[3830] SS SSB WB0TEV SO Unlimited HP
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Mon Nov 17 21:59:45 EST 2014
ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB
Call: WB0TEV
Operator(s): WB0TEV
Station: WB0TEV
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: NTX
Operating Time (hrs): 22:25
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 69
40: 287
20: 340
15: 311
10: 109
------------
Total: 1116 Sections = 83 Total Score = 185,256
Club: DFW Contest Group
Comments:
My ears are still ringing, but I had a blast! When I went to bed just after
0800Z I lacked only one section for the sweep. Can you believe the one lacking
was GTA!? After <5 hours of sleep I got back on the air and started running
on 20m a little before 1300Z with the beam aimed at Toronto. At 1346Z VE3WG
called in and the 83rd section went into the log. I almost had a double sweep
(much easier to do when your operating Assisted as I do), lacking a 2nd QSO
only with NL, MS & ONN.
I missed out on the 2013 SSB SS as I was in transit to Africa to operate from
the 3DA0ET DXpedition so I was overdue for an SSB Sweepstakes fix and decided
to strive for more BIC time than usual.
Murphy paid a visit a couple of weeks prior when in the midst of trying for an
RTTY QSO with the FT4TA DXpedition a couple of the 37 year old electrolytic
caps in the HV supply in my aging Dentron MLA2500 amp shorted. While I'm sure
some would opine that euthanasia for that old beast would be the best course of
action, $75 in repair parts vs. a few kilobucks for a new amp bought it a
reprieve. Fortunately 4 days later I had a nifty PCB for just such a task in
hand from FAR Circuits along with new caps from DigiKey and was soon QRO
again.
I started off on 10m and got a good run going. In the first 10 minutes I'd
snagged some of the rarer mults including RI, AK and QC which several noted was
their last one for a sweep. After 50 minutes and 66 Q's I succumbed to the lure
of the spots on 15m and spent 10 minues there picking off new Canadian mults:
VE8EV (NT), VE4EA(MB), VO1MP (NL), VE6UM (AB) before jumping back to 10m to bag
new mults DE (N3DXX) and VT (WA1ZAM) and then went back to running again.
By 2240 it was back to 15m again to scratch MT and PR off the wanted list
thanks to WA7U and NP4G respectively. Knocked of the Dakotas in back to back
Q's with KD0S and K9DIG just before 2300 and got another good 15m run going
that I managed to milk until 2345 at which point I figured I'd go do S&P
against 20m spots before going down to 40m where I typically spend most of
Saturday night.
In hindsight I perhaps should not have delayed that move to 40m but the run on
15 had been hard to let go of. Not surprisingly 40m was complete bedlam by the
time I went down there just after 0000Z. Some inital S&P got a few Q's and
one new mult (N4KH in AL) before I managed to squeeze in and start running. I
saw that I'd been spotted and the rate jumped shortly thereafter, with a number
of new mults calling in that included STX (N5NA), KY (NU4N), NE (WB0YYE), AR
(WB0RUR), MO (NS0D), and the one MS I would work the whole time (N5KDV).
Eventually the stream of callers became fewer and further between so I took to
doing S&P across 40m albeit with a quick QSY to 20m to get the VI mult when
I saw the spot for NP2P.
Just after 0200 I was able to find a hole higher up in the 40m band than before
and got another good run going until it too petered out after about half an
hour.
With propagation on the high bands mostly kaput and 40m worked dry for the
moment there was no where else to go but 80m. Unlike the densely sectioned and
populated east coast, 80m isn't as much of a draw here in the northeast corner
of Texas, but is often necessary for the close in mults of AR, LA & OK, the
last two of which were among the 7 I still needed along with SC, WCF, WTX, GTA
& ONN.
I saw an 80m spot for my old college buddy Jim WT9U up in IN, so QSY'ed down
there to work him, along with a few others close by that I could hit without
having to retweak the tuner I have on the feed to the 80 dipole. Went back to
40m briefly to pick off a few new ones then took a deep breath and dived back
down to 80m to at least try and pick up OK and/or LA.
Seeing no spots that looked promising , I went looking for a hole in the low
end of the 75m General band, found one and commenced to call CQ. I could not
believe my sheer dumb luck when the 2nd caller turned out to be AE5TD in OK,
followed 2 minutes later by KD5LNO in LA.
.
