[3830] SS SSB K6LL SO Unlimited HP

[K6LL at juno.com]

                    ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB

Call: K6LL
Operator(s): K6LL
Station: K6LL

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: AZ
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:     
   80:  115
   40:  193
   20:  541
   15:  321
   10:  733
------------
Total: 1903  Sections = 80  Total Score = 304,480

Club: Southern California Contest Club

Comments:

Quite a few people asked me why I decided to enter the Unlimited Category. The
logic goes kind of like this.

First, reviewing the 2001 CW results, I noticed that K6LA won the Unlimited
Class, whereas I didn't even make the High Power Top Ten Box. Our scores were
pretty close. Then I remembered that next year's QST results will be _only_ the
Top Ten Boxes. Maybe it would be better to be a big fish in a small pond...

Then I thought of how boring Sunday afternoon in the CW contest is. (Attn: Randy
and Gator, I think the cw contest _is_ broken. It should be 18 hours out of 24.)
I thought that maybe all the "fresh meat" packet spots on Sunday would add some
entertainment. I could use TR's "nextbandmap" command to step through the spots
(no dupes are shown) and just totally work _everybody_!

Then, it looks like I won the Unlimited CW category this year, so I figured I
might as well give Unlimited a go on SSB to try to win a #1 in both modes. It's
nice to be #1 at something, even if it is a goofy category. I won the
Tribander/Wires category in WPX once or twice. Now _there's_ a goofy category!

So that's how I ended up in Unlimited. In actuality, packet was pretty much a
bust on both modes. On CW, the San Diego Cluster melted down on Sunday morning,
so my nextbandmap plan failed. On SSB, I lashed together a Telnet-to-TRlog
connection at the last minute, but the Internet computer turned out to be
susceptible to RF, and went bonkers as soon as I went to 15 meters. Whenever I
transmittd on 15, the internet connection was lost, and the computer sat there
with Windows sounds (bells, warning buzzers, chimes, etc) blasting out the
speakers. I wonder how that sounded over the air? I turned it off about three
hours into the contest. During those first three hours, I did use packet to pick
up a few mults, but all of those mults called me anyway later in the contest.

A few other observations in this years SSB contest:

Forty was the _pits_ from out here! How wonderful it will be if they can find a
way at the 2003 WARC to separate the Broadcasters and Hams. I'm glad I made my
contribution to the Frequency Defense Fund for that effort. Everybody ought to
chip in for that.

On the other hand, 75m was pretty good. I made 115 QSO's on 75 this year, and
_zero_ on 75 last year. I always remember Gator's adage "If I'm on 75, I'm
losin'." This year was an exception from out here. 40 Was losin' even worse.

During the contest, I noticed that I seemed to be working an inordinate number
of New England stations. It turns out that I worked 171 New England this year,
compared to 78 last year. I wonder if there were just more of them on because of
the bad weather, or whether propagation this year favored that distance?

I got a pretty good scare when I turned on the computer on Sunday morning. It
looked like I had taken a seven hour overnight break, rather than the planned
six hours! After I had a cup of coffee, I realized that it was only that the
computer clock had been off by exactly one hour right from the gitgo. I guess
when I set the clock before the contest, I mistyped the hour. I was so intent on
getting the minutes and seconds set correctly that I hadn't noticed the hour
being off. I'll have to go back and edit the times on all those QSO's.

Well, that's about it for the year 2002 for me. The next event on the calendar
is January's RTTY Roundup! I enjoy seeing all that computer stuff operating by
itself. As the years go by, I find myself entering fewer and fewer contests. I
wonder if it's declining testosterone levels, or wisdom gathered through age.

Thanks for all the QSO's, and Happy Holidays to all.

Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
Yuma, AZ


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