[3830] SS CW AD1C SO Unlimited LP

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                    ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW

Call: AD1C
Operator(s): AD1C
Station: AD1C

Class: SO Unlimited LP
QTH: CO
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:     
   80:   48
   40:  254
   20:  354
   15:  155
   10:    3
------------
Total:  814  Sections = 83  Total Score = 135,124

Club: Grand Mesa Contesters of Colorado

Comments:

Radio:     ICOM IC-7700, 100 watts
Antennas:  Hy-Gain AV-640 vertical
           1/2 size G5RV dipole in attic
           Loaded (shortened) dipole for 80 meters
Software:  WriteLog for Windows

First off, I have to admit that Sweepstakes is a challenging contest.  There's
a lot of information you have copy correctly.  Saturday and Sunday are two
different contests as far as rate is concerned.  And I was basically out of
practice (see below).  I admire the guys who can stay in the chair for 24
hours.  I can't.  When I have to call a dozen CQs before working someone, my
mind tends to wander.  But I think that SO2R would be, to me, a distraction
more than anything.  So respect to the guys who do this year after year,
posting really big scores.

Second, I had done some semi-serious CW SS from Colorado, but I never put in
enough hours for one thing, and probably also never spent enough time trying to
run.  It's difficult when it falls the immediate next weekend after CQWW Phone,
which it almost always does.  It's also a little-known fact that I won the
Rocky Mountain Division plaque in 2009 Phone SS, in the multi-op category.  It
was just me and the DX cluster, before there was a separate assisted category. 
That is the first hardwood I have *ever* won, not counting a few state QSO
parties where I finished as the top out-of-state entry, during my prime county
hunting days.

This summer, we had more of the basement finished, to expand the space for
Carol's wildlife rehab non-profit ( http://wildoncemore.org ).  As part of the
work, I had walls installed around my "shack".  Due to the
construction, I was off the air from the end of March until early June.  I took
the opportunity to upgrade the feedline to the Hy-Gain AV-640 multi-band
vertical from LMR-240 to Ecoflex 10 Plus.  The builders ran some LMR-240 under
the shack for me, coming out near the junction box that has the runs of 75-ohm
RG59 from the attic (where my dipole lives).  My intention was run the LMR-240
up into the attic directly, bypassing the 75-ohm coax and the F-to-UHF adapter.
 That still has not happened.  I ended up running the old coax across the
basement floor, under the door and into the shack so I could use the dipole on
10 meters in CQWW Phone, where it really shines into Japan (and was glad I
did).

My father (Joe, W1JR) designed and built a loaded dipole for 80/75 meters that
he sent me in the mail - some assembly required.  Rich, K2RR has been
successful with his in Florida.  I finally put mine up the the weekend of
October 17/18, as it was getting dark and rain started to fall.  You can see a
picture of it here:

    http://hamradio.ad1c.us/IMG_20151107_123216248.png

I worked a few stations in the Illinois QSO Party on 80 CW to test it out, but
that was it.  It's pretty narrow-band (< 100 KHz), so I'll ultimately have
to adjust it for phone, and then add removable stubs to lengthen it for CW.

During the summer, after I finally got back on the air, I noticed that noise
levels were high, especially on 40 meters.  I didn't take any action, until I
realized the noise did not abate as we moved into autumn, when the low bands
typically quiet down.  I made few hundred QSOs in CQWW Phone (never tried
anything on 75 meters, the antenna is very narrow).  The noise on 40 was still
pretty bad.  I had intended to try to find the source during the weekend of
October 31/November 1 (a rare weekend off between CQWW and ARRL SS), but due to
a very heavy workload, I ended up working most of the weekend, and did not have
time to do this.  It would haunt me during SS.

The morning of Sweepstakes, I vacuumed the floor of the shack, finally moved
the chair mat to the operating position, added some new current chokes from The
Wireman between the radio and the coaxes coming into the house (and one at the
vertical), and finally soldered the ground wire from the vertical to the ground
rod I put in a couple of years ago, replacing a small hose clamp.  Nothing
seemed to help the noise, however.  Then I had to grab a quick bite and do some
work for my day job.  I finished just a few minutes before the start of the
contest.

I started on 15, went to 10 and worked the two Caribbean multiplies (PR and
VI), then went back to 15, then 20. I was trying to avoid 40 for as long as I
could, due to the noise, but eventually ended up there.  Apologies to those who
called me, that I did not hear.  Before going to bed, I tortured almost 50
stations with my weak signal on 80 meters, but I did pick up ND, WY, UT and OK,
which were all needed mults.  A special shout-out to Jerry, K5YAA, who also gave
me very last county on phone (Van Buren, AR).  I went bed with just over 400
QSOs in the log, missing only NE, NL and NT for the sweep (yes, the dreaded
'N's).  If you had asked me before the contest to name the last three sections
I would need, THAT would be the list.  It always is.

Looking for WY was a sad reminder of Alan, KO7X who passed away this summer,
and who was almost a lock for the multiplier.  We lived about 100 miles apart
and he could always hear me on groundwave.  We tried several times to work on
17 meters for one of my last two states.  He could hear me, but I could never
hear him.  He would occasionally drive 1.5+ hours (each way) to the Mile High
DX Association meetings near Denver, of course wearing his cowboy hat.  RIP,
Alan!

