[3830] SS SSB K3FIV Single Op LP

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                    ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB

Call: K3FIV
Operator(s): K3FIV
Station: K3FIV

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: SF CM88EU
Operating Time (hrs): 16.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:   83
   40:   98
   20:   68
   15:  103
   10:   19
------------
Total:  371  Sections = 82  Total Score = 60,844

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

It was kind of fun to be in the "rare" SF section, and hear the glee from the
other end when they discovered that the K3 who just called them was in San
Francisco - or at least in the SF section, even though I'm 100+ miles northwest
of the actual city.  I gave 2 people the final section they needed for a sweep;
at least that's what I think the whoops and screams of "sweep" meant.  One op
abandoned his run frequency - presumably off to celebrate.  Now there's a new
technique for snagging a run frequency!

Couldn't quite get a sweep myself.  Close, so close.  If it had been last year,
I would have had a sweep - but with ON fissioned into 4 sections it was harder
this year.  I worked all of last year's sections...but now there's 3 more. 
Never heard an ONE, but I found everyone else, and eventually managed to get
through the various pileups.  Not so easy with 100W and a wire antenna,
especially on 20 and up.

Bands seemed mostly pretty good but the propagation seemed unusual.  On 80
after dark I could hear the East better than stations in CA - not the normal
behavior.  20 was jammed as usual so not so good for my puny signal.  15 seemed
very long; I even took a minute off to work a V8 in Brunei who was CQing and
"beaming NA" but couldn't get anyone's attention here. 10 was disappointing;
I'm not sure if it was propagation or just that everyone left to follow the
normal pattern of band migration.

This was mostly an S&P operation, but I did find a tiny hole in the QRM walls
several times to run a bit.  It was nice to give the SF mult to several QRP
stations who called.  While I was running, I got mostly Q and LP stations with
low serial numbers - but when I got spotted once, a small deluge of the "big
guns" appeared to grab the SF contact.  That's what SO2R looks like from the
other end of the contact!

Still trying to get a sweep using just 100W and a wire, with no use of the
spotting network.  Never managed to do that back in the "old days" shortly
after I was licensed in 1963, but, ... maybe next year!

73,
/Jack de K3FIV
QTH: Point Arena, CA CM88eu SF section
Rig: Flex-3000 100W
Ant: 135foot Carolina Windom at 35 feet, less than a mile from the ocean (sadly
this is little help in a US/CA contest)


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