ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB
Call: N8II
Operator(s): N8II
Station: N8II
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: WV
Operating Time (hrs): 22.2
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 1
80: 894
40: 242
20: 540
15: 27
10: 0
------------
Total: 1704 Sections = 80 Total Score = 272,640
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
I wasn't really planning to stick with it, but an amazing start got me hooked.
Operated until 0614Z with a couple of 15 minute unofficial breaks and averaged
over 100 Q's/hour that entire stretch. Best hour was 122 in the 22Z hour on
20.
75M was a bottomless pit of Q's the first night; I chose to start around 3783
because it was clear and stayed there several hours; after about 2 hours an
interloper from PVRC fired up 1 kHz higher and caused a lot of grief, but my
rate was better than his; 40 minutes of QRM! That slowed things down, but was
still able to run a decent rate. For the most part, I was loud enough to keep
the QRM away, a big difference from operating low power. By the break, 77
sections had called me including NL and PR on 75M.
Sunday was decent at times, very slow at others, and I should have stayed in
the chair more. Best hour was 13Z with 88 Q's on 40. 15 was not runable thru
18Z and I had a good run on 20 about the time it peaked, so missed a few left
coasters. Skip was long on 20 with a few MN and IL stations at the closest, but
not like many years with loads of loud sigs from there. The signals were good
from west of the Mississippi and good enough to CA to log quite a few.
I do have some noise problems, so sorry if I couldn't copy you. One guy called
on 20 backscatter for a while who I caught later on 75, glad we made it.
To finish up the sections I found the two VI's early on 20, KH6FI called on 20
before his sunrise and despite beaming farther north than I wanted to, I was
never called by NT. I was lucky to find VY1EI under N6DE high on 20 around
22Z.
Improvements need to be made to be really competitive, but was amazed how well
my dipole at 60ft fed with ladder line works on 75. Many 6's and 7's called in
and skip shortened up to the point where stations 70 miles away were not
skipping over around 04-05Z which kept the rate going. 75 was very long and
rate slow on Sunday evening.
In the less than optimal operating soapbox, please don't send you exchange
slowly if the operator you are working appears to know what he's doing (big
problem on 75 the first night); and please don't repeat info during the
exchange. Several ops more than doubled their exchange time when they were very
Q5 with all the repeating.
Real time on the air was about 21 hours. Many thanks to the multitude of guys
who got on for a few Q's, they make up the bulk of the activity and keep the
serious competitors going.
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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