After about 15 minutes the rate dropped off and I went back to 40m which by
that time had become a little less of a zoo. Tried to find a run freq and
after moving a time or two at the request of some nets just below 7200 found a
spot and got another run going. W5RAW called in to net the WTX section while a
quick QSY in response to a spot snagged K5KG for WCF. When the run pretty
much died out (and I was starting to fade) it was time for another S&P
sweep across 40m before resigning myself to doing the same on 80m with the
necessary readjustments of the tuner every 50 kHz or so.
Returning to 75m just before 0530 I found VE3RX for ONN, did a short run, and
then plodded along across the band until almost 0700 when I went back to 40m to
run and was promptly called by W4GE in from SC. In 10 hours I had them all
but GTA(!?) Go figure. Just after 0800 I went QRT and assuming horizontal
polarization and set the alarm for 1230Z.
ZZZZZzzzzzzzz.
Recalling that in previous years I'd had some really great 20m runs on Sunday
morning, I was back on the air just before 1300Z not long after sunrise. It
did not disappoint. Ran in the same spot with good rates for almost the next
3-1/2 hours, with the periodic quick 2nd VFO QSY to snag others when the rate
temporarily slowed. Skipped Sunday school but finally took a break around 1630
to dash off to church in time slip in next to the XYL in time for the last
couple of hymns before the sermon. For some odd reason, I didn't sing all that
loud or all that well :-).
A potluck dinner ensued there after and I took the opportunity to refuel and
recharge.
I was back home and off and running on 15m not quite 3 hours after I'd left,
having found a hole up near the top end of the band. Thinking that I'd spent
more time on 10m the day before than I actually had, I had intended to go back
there, but 15m was so productive that I blew off a reprise on 10m and stayed on
15m for 3+ hours before a brief foray on 40m up until 2300 when I went to 20m
and ran for an hour before things dried up.
>From 0000-0200 I seem to have staggered around the 20/15/40 bands in S&P
mode, not quite knowing where to go or what to do. Several hours of listening
to an SSB contest combined with minimal sleep tends to reduce the brain to
mush. With one hour to go I was in a bit of a quandary. The high bands were
dead or dying, and the thought of 80m was more than I could bear. 40m would be
the typical choice but I'd just left there and had pretty much exhausted its
potential.
What the heck, 20m is probably still open long to the west coast so I aimed the
beam out west . At least the band was quiet with very little QRN or QRM, a
welcome respite to my ears. After S&Ping a couple of spots out west I
picked a spot high in the band and began to call. Lo and behold, the callers
starting coming. Most all were quite weak, but with the low noise level the
casual guys with 100 watts and dipole were copyable. Between calling CQ and
quick QSY's to work new one on the N1MM display the QSO count rose. I was
already above 1000 Q's and the 1100 mark seemed attainable so I pressed on.
There was nothing much from the middle of the country but the edges of both the
east and west coasts were coming through. S&P QSOS with KH6NX, KL7JRC,
KL7SB, VE1SQ, and WP4OFO added to the final hour fun. Put 1116 QSOs in the
log, hopefully enough to remain above 1100 after log checking; pretty sure I'll
lose at least a couple.
Multipliers were certainly interesting this year. NT had the best
representation in years as I snagged 4 of them (VE8EV, VE8NSD, VY1MAB &
VY1JA). Many bemoaned the rarity of QC. I got 6 of them, but looking at my
log it appears that every one of them called me rather than the result of a
spot. 3 were of those were on 15 and the other 3 were on 10m. On the other
hand the 4 VI QSO's I had were all the result of chasing down a spot. Oddly
enough there was both a KP2XX and WP2XX on. PR has been rare the last few years
but spots led me to both NP4G and WP4OFO. Years ago there were at a least a
couple of big super stations in KP4 land that ran long and loud. I wonder what
happened there? For what seems the last several years MS has been one of the
last ones I've worked and I only found one this year. Maybe folks need to
start running a Sweepstakes DXpedition to the Magnolia State? On the other end
of the multiplier spectrum, the ones most often worked from here were IL, MDC,
VA, OH, MI adn MN. Sections worked on 5 bands from here include MDC, VA, WWA,
Or, WNY, LAX, ENY, NH, EB, ONS, & NNJ.
Hope it was an entertaining read :-)
Rig:
Old Yaesu FT-767 with flaky VFO shaft encoder (next item on the WB0TEV
repair list)
Amp:
Old Dentron MLA-2500 with new PS caps but aging 8875 tubes.
Antennas:
Old Mosley PRO-67B (40/20/17/15/12/10) at 63 ft with poor F/B and an
intermittent
trap that all this weekends QRO RF may have welded back to continuity.
80m inverted Vee at 55 feet
Full size 40m vertical with ~30 radials.
