ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB
Call: WP3R
Operator(s): KE3Q
Station: WA3FET/KP4
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Arecibo, Puerto Rico
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 251
40: 178
20: 814
15: 1036
10: 95
------------
Total: 2374 Sections = 80 Total Score = 379,840
Club:
Comments:
Perhaps my most interesting SS at WP3R yet. After a really good, high rate
start, everything looking good, on track with teh rate sheet the first couple
hours, a power outage (brownout actually, 80V instead of 120, 160V instead of
220) put me off the air 2-1/2 hours out of the first five, causing me to trade
150 hours (historically but consistent) for 50 hours and putting me hundreds of
QSOs behind early. With no idea whether the power would come back I
contemplated my options -- start over with another callsign, WP3Q, single op low
power, since the MPs worked -- barely, they would blackout and go to 7000 from
time to time, but knowing I would be starting hundreds of QSOs behind the A
power guys too, and not 100% sure ARRL would approve of the move, although I
suppose they would think it was okay judging by the single op multi callsign
operations of recent years, as memorialized in a recent NCJ article. I did have
another (fresh) rig to use. Other options, blow it off and go to the beach or
something, struggle along low power but still in the high power category, etc.
So...I prayed and decided to force my self to sleep, during this unplanned,
really, really early offtime. It was 7:30 PM local when I looked at the alarm
clock for the last time -- and I'd already taken a half-hour offtime by then
too, as I recall! I did, indeed, fall asleep. When I woke up two hours later I
was really pretty surprised to see the one incandescent lamp I'd left on was now
burning at full brightness. Rigs on, amps on, accessories on, yep, everything's
back! (Actually, I had opened an eye a few times during the couple hours and
seen the light was still burning low.)
I now had about 50% of the QSO total of the "usual suspects," the contenders. I
was a few hundred QSOs behind. Since I try to be on the air during all the
highest-rate hours, and had just missed two of the highest, it meant I would be
on the air during some of the lowest rate hours. It did in fact work out that
way -- I traded a couple 150 hours for a couple 50 hours, a loss of a couple
hundred QSOs. Looking at this likelihood prospectively, I thought maybe I still
had a chance. I'd have to just "play my own game," do the best I could, hang in
there and see what happened, despite the temptation to quit. No, things were
not quite that hopeless, certainly! That's a little easier to say in hindsight,
though.
I figured that most contenders would have saved a bit (or a lot) of offtime for
half-hour "offs" Sunday afternoon. I figured if I could keep up a rate of 100
(let's say), then every half hour they took off I could catch up another 50.
I did flail away on 80 and 40 a bit at night -- and considered taking more than
6 hours off -- was being on those hours at low rate really worth it? -- yes,
even low rate hours add up (I have a character tendency toward "the tortoise and
the hare syndrome" anyway, so I was consciously trying to avoid that) -- a
couple or three hours, then I was back into my normal nighttime offtime zone and
used up the remaining 3-1/2 hours I had to take off, got some more sleep, then
back on facing a long, long Sunday stretch with no offtimes left. (Let's say,
looking directly into the bloodshot eyes of a long, long uninterpreted operating
stretch.) Then again, from one perspective it's kinda nice to think I don't
HAVE to take an off time, so I can keep the rate going, every hour is a full
hour on the air making QSOs.
I was a few hundred QSOs behind the top guys Sunday morning, but apparently
there was a swing of as much as 700 QSOs during Sunday. Nothing like coming
from behind! I definitely worked at it and gave it all I had. I tried to
forget about the competition and keep running 'til I hit the tape (having just
watched "Chariots of Fire" for inspiration.)
I was surprised to hear, for the first time on the weekend, a new player, KP2TM,
giving a high number late on Sunday. Good goin'.
It was nice to have a few of my KP4 friends call me. Alaska and YU/NWT were
very scarce for me for a long, long time. The first Alaska to call me, I just
couldn't pull him through. Sorry. KL7WV I think it was. I hope you found
another KP4 to work! Bucking the conditions can be tough, on a needed section.
But eventually a few Alaskans went in the log, most very weak, but toward the
very end of Sunday one or two strong ones called. "All right!" when the VE8
station called and a little while later VY1MB. Super. ND was a lot more common
this time than two weeks earlier. VO1/2, VE4 and VE5 came along early enough,
and two or three of each at least, so I didn't have to sweat those,
fortunately.
The most exotic one, I guess, other than the rareness of VE8/VY1, was KH0AC who
called in with a good signal on an almost dead 20M. Apparently it wasn't dead,
just long. V73-I can't remember the suffix now -- called in at 0301Z Sunday
night to say he'd been listening in. As usual, I gave some quick signal reports
to various DX stations who called in during the course of the weekend.
So, thank y'all for makin' it a challenge and makin' it fun.
We have definitely been trying to control more and more of the variables at WP3R
and have made some real improvements on robustness, reliability and "livability"
too. (I'll stop short of calling it "comfort," although the op desk is up to
par now.) The AC is one variable we don't control too well yet. We've just
been kinda takin' our chances.
Thank you to WA3FET, NP4A, and WP3R for a lot of good work to bring it together
right. 73
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