ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB
Call: VE4EAR
Operator(s): VE4EAR
Station: VE4EAR
Class: Single Op HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 16.5
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 112
40: 278
20: 278
15: 26
10: 0
------------
Total: 694 Sections = 80 Total Score = 111,040
Club:
Comments:
Well another fun event!
Had eye surgery Friday and this made it very difficult to focus on the screen
for any length of time. Typing was a chore so I hope I copied all the qso's
correctly. I also had to take frequent breaks.
Conditions I thought were pretty good on Saturday night. Low noise on 40 and
80m. The 80m sloper I installed last week seemed to work reasonably. It was at
least no worse than the low doublet I had been using.
I was unable to try running because I was uncomfortable in trying to type
quickly, so S&P was the main activity. I was able to log 76 sections before
heading to bed. Missing were QC, NL, PR and ND.
On Sunday, my eyes were a bit better and I tried to run on 20m. It still amazes
me how some stations will work you in your pile up and then qsy 500 Hz away and
start calling CQ. Another good one is big guns that will swoop in and try to
steal the pileup, they start answering calls and before long the pile up does
not know who they are calling. I guess that is a new strategy!.
Received a knock on the door from an angry neighbor claiming RFI to his home
theater system. So back to 50 Watts it was.
After loosing a couple frequencies went back to S&P and was able to quickly
find QC and NL. 20M was a meat grinder so went to 15m and thankfully it was
open to the SW US. I was working a lot of W6 and W7's and was totally amazed to
hear and work a couple stations from WI and MN, likely via backscatter. I
thought it might have been possible to work ND this way but could not find them
on 20m. Stumbled across a pileup and discovered it was PR so finally put that
one in the bag. ND was the only missing section and it has eluded me the last
three years so I wasn't holding out much hope.
Finally went to 40 and found conditions stateside were quite good around 1600
local. Found a freq and set up shop. I lost count how many people indicated I
was the last section they needed for a sweep. Glad I could help! Almost fell
out of my chair when K0UB called in and gave me his section as ND. It really is
a great feeling and now I can claim my first Sweep!
My eyes were getting very tired and as soon as the pileup ended, I pulled the
plug. Checked Livescores to see that my motivator VA7ST was almost 100 Q's
behind and missing a couple sections. Went and rested a couple hours and got
back on for the last hour. Checked Livescores and found Bud was now 100 Q's
ahead! With an hour to go I knew I couldn't catch him so just did S&P on 80 and
40.
So bottom line, new antennas certainly helped. Score could have been better if
I could have run more and being able to run HP for the whole contest,
especially on 80 and 40, would have helped.
Hope we made it in your log and hopefully MB was not on the most wanted list
this year.
73
Ed
VE4EAR
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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