[3830] SS SSB VE7FO Multi-Op HP

[webform at b4h.net]

                    ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB

Call: VE7FO
Operator(s): KEENAN WONG, DEREK MCCLURE, GINA PAPADIMITRIOU, JIM HASLAM, VE7HAK, BARRY COLLINS, CHANCHAL CHAHAL, VE7FO
Station: VE7FO

Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: Vancouver
Operating Time (hrs): 15.75

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:     
   80:   57
   40:   29
   20:  148
   15:   10
   10:    6
------------
Total:  250  Sections = 71  Total Score = 35,500

Club: British Columbia DX Club

Comments:

Another newbie, no-ticket operator training event.

This was intended to be a follow-on of the training provided to a number of
people in the ham licence class that I teach at the VECTOR club in Vancouver. 
In an effort to bring the class material to life I invited the class to come to
my QTH for CQ WW SSB.  11 people signed up.  VA7IRL and I gave each of them two
hours of training, one hour at the Spotting position and one at the Run
position, in tuning in SSB; sending spots over the internal network; logging;
S&P techniques, etc.  Each person had about 45 min during which they were
actually making S&P Qs.  Upon completion, they were deemed to have moved from
the newbie level to the sub-novice level.

The plan this time was to have as many of the sub-novices back as possible and
give them some additional experience.  In particular, they were going to spend
some time at the spotting station and work at generating spots quickly and then
move to the Run position and actually try running.  While I suppose I could be
accused of cruel and unusual punishment in asking beginners to run in SS with
that complex exchange, it was the next available contest after WW.

The plan was complicated somewhat by 6 more class members wanting to get the
newbie training.  I guess they had heard how much fun the previous group had. 
Still, we managed to generate a schedule to accommodate everyone.

One of the problems I foresaw was that the sub-novices were going to have
difficulty running efficiently because of lack of familiarity with the phonetic
alphabet.  To address this, I gave them a little homework assignment.  The
assignment was to load the free version of TRLog set up for Field Day onto their
home computers along with an audio file I provided of ZF2NT doing 400 Qs an hour
in ARRL DX.  Their job was to play the audio file, pretend to be ZF2NT and log
the calls.  Instead of logging the ARRL DX exchange they were instructed to
enter a specific FD exchange which would be accepted by TR.  I didn't expect
that everyone would have time to do this but I hoped that some would.

While some people actually tried to do the assignment, they found it pretty
challenging as the calls would come and be gone before they could figure out
what they were.  I guess what we need is a set of graduated exercises so they
can have some success before unleashing 400 Q's per hour on them.

Most of the newbies came on Saturday.  VA7IRL kindly made his time available
again to run them through the Spotting position while I took care of coaching
them through their first Qs.

It all went quite smoothly.  The usual first Q jitters for many but didn't take
long for them to get over it.  A really good aspect of making one's first Q in a
contest is that there is no worry about what to say as opposed to, say, "Here,
say a few words to my friend Bill in Australia".

The last person left around 9pm local time so I settled down to have some fun of
my own.  Well, 40 and 80 aren't that much fun with my modest setup, but I ground
it out until 2am when I went to bed with 120 Qs and 56 mults.  I made good use
of the spot cluster to knock off a bunch of mults.  Didn't do any running as I
was beat from the non-stop hours of training.

Sunday was the day for the sub-novices.  The first one wasn't due until 1pm
local time, so I've got a few hours to work on the northern East Coast mults.  I
usually figure that I'm too inconsequential for Murphy to bother with but I
guess he must have been bored, as he put an intermittent in the mic lead.  After
rather too much time but before the first sub-novice arrived, I seemed to have
fixed it.  (Have you ever taken a Heil Proset apart so that you can get at the
mic lead?  Not recommended.)  

So, I take the first one through the process of generating spots quickly and
then we move to the Run position.  The two of us and our chairs squeeze into the
3 ft x 3 ft operating position, I run a few Qs to demonstrate the technique, and
the mic dies again.  Quickly fish out the hand mic that came with the MkV,
mutter something about "Plan B" and carry on.

This problem turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  While I would have to be
pretty desperate to use a hand mic for an entire contest, wearing out my thumb
on the PTT button, it worked quite well in this training context.  For a start,
there's no inadvertent tripping of the VOX by the student.  It also made it easy
for me to demonstrate something about running or yelling insults at locals who
were making more Qs than we were as it was just a matter of passing the hand mic
back and forth.  So, we'll be using the hand mic for future training sessions
until they're able to solo, at which time we'll switch back to the boom mic and
VOX.

