[3830] NA Sprint CW N3BB HP

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                    NA Sprint CW Contest - September

Call: N3BB
Operator(s): N3BB
Station: N3BB

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: Texas
Operating Time (hrs): 4
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Op Time
---------------------
   80:   90        
   40:  119        
   20:  101        
---------------------
Total:  310    Mults = 43  Total Score = 13,330

Club: Central Texas DX and Contest Club

Team: Austin Aces

Comments:

A blast as usual. A cold front passed thru here overnight Friday and the weather
was clear and the atmosphere quiet Saturday. It could not have been better from
a QRN point of view. Also, my new SAL-30 receiving array worked spectacularly
for me. I worked outside all week to complete the long coax run and all wiring
after the local gang helped me get it up and in place two weeks before the
Sprint. It made a definite difference, as did replacing my system of three 80
meter slopers with a single inverted vee at 100 feet on a hilltop. 

I struggled with typing errors as usual, with my H&P limitation. Hopefully
the log is not too messed up. 

It's clear that the Sprint participation is getting thinner and thinner. We
tried to recruit some newcomers to the format from the CTDXCC and got two brand
new Sprinters, but the CW speeds are formidable, and the format is confusing to
many. I was lucky with a single AL and an OK late in the contest, and a VO2 on
40 earlier, but all in all, it's amazing to me the mults that some ops
skillfully get. Congrats. There was only one operator on from many, many
states, and places like ILL are becoming hard to work! We are on the edge of
this contest becoming too thin to survive. 

Back on the subject of participation, I got into the SSB sprint several weeks
ago when K5NZ recruited effectively down here, and it was clear that the
participation on SSB is so much better. There were lots of newer call signs,
etc. Lots more mults. The CW Sprints, which to me are the most fun you can have
in ham radio or anything else with your clothes on (other than a VT Hokie
football game) are becoming fossils, and if we don't do something, pretty soon
all of us will be too old and too feeble and this wonderful thing will have
seen its better days. Not sure what to do, but getting teams on is a starter. 

Nice to have Ted, N9NB on our Austin Aces team. He reports that many, many sent
"FB" or "Good to hear you" in the Sprint. He is recovering
with a clean bill of health and operated from his spectacular ridge-line home
and antenna farm in SW Virginia near Blacksburg. Hooray!

I apologize for QRMing (who I think was) Tree once. Didn't hear anything at all
on the freq before CQing, and know I stepped on his trying to get a number from
someone. Oops. Moved immediately.

Congrats to Trey and all the other wonderful operators. What a great operating
experience this is. 73, Jim


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