ARRL Sweepstakes - CW
Call: WC1M
Operator(s):
Station:
Class: SO HP
Section: NH
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
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160: 0
80: 198
40: 193
20: 502
15: 157
10: 106
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Total: 1156 x 80 = 184,960
Club: YCCC
Comments:
Let me add my voice to the chorus: SS is the toughest CW contest of the year!
It's also one of my favorites, too. The exchange is daunting, as is the rule
that you can only work each station and section once per band for credit. These
features really slow down the rates, especially late in the contest, and make
it essential to dig very hard for whatever Qs you can get. Furthermore,
activity from some sections is very light, which often makes the sweep tough to
get. With such a limited number of mults, scores bunch up closely, so getting
those last few sections can make a big difference in the final placement. For
these reasons, it seems that a second radio is nearly essential for single ops,
and that requires even more concentration. All of this is quite draining on the
stamina reserves (especially if you worked CQWW SSB the week before!)
This is a new personal best, but I still want to do better (will I ever be
satisfied with my scores?) I felt somewhat better this year than last, and
conditions were good. I got off to a slow start, plagued by some equipment and
software problems. Settled in after a few hours. Note to self: a high rate at
the beginning of the contest is essential. For a change, I was pretty happy
with the selection of my offtimes. I didn't feel as though I was missing high
rate somewhere.
My results are very lopsided towards 20M. I can't remember working so many W6
stations in SS. Results on 80M, 15M and 10M were about as expected, but I was
surprised that I couldn't get more going on 40M. I don't know if this was a
problem of not being there at the right time, or the skip not working in my
favor. I thought conditions were quite decent -- I don't know about the rest of
you, but I worked more loud QRP stations than ever this year. Most of the A's
were pretty loud, too.
As for sections, I heard a lot of people on 3830 say the sweep was really easy
this year, but I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. This could be the W1
effect: the close-in Canadians are generally difficult to work on the high
bands, so we often only have two bands to find them: 80M and sometimes 40M. Add
to that the difficult propagation from NWT, and the Canadian sections are
usually the toughest to complete.
As usual, I got into the 70's after only a few hours (about 7.5), with MT, WY,
and PAC surprising me by showing up very early. The last two U.S. sections were
NNY and MS. The lack of NNY was kind of a surprise, although I found one
eventually, then a few more. It seems like every year MS is still needed late
in the contest, but I always get it -- followed by many more. Does anybody in
MS work the first half of the contest? By 0840 or so, I had 75 sections. The
last five were NNY, NL, PQ, NWT and MAR. I got both NL and PQ on 20M, so the
usual skip problem didn't exist. Those last two were no surprise: when I've
missed the sweep, usually one of them was missing. I heard Jay, VY1JA, on one
of the high bands earlier in the contest, but he was too weak to work and the
pileup was large. I was *thrilled* when he called me at 1633z on 20M! I heard
him running stations a couple of more times, so this wasn't a tough year for
NWT. What would we do without Jay? I think we all owe him a big vote of thanks
for making it possible to get a full sweep! As for MAR, I stumbled across VE1GN
on 40M at 2335. Nothing like getting the sweep with hours to go! That lets you
concentrate all your attention on Qs.
Now, for the real soapbox portion of this story: DON'T USE CUT NUMBERS IN SS! I
generally don't like cut numbers, but this is one contest where they are highly
likely to confuse the receiving op, resulting in lost points. Make a note for
next year! As always in a CW contest, please learn to zero beat your radio. I'm
sure I was slightly off myself a few times when I was in a hurry, but some of
you were literally off by 100-200 Hz!
Finally, thanks to all for participating. This contest really depends on you.
73, Dick WC1M
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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