To my East Coast friends:  It's easy to work the nearby sections when there is
a high population density of stations and they are on at all times of the day
or night.  It's much more difficult out west where the states are big, the ham
density for some states is very low, and when they do get on, they tend to
operate on the high bands, working the east coast population centers.

As it turns out, I could have (and did) work ND, WY and OK on 40 meters Sunday.
 But I never got another chance to work Utah.  The two I heard (one on 20, one
on 40) were both very weak, and were working stations much further away,
because skip was so long.  So I'm glad I could get on 80 meters this time!

Sunday morning, I started around dawn, and as hard as I tried, I could not find
any station in Nebraska on 40.  At one point, I did hear a call ending in
"0Z" work someone and give NE as the section before he disappeared
(not his frequency).  I later found out it was KE0Z (who I worked much later in
the contest).  VY1AAA was almost inaudible all day Saturday.  I never even
bothered looking for NL on Saturday. On Sunday, VO1 spots started appearing,
but the station was either too weak, or had a big pileup (and I totally missed
VO2AC when he was spotted on 20).  Even though I operated assisted, I had to
constantly watch the raw incoming spot feed for any needed multipliers.  DX
spot support for ARRL SS in WriteLog is somewhat lacking - no band filtering,
can't identify multipliers, etc.

At 1710z, VY1AAA was spotted a smidge above 14080, I'm glad there was no RTTY
there.  I must have missed the first couple of spots, but when I found him, he
was quite audible.  We worked easily at 1720z after just a few calls.  Then at
1758z, K0WLS was spotted in the 40m novice band.  Being unfamiliar with the
call, I checked the callbook, and discovered he was in Nebraska!  I tuned to
7110, but no one was there.  I started tuning up the band, and found him about
10 KHz higher, calling CQ.  He came right back to me, and asked if I was in the
contest, saying he was not.  I answered yes, but I didn't have to beg, and he
begrudgingly gave me the correct exchange, his QSO #2 (so I wasn't the only
one).  We exchanged names and I said I'd catch him some other time.  Two down,
one to go.

At this point I was determined to work VO1MP, despite the odds.  He had been
spotted on 15 meters several times Sunday.  At least once was before the band
opened here, and when I checked a later spot, it seemed like he had abandoned
the frequency.  Finally I found him up around 21060 with a pretty big pileup
(that I could hear).  Due to propagation (skip), I could not hear most of the
stations he was working, so I have no idea whether he had a "Sunday
afternoon"-sized pileup, or one that I could get through.  I kept checking
on and off while running (only SO1R here), waiting for the pileup to die down. 
Then at 1815z, I finally got through, selfishly posting this DX spot:

    AD1C  21061.0 VO1MP    how SWEEP it is!    1815 08 Nov 2015

After completing the sweep by working my last three sections in under an hour,
I lost my concentration, and took a short break to get my head back together
(and check on work stuff).  I could now just run and/or look for new stations
to work (I love a good bandmap).  Sunday was slow but steady all day, 35-40
QSOs/hour until after 0z when things slowed to a crawl.  I pushed on to get to
800 QSOs, then worked a few more for insurance.  I know I will lose some in the
log checking process.

I had no real goal this time.  1000 QSOs would have been nice, but I thought
800 was more realistic, and that's what I finished with.  I did not operate the
entire 24 hours, but that would have been better done on Saturday (when I had to
take a break for work), or Saturday night into Sunday morning if I had a better
80-meter antenna.

While I was CQing all day Sunday, I watched the incoming DX spots.  I had
remembered to turn on the CW Skimmer spot feed from VE7CC just after the
contest started.  But I never saw myself spotted!  It didn't dawn on me at the
time that I didn't see any other K/VE stations spotted either!  There were
occasional posted spots, so my band map always seemed to have stuff in it.  It
didn't occur to me until Monday morning to check my DX spot filters on VE7CC. 
Here's what I saw:

    DX CTY Filter/All set to Reject: K,VE

So I had CW Skimmer spots turned on, but they weren't helping me one bit!  I
guess that explains why suddenly I'd get a few callers after periods of endless
CQing.  I wonder how many stations I missed because of this.  What a dope!

I'm always curious about which sections I worked the most (and least).  Here's
the list for this year:

VA      46
MDC     40
IL      39
OH      25
WWA     25
MN      24
AZ      22
MI      21
SCV     21
EPA     20
WI      20
STX     19
TN      19
NC      18
NTX     17
OR      17
EMA     14
GA      14
SDG     14
IN      13
SV      13
LAX     12
MO      12
CT      11
ENY     11
KY      11
WNY     11
IA      10
NH      10
NFL     9
NNJ     9
ORG     9
SF      9
SFL     9
WCF     9
EB      8
ONE     8
BC      7
CO      7
LA      7
NV      7
OK      7
QC      7
RI      7
WMA     7
WPA     7
AL      6
AR      6
ME      6
NLI     6
NM      6
ONS     6
WV      6
MAR     5
EWA     5
GTA     5
KS      5
SB      5
SJV     5
SNJ     5
DE      4
ID      4
MS      4
MT      4
NNY     4
SC      4
VI      4
PAC     3
SD      3
SK      3
WTX     3
AB      2
ND      2
NE      2
ONN     2
VT      2
AK      1
MB      1
NL      1
NT      1
PR      1
UT      1
WY      1

Thanks to everyone for the points.  I'll see if I can get something better
going for 80 meters before next year.


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