[3830] N5XU ARRL SS SSB M/S

Kenneth E. Harker kharker at cs.utexas.edu
Mon Nov 20 21:46:26 EST 2000


ARRL November Sweepstakes Summary Sheet

    Contest Dates : 18-Nov-00, 19-Nov-00, 20-Nov-00
    Callsign Used : N5XU
        Operators : KB5LBN, W5JLP, N3TNN, KT5I, K5PI, WM5R
         Category : Multi-Single
 Default Exchange : # M N5XU 21 STX
             Name : University of Texas Amateur Radio Club
          Country : United States
          Section : South Texas (STX)



   BAND   Raw QSOs   Valid QSOs   Points   Mults   
 __________________________________________________

   80SSB      19          19         38       2 
   40SSB      49          48         96       1 
   20SSB     547         541       1082      17 
   15SSB     484         481        962      28 
   10SSB     332         331        662      32 
 __________________________________________________

 Totals     1431        1420       2848      80 


    Tentative Claimed Score = 227,200 points.


Equipment:
----------
Kenwood TS-850SAT
Heathkit SB-220 
Force 12 C-4 @ 100'
40M dipole fixed N/S @ 90'
80M dipole fixed N/S @ 90'
W9XT Contest Card
Heil Proset
TR LOG 6.55

Soapbox:
--------

The contest, for me, really began at 10AM on Saturday, when I put on my 
climbing harness and went to the top of the tower in 40F light rain in order 
to swap out our rotor for one K5TR loaned to us.  I'm not sure what's wrong 
with our rotor, but it doesn't rotate anymore, even though all of the 
electrical checks on it check out.  So, swapping out the rotor in the 
rain took no longer than it did the last two times I did it not in the rain,
I was just somewhat miserable while doing it.  But it was absolutely worth
it for the contest.  I was dry and warm again by the time the contest started.
K5TR, of course, takes good care of our little club, and we are very grateful
for the loaner rotator.  It wouldn't have been nearly as much fun without it.
Meanwhile, K5TR operated SOHP from W5KFT and made 2180 QSOs!

We got off to a much slower start this year than last year, but things 
picked up in the next couple of hours, peaking with a 129 hour I had at 2300,
my personal best in this contest, and the best hour the station has had in a
Sweepstakes in at least 10 years.  I probably shouldn't have tried to go to
40 in the 0100 hour, as that dropped the rate dramatically for about ten 
minutes.  After the first five hours of the contest, we were still about 50 
QSOs behind last year's pace. 

We pursued a different off-time strategy this year, opting to operate 
until 1AM, start again at 6:30AM, and then take the last half hour off.  In 
retrospect, we didn't make as many QSOs between midnight and 1AM as we would
have made in another hour of operating on Sunday.  On the other hand, we worked
our only VE5 during that hour.

We had more operators this year than in many recent years.  Our three newest
contest operators are Monique N3TNN, Johanna W5JLP, and Louisa KB5LBN.  All
three of them operated the contest last year - their first contest experience
ever.  This year, they did fantastic.  Monique in particular had at least 
three full hours near 60/hr, even on Sunday afternoon, and once had the rate
meter (based on the last ten minutes) up at 90/hr.  All three are getting 
much better at handling the run frequency, getting calls out of the noise
and QRM, and are getting over their hesitations while operating.  This was a 
very cool thing to hear.

We had a much better Sunday than last year, including an 83 hour on Sunday
morning!  I had actually gotten into a frequency fight with a prominent WcF
superstation on 20, when he zero beated me, and started calling "CQ Contest." 
When I told him the frequency was in use, he told me that he had been there 
for 50 minutes.  I told him he was wrong (I had made 20 QSOs on that frequency,
including several stations in Florida) but he was insistent on stealing my 
frequency, and after seven full minutes when neither one of us made a QSO, I 
let him have it.  I tried to find another run frequency, got an inferior one 
for a while, and after a little bit decided to go to 15M.  When I got there, 
I found that the band was longer than the "K5TR South Texas Sweepstakes Sweet 
Spot Metric" would suggest was a good place to be.  I was working W1, VE2, 
VE3, Minn., Mich., and not the Oh, In, Il, WPa, MDc stations.  But, the 
band was still sparsely populated, I was able to get a good clean frequency 
near 21230, and it seemed like _everyone_ just found me.  It was great.  Mostly
they came one right after the other, and not in clumps.  And I think by 
getting there early, that as the band shortened and more stations moved up 
from 20, I was able to keep a clean frequency longer, closer to the bottom of 
the band, and that really helped me work stations faster.  It was just a 
tremendous morning!

