[3830] SS CW K0HB Multi-Op HP

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                    ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW

Call: K0HB
Operator(s): K0HB K0CKB
Station: K0HB

Class: Multi-Op HP
QTH: MN
Operating Time (hrs): 22

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:   97
   40:  307
   20:  364
   15:   28
   10:  140
------------
Total:  936  Sections = 83  Total Score = 155,376

Club: Minnesota Wireless Assn

Comments:

As the poker players say, we went "all in" on this one.
 
New logger, internet assistance, rebuilt station layout, SO2V (cheap guy
version of SO2R), and even a new fluffy "executive office chair"!
 
The net result --- maybe a little lower than our usual average.
 
On the upside:
 
  We really like N2MM+.  It had a couple of "oddities" that took a
few Q's to learn, but once you get into the zone, the "workflow"
pattern seems smoother and more intuitive than our previous tools.  A VERY
welcome feature was the ability to adjust font sizes to suit our old eyeballs. 
The ESM parser is very smooth, and almost completely eliminates the old
backspace/delete/reenter routine.  Very cool!
 
  Saturday band conditions were pretty good, and with 3-4 open bands in the
early going, it was easy to find a run QRG.  The downside was that S/P stations
were also scattered across all the open bands, I think diluting the run rates. 
We found we were "drying up" a given band faster than normal.
 
  Sunday morning the bands seemed soft, improving all through the day.  Some of
our best runs came in the last three hours of the contest.  
 
The downside:
 
  Lost a couple Sunday hours troubleshooting a transmission line issue.  Had
flaky swr on the beam, which I tracked down to a coax kinked in a wall
pass-though by remodeling contractor this summer.  Spliced in a quick 20 foot
jumper, and back to normal.
 
  Overall, my impression is that scores may be down this year --- not very many
4-digits serial numbers got into our log.  
 
  SO2V was a bust.  Neither of us could manage the left brain/right brain
demands of that mode, so I reconfigured the software back to regular SO before
we signed back on Sunday morning.  Also found that the internet assistance was
more of a distraction than a help early on.  The one time we found it useful
was Sunday late morning until late afternoon when we got into a routine of
running a band for 45 minutes or so, then harvesting the band map, then doing
that on a rotating band-to-band run-then-harvest routine.  
 
  Turned out that the only multiplier we got from the internet was KP2RUM.
 
Embarrassment of the weekend:
 
  Walking away for a soup/sandwich break and leaving the CQ robot churning a
prime spot on 40M!


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