Software: N1MM Classic with manual input (an interface to FT-767 doesn't appear
to be supported)
Operator: The aging, (but not yet old) and rather verbose WB0TEV.
Is there a prize (or maybe penalty?) for the longest SS-SSB 3830 spiel?
And now some statistics:
-------------- Q S O R a t e S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour 160 80 40 20 15 10 Rate Total Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
2100 0 0 0 0 6 66 72 72 6.5
2200 0 0 0 0 19 43 62 134 12.0
2300 0 0 0 4 75 0 79 213 19.1
0000 0 0 30 3 0 0 33 246 22.0
0100 0 0 28 1 0 0 29 275 24.6
0200 0 6 39 0 0 0 45 320 28.7
0300 0 15 34 0 0 0 49 369 33.1
0400 0 0 44 0 0 0 44 413 37.0
0500 0 17 14 0 0 0 31 444 39.8
0600 0 26 5 0 0 0 31 475 42.6
0700 0 4 50 0 0 0 54 529 47.4
0800 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 530 47.5
0900 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 530 47.5
1000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 530 47.5
1100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 530 47.5
1200 0 0 0 4 0 0 4 534 47.8
1300 0 0 0 44 0 0 44 578 51.8
1400 0 0 0 77 0 0 77 655 58.7
1500 0 0 0 56 0 0 56 711 63.7
1600 0 0 0 31 0 0 31 742 66.5
1700 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 742 66.5
1800 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 742 66.5
1900 0 0 0 0 50 0 50 792 71.0
2000 0 0 0 0 75 0 75 867 77.7
2100 0 0 0 0 49 0 49 916 82.1
2200 0 0 3 0 30 0 33 949 85.0
2300 0 0 0 57 0 0 57 1006 90.1
0000 0 0 9 15 7 0 31 1037 92.9
0100 0 0 30 0 0 0 30 1067 95.6
0200 0 0 1 48 0 0 49 1116 100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 0 69 287 340 311 109 1116
Gross QSOs=1116 Dupes=0 Net QSOs=1116
------------ M u l t i p l i e r S u m m a r y ------------
Mult 160 80 40 20 15 10 Total Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------
IL 0 3 20 23 5 0 51 4.6
MDC 0 3 10 19 16 1 49 4.4
VA 0 2 9 18 17 1 47 4.2
OH 0 2 13 25 6 0 46 4.1
MI 0 2 12 13 18 0 45 4.0
MN 0 4 9 11 16 0 40 3.6
WWA 0 1 3 8 13 9 34 3.0
AZ 0 1 11 8 11 0 31 2.8
NC 0 2 11 12 5 0 30 2.7
SCV 0 0 8 4 5 7 24 2.2
WI 0 2 6 9 7 0 24 2.2
SV 0 0 3 6 8 6 23 2.1
IN 0 1 5 13 4 0 23 2.1
CT 0 0 1 10 5 6 22 2.0
OR 0 3 5 3 4 7 22 2.0
CO 0 0 6 8 7 0 21 1.9
WNY 0 2 1 5 7 4 19 1.7
LAX 0 1 2 5 6 5 19 1.7
ENY 0 1 2 2 10 3 18 1.6
NH 0 1 1 7 5 3 17 1.5
GA 0 1 5 9 2 0 17 1.5
KY 0 1 8 7 1 0 17 1.5
EMA 0 0 1 6 5 4 16 1.4
IA 0 2 5 8 1 0 16 1.4
EPA 0 0 0 6 6 3 15 1.3
ORG 0 0 4 3 2 5 14 1.3
WPA 0 2 4 3 4 0 13 1.2
SDG 0 0 4 2 4 3 13 1.2
NTX 0 5 3 2 3 0 13 1.2
TN 0 0 6 6 1 0 13 1.2
NFL 0 0 6 4 3 0 13 1.2
EB 0 1 5 1 3 2 12 1.1
SB 0 0 4 3 2 3 12 1.1
SF 0 0 4 2 1 4 11 1.0
ID 0 0 3 3 4 1 11 1.0
MT 0 1 2 3 5 0 11 1.0
MO 0 3 6 2 0 0 11 1.0
NV 0 0 4 2 1 3 10 0.9
ONS 0 1 2 3 3 1 10 0.9
