difficult to pull the callsigns out! The rate
improved an hour later as east coast signals began to fade and the pileup
became more manageable. 15M closed at 0100Z and opened again shortly
after 1700Z Saturday, and once again the big pileups resumed. The band
first opened on Sunday into Maine, New Hampshire and Florida; then slowly
the opening slowly swept across the entire continent.
After 15M closed at 0100Z each day, the remaining 20M opening lasted only
a little over one hour. 40M began to open slowly on Saturday evening at
about 0300Z, but not strong enough to run at a decent rate. From Hawaii
you cannot hear the European broadcast stations, so its very difficult to
select a frequency to call CQ where you can be heard in the US and
nearly all of the nearby stations (2000 miles away!) are beaming east.
The first three hours of the contest on 15M produced rates over 150 per
hour, and a total of nine hours of the contest exceeded 100 per hour, but
only one of those hours was not on 15 meters (0000-0100Z Saturday on 20
meters).
My score broke 100K after just five hours and a few minutes of operation.
Thanx to Ken and Mike for one of my most memorable contest experiences
ever!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ARRL SWEEPSTAKES -- 1997
Call: KH7R (W3LPL Operator) Country: Pacific
Mode: SSB Category: Single Operator High Power
BAND QSO QSO PTS SECTIONS
160 0 0 -
80 0 0 -
40 299 598 -
20 474 948 -
15 1159 2318 -
10 0 0 -
-----------------------------------
Totals 1932 3864 78
Score: 301,392
BREAKDOWN QSO/mults KH7R ARRL SWEEPSTAKES Single Operator High Power
HOUR 160 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOT
21 ..... ..... ..... ..... 153/61 ..... 153/61 153/61
22 . . . . 161/6 . 161/6 314/67
23 . . . . 156/1 . 156/1 470/68
0 . . . 80/2 13/0 . 93/2 563/70
1 . . . 109/3 . . 109/3 672/73
2 . . . 63/1 . . 63/1 735/74
3 . . 9/0 14/0 . . 23/0 758/74
4 . . 23/0 . . . 23/0 781/74
5 ..... ..... 53/1 ..... ..... ..... 53/1 834/75
6 . . 72/0 . . . 72/0 906/75
7 . . 40/0 . . . 40/0 946/75
8 . . 35/0 . . . 35/0 981/75
9 . . 66/1 . . . 66/1 1047/76
10 . . 1/0 . . . 1/0 1048/76
11 . . . . . . . 1048/76
12 . . . . . . . 1048/76
13 ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... 1048/76
14 . . . . . . . 1048/76
15 . . . . . . . 1048/76
16 . . . 15/0 . . 15/0 1063/76
17 . . . . 67/0 . 67/0 1130/76
18 . . . . 108/0 . 108/0 1238/76
19 . . . . 117/2 . 117/2 1355/78
20 . . . . 110/0 . 110/0 1465/78
21 ..... ..... ..... ..... 100/0 ..... 100/0 1565/78
22 . . . . 107/0 . 107/0 1671/78
23 . . . . 68/0 . 68/0 1739/78
0 . . . 62/0 . . 62/0 1801/78
1 . . . 86/0 . . 86/0 1887/78
2 . . . 45/0 . . 45/0 1932/78
DAY1 . . 299/2 281/6 885/70 . . 1465/78
DAY2 . . . 193/0 274/0 . . 467/0
TOT ..... ..... 299/2 474/6 1159/70 ..... ..... 1932/78
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