The rest of Sunday, we had a couple of slow hours near noon, but otherwise
were steadily gaining on last year's QSO total all day.  K5PI worked 
our last mult, VY1MB, giving us a clean sweep.  Our second-best hour on 
Sunday was a 76 that KT5I worked at 2300, on 20. Monique N3TNN took us past 
last year's QSO total around 0130, and then we just went in a flat-out sprint 
to the end.  

This is the second highest QSO total ever for the club station (the highest 
was set 11 years ago, coincidentally) and it's the highest claimed score ever 
(in 1989, there were only 77 multipliers available, of course.)  In 1989, the
University of Texas (then W5EHM) finished in the top ten in the M/S category.
Our three newest operators together operated around 8 of the 24 hours, and 
would have operated more had they been around the shack more.

Some surprises: we worked 13 stations in North Dakota!  We worked 20 stations
in Kansas!  Unusually, Ohio wasn't the #1 section for us, but Illinois took
that spot this time.

It was a fantastic contest.



2000 ARRL November Sweepstakes Phone - N5XU

  HOUR   80SSB   40SSB   20SSB   15SSB   10SSB   TOTAL   ACCUM
  ----  ------  ------  ------  ------  ------   -----   -----
   21       0       0       0      10      46      56      56
   22       0       0       0      36      63      99     155
   23       0       0       0     129       0     129     284

    0       0       0      62      42       0     104     388
    1       0      10      54       0       0      64     452
    2       0       0      53       0       0      53     505
    3       0       0      52       0       0      52     557
    4       0       0      48       0       0      48     605
    5       0      22      14       0       0      36     641
    6      18      10       0       0       0      28     669
    7       1       0       0       0       0       1     670
    8       0       0       0       0       0       0     670
    9       0       0       0       0       0       0     670
   10       0       0       0       0       0       0     670
   11       0       0       0       0       0       0     670
   12       0       7       5       0       0      12     682
   13       0       0      29      19       0      48     730
   14       0       0       0      83       0      83     813
   15       0       0       0      71       0      71     884
   16       0       0       0      57       0      57     941
   17       0       0       0      17       8      25     966
   18       0       0       0      20       8      28     994
   19       0       0       0       0      56      56    1050
   20       0       0       0       0      52      52    1102
   21       0       0       0       0      46      46    1148
   22       0       0       0       0      46      46    1194
   23       0       0      69       0       7      76    1270

    0       0       0      69       0       0      69    1339
    1       0       0      55       0       0      55    1394
    2       0       0      37       0       0      37    1431

  TOTAL    19      49     547     484     332  



2000 ARRL November Sweepstakes Phone - N5XU

   1.           Il   88
   2.           Oh   66
   3.           Mi   61
   4.          Mdc   54
   5.           Va   53
   6.           Mn   50
   7.          WNy   44
   8.          NNj   38
   9.           In   34
  10.           Em   33
  11.          ENy   32
  12.          WWa   32
  13.          Scv   30
  14.           Ia   30
  15.           Ep   29
  16.           Ct   27
  17.           On   27
  18.           Wi   26
  19.          Lax   25
  20.           Co   24
  21.           Sv   23
  22.           Mo   23
  23.          SNj   22
  24.           Tn   22
  25.           Nc   21
  26.          NLi   21
  27.          WPa   20
  28.           Or   20
  29.           Ks   20
  30.           Ga   19
  31.           Ky   18
  32.           Wv   17
  33.          Org   17
  34.           Az   16
  35.           Nh   15
  36.          WMa   14
  37.          Sjv   13
  38.           Nd   13
  39.          STx   13
  40.           Sb   12
  41.          SFl   12
  42.           Sf   11
  43.           Ok   11
  44.           Eb   11
  45.          NFl   10
  46.          Sdg   10
  47.           Ne   10
  48.           Id   10
  49.           Nm   10
  50.           Al   10
  51.           Mt    9
  52.           Vt    9
  53.          WcF    9
  54.           Qc    9
  55.           Ut    9
  56.           Ms    9
  57.           Nv    8
  58.           Bc    8
  59.           Ri    7
  60.           Ew    7
  61.           Me    7
  62.           Sc    7
  63.           Ab    6
  64.           De    6
  65.           Sd    6
  66.          NTx    6
  67.          NNy    5
  68.           Mb    5
  69.           Wy    5
  70.           La    5
  71.          Pac    5
  72.          WTx    3
  73.           Ar    3
  74.           Nl    2
  75.           Vi    2
  76.           Ak    2
  77.          Mar    2
  78.           Pr    1
  79.           Sk    1
  80.          Nwt    1

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kenneth E. Harker      "Vox Clamantis in Deserto"      kharker at cs.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin                   Amateur Radio Callsign: WM5R
Department of the Computer Sciences         President, UT Amateur Radio Club
Taylor Hall TAY 2.124                         Maintainer of Linux on Laptops
Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA            http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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