SNJ 0 0 0 3 4 3 10 0.9
NLI 0 0 2 0 6 2 10 0.9
KS 0 3 5 2 0 0 10 0.9
ONE 0 0 0 4 2 3 9 0.8
NNJ 0 1 2 2 3 1 9 0.8
SFL 0 0 2 3 4 0 9 0.8
AL 0 0 7 2 0 0 9 0.8
NM 0 1 7 0 1 0 9 0.8
SC 0 0 1 3 5 0 9 0.8
AK 0 0 0 2 4 2 8 0.7
SJV 0 0 3 0 3 2 8 0.7
WY 0 0 2 2 4 0 8 0.7
UT 0 1 3 1 3 0 8 0.7
AR 0 4 4 0 0 0 8 0.7
ME 0 1 0 3 2 1 7 0.6
WMA 0 0 2 1 4 0 7 0.6
WV 0 0 3 2 2 0 7 0.6
RI 0 0 1 2 1 2 6 0.5
EWA 0 0 2 1 1 2 6 0.5
QC 0 0 0 0 3 3 6 0.5
BC 0 0 2 1 2 1 6 0.5
MAR 0 0 0 3 3 0 6 0.5
NNY 0 0 2 1 3 0 6 0.5
SD 0 1 2 1 2 0 6 0.5
ND 0 0 2 1 3 0 6 0.5
STX 0 3 3 0 0 0 6 0.5
NE 0 1 4 1 0 0 6 0.5
WCF 0 0 2 2 2 0 6 0.5
AB 0 0 1 2 2 0 5 0.4
VT 0 1 1 0 2 1 5 0.4
PAC 0 0 1 1 2 1 5 0.4
GTA 0 0 0 4 1 0 5 0.4
NT 0 0 0 0 4 0 4 0.4
DE 0 0 0 1 2 1 4 0.4
VI 0 0 1 1 2 0 4 0.4
WTX 0 0 2 2 0 0 4 0.4
MB 0 0 1 1 1 0 3 0.3
SK 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 0.3
LA 0 2 1 0 0 0 3 0.3
PR 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 0.2
OK 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 0.2
NL 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0.1
MS 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0.1
ONN 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0.1
------------------------------------------------------
Total 0 69 287 340 311 109 1116
Sweepstakes Checks
Check QSOs Pct
----------------------
00 17 1.5
01 10 0.9
02 7 0.6
03 10 0.9
04 13 1.2
05 11 1.0
06 7 0.6
07 9 0.8
08 19 1.7
09 8 0.7
10 9 0.8
11 20 1.8
12 18 1.6
13 23 2.1
14 16 1.4
15 0 0.0
16 2 0.2
17 0 0.0
18 0 0.0
19 1 0.1
20 0 0.0
21 0 0.0
22 0 0.0
23 0 0.0
24 1 0.1
25 0 0.0
26 0 0.0
27 0 0.0
28 1 0.1
29 0 0.0
30 1 0.1
31 1 0.1
32 1 0.1
33 1 0.1
34 0 0.0
35 0 0.0
36 0 0.0
37 1 0.1
38 1 0.1
39 1 0.1
40 1 0.1
41 0 0.0
42 0 0.0
43 0 0.0
44 0 0.0
45 0 0.0
46 0 0.0
47 2 0.2
48 4 0.4
49 1 0.1
50 2 0.2
51 3 0.3
52 6 0.5
53 10 0.9
54 16 1.4
55 18 1.6
56 18 1.6
57 18 1.6
58 22 2.0
59 31 2.8
60 26 2.3
61 17 1.5
62 35 3.1
63 23 2.1
64 27 2.4
65 22 2.0
66 14 1.3
67 24 2.2
68 17 1.5
69 27 2.4
70 24 2.2
71 22 2.0
72 24 2.2
73 22 2.0
74 25 2.2
75 26 2.3
76 40 3.6
77 52 4.7
78 28 2.5
79 14 1.3
80 9 0.8
81 8 0.7
82 14 1.3
83 16 1.4
84 7 0.6
85 4 0.4
86 11 1.0
87 10 0.9
88 8 0.7
89 15 1.3
90 13 1.2
91 18 1.6
92 19 1.7
93 19 1.7
94 19 1.7
95 8 0.7
96 15 1.3
97 10 0.9
98 12 1.1
99 11 1.0
U.S. Call Areas Worked
Area QSOs Pct
--------------------
0 118 10.6
1 104 9.3
2 100 9.0
3 74 6.6
4 140 12.5
5 45 4.0
6 151 13.5
7 125 11.2
8 102 9.1
9 98 8.8
--------------------
Total 1057 94.7
Sweepstakes Precedents
Precedent QSOs Pct
----------------------
A 494 44.3
B 229 20.5
Q 30 2.7
M 105 9.4
U 249 22.3
S 9 0.8
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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