[3830] ARRL SS SSB N5XU Multi-Op

Mon Nov 19 14:56:58 EST 2001

                     ARRL Sweepstakes, SSB

Call: N5XU
Operator(s): W5JLP, KB5LBN, KM5TY, N8DVM, K5PI, WM5R
Station: N5XU

Class: Multi-Op
QTH: STX
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band     QSOs
-------------------------------
  160:      0
   80:     10
   40:     95
   20:    321
   15:    566
   10:    232
-------------------------------
Total:   1224 x     80  =  195,840

Club: CTDXCC

Comments:

Station:                                                                        

  http://n5xu.ae.utexas.edu/n5xu/                                               

  Kenwood TS-850SAT                                                             

  Heathkit SB-220                                                               

  Force 12 C-4 @ 100', rotatable                                                

  40M wire dipole @ 85', fixed N-S                                              

  80M wire dipole @ 85', fixed N-S                                              

  Optimus PRO-50MX headset                                                      

  W9XT Contest Card                                                             

  TR Log 6.59                                                                   

This was a fun contest.  We had more operators than we had for CW: four         

students, one staff member, and an alumnus who showed up late Saturday night    

for a bit.  This was the first phone Sweepstakes for one of our operators,      

and the first contest ever for another of our operators.  Together, those       

two operated for probably six hours in total.  Two of our other operators       

are not really phone contesters, but did a great job and were enthusiastic. 

We had a slow start on Saturday this year.  Last year, the first five hours     

of the contest yielded over 500 QSOs - this year, just 345.  The first two      

hours, in particular, were disappointing.  We started on 15 with a nice clear   

frequency for about 15 minutes before people crowded in on us big time, and     

it became painful.  Some years, we get lucky and can maintain a good frequency  

for a few hours.  Other years, we get squeezed by the big guns on either        

coast.  Our tribander does not effectively cover both coasts at once, and       

when we're beaming to one or the other, we tend to get stations on the opposite 

coast trying to slide closer to us.  We lost ground throughout the rest of      

the evening, and were a little under 200 QSOs behind last year's running        

total by 0600 UTC.  We were able to make up some ground on Sunday sporadically, 

only to fall behind again.  This year, we had more Sunday hours in the 20's     

and 30's, where last year we had 30's and 40's, so we ended up roughly 200      

QSOs behind at the end.  We had a couple of really decent Sunday hours,         

though - 2000 UTC was our third best hour of the contest, with 81 QSOs.         

I had a lot of fun that hour.

Working a clean sweep this year wasn't a problem.  I think we ended up being    

called by stations from all but WTX, which wasn't hard to find.  The last       

section we worked was PAC, and one of the last was AB.  I still don't           

understand why Alberta was so absent this year in both the CW and phone         

contests.  There are big cities with lots of hams there!                        

In the hours I operated, I noticed two trends.                                  

I noticed a lot more stations using voice keyers for large parts of the         

exchange in addition to, say, calling CQ.  The worst sounding ones used         

little tiny voice files for each individual number in the serial number,        

and sounded like some sort of badly implemented automatic telephone credit      

card system.  I just don't understand why people want to sound that bad.        

But that wasn't the only problem.  I don't know if they're all using stuff      

they recorded last year, or if it was recorded on a different microphone        

or what, but there were many stations that would give me a number in their      

real voice and then (what sounded like) an entirely different voice would       

give me the rest of the exchange.  I know it was the same person, but the       

sound was _so_ different that it was really jarring and took real effort        

to recover and get everything the first time.  Sometimes the precedence was     

cropped badly, and I had to ask for a repeat.  Why do these people handicap     

themselves this way?                                                            

On the other hand, our handicap was our check number.  There were times         

when literally 50% of the stations that called us asked us to confirm our       

check, and it was not because of QRN or QRM.  This was noticeably higher        

than last year.                                                                 

It looks like the number of college and university clubs participating might    

actually be a little higher than last year.  If it is higher,  
it could be the first time since the ARRL introduced the School Radio           

Club category four years ago, and college and university club participation     

fell in one year by nearly 50%.  At least 28 colleges and universities were     

heard on the air this year (only 18 entered the phone competition last year)    

and there may be more activity reports to come.  Maybe everyone who despised    

the League for the way they handled it has graduated?  Still, several college   

and university clubs (ours included) continue to boycott the SRC category       

and enter in the Multi-op category.                                             

I think I might want to do this contest as a single-op sometime.

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