Initially, my plan was to do what we did in the earlier training session which
was to have them make and log the Qs while I wrote the calls down on a piece of
paper for them to look at so they wouldn't spend a lot of time fumbling over the
phonetics.  This didn't work too well for running (took a l-o-o-ng time before a
caller was acknowledged) so I ended up logging the Qs while they made them.  It
was kind of like leading an orchestra.  The op would call CQ reading from a
cheat sheet I had prepared, someone would answer, I would enter the call and
point to it on the screen, the op would say the call, I would point to the next
serial number on the screen, the op would say that, I would point to the
exchange on the cheat sheet, the op would say that, the other station would send
his info which I would log, I would point to the TU QRZ line on the cheat sheet,
the student would say that and the next station would call, causing the cycle to
repeat.  It seemed to work well, though.  Pretty soon the op was able to get
through the sequence without my help.

Unfortunately, of the 4 sub-novices who signed up, only one of them was actually
able to make it; the others had health problems or other conflicts which arose. 
Consequently, there was only one hour of sub-novice running.  I could feel the
accumulated angst building up.  "Where are all the $%^)$#^$_ VE7's?"  The last
op was a newbie but he caught on very quickly so I short-circuited some of the
training steps and got him running for a while.  We actually got the 10 minute
rate up to 42, which I thought was pretty good for a newbie.

OK, it's 0130Z, the last trainee is gone, time to get serious.  Wasn't too long
running on 20 before the 10 minute rate meter showed 120.  Felt like VY1JA must
often feel as many tell me, "Thanks for the sweep."  I'm not really caring about
mults anymore as I need something like another ten for a sweep; just want to run
the Qs up.  Had 1 minute with 3 Qs in it, which I figure isn't too shabby for
SS.

Speaking of J, his sig was the best I've ever heard it.  A solid S9, no QSB, no
Au buzz and he was QRP to boot.

At 0208Z I haven't had a Q for 5 minutes so it's off to 40.  I don't usually do
well on 40 so it's back to S&P.

Only managing 30 Qs/hr so decide to move to 80 at 0225Z.

Still mostly S&P with a last-ditch effort at running at the end.  Rate a bit
better than on 40 but not much.

Once again, from a score point of view, pretty much a bust, but from a
satisfaction point of view, it was a great experience.  Another 5 people making
their first QSO ever and enjoying the contest experience.  Getting some folks to
the point of being able to run, albeit with logging help.  Priceless.

I don't know where all the VE7s were.  I found myself telling people that all
the VE7s got together and agreed to not get on until the last 3 hours.  Not
true, of course.

I know that VA7IRL was pretty busy in the last 2 hours or so.  He was one of my
very first contest trainees.  If I hadn't got into this contest training
business a lot of you guys wouldn't have got him for a sweep this time.  I
listened to him running for 2-3 minutes.  He sounded like he'd been doing it for
years.  I sure felt proud.

I've subsequently received a lot of very positive feedback from the students. 


First of all, they recognize the work which went into creating this experience
for them and they appreciate it.

Secondly, it has helped them to put the course material into context.

Thirdly, and, to my mind, most important, they discovered that HF contesting is
A LOT OF FUN.

So, I've managed to introduce 16 folks to the fun of HF contesting who will be
getting their tickets next week.  They are already asking if the club has people
who will help them select HF gear and put up HF antennas.  In the short history
of the club I don't think this has happened before.  If you teach a licence
class and you are worried about the significance of the average age of
contesters, may I suggest that you try what I am doing?  I have found it
personally very rewarding.  I think you would too.  I'm sure going to continue
doing this with them as long as they want to come and do the same with the next
licence class.

"Gee, Jim, I've got the HF gear that you recommended and I've got my dipoles up
as high as I can but I'm not getting very good scores."  "Well, you know, SSB
doesn't work very well in contest conditions for those with a modest station
compared to how well you can do with CW.  Guess it's time you learned the code."
 Heh, heh, heh, got 'em sucked in to where it's at.  CW RULES!!!

Got a bit carried away here.  In VE, at the moment, you have to have 5 wpm
before you can get on the HF bands under your own call so the above scenario
can't actually happen.

What is happening is that the students are asking about cw instruction after
Xmas.

Hmmm.... I wonder, who's going to do that?

73 and thanks for your patience, everyone.


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