[3830] SS SSB W4AAA(KK9A) Single Op LP

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                    ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB - 2020

Call: W4AAA
Operator(s): KK9A
Station: W4AAA

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: NC
Operating Time (hrs): 24
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:     
   80:  487
   40:  547
   20:  160
   15:   46
   10:     
------------
Total: 1240  Sections = 84  Total Score = 208,320

Club: 

Comments:

I had not been on the radio at all since March so I really looked forward to
participating in this year’s Sweepstakes Phone contest. I recently had surgery
on my right shoulder and my arm was in a sling so I had to type and operate
mostly using my left non-dominate hand. I moved my Elecraft remote K-Pods to the
left of my keyboard and they were never more useful for controlling the K3S
transceivers. For me the contest started out at a slow pace of about one contact
a minute. I did not have the fun endless stream of callers that I hoped for at
the beginning but I used this free time to tune the second radio looking for
multipliers. Getting a Sweep is always a fun challenge and luckily I found many
of the difficult sections early in the contest. Some of these rare sections I
never heard again after working them. On Sunday afternoon I started to get
concerned about getting a Sweep as I was still missing the normally easy
sections of AK, EWA and SB. I decided to try moving my run radio to 15m which
was wide open to the west coast. From this region 15m does not normally produce
a lot of QSOs in SS however within minutes of the band change I had a little
pileup and I had worked the EWA and SB sections. After hours of not finding any
new multipliers that was exciting. Then I just needed Alaska and shortly later
on 20m I found a KL7 with a good signal begging for contacts. So I immediately
called him, he gave a report however strong QRM came out of nowhere and I could
not copy the exchange. This was more than frustrating however after several
attempts we completed the QSO and I finally had the Sweep. I was able spend my
remaining time just trying to find new stations to work. The rarest sections for
me (where I only worked one) were AK, EWA, NL, NT and PE. I worked 21 stations
that were first licensed in 2020. It is nice to hear these newcomers and they
did a terrific job with the completed SS exchange. With my recent shoulder
surgery, I did not know how many hours I would be able to participate. I tried
to keep it rested and do as much as possible with my left hand. The pain stayed
minimal, probably the distraction of making QSO’s helped keep my mind off of
it and to my surprise I was able put in the full 24 hours. Thanks to all of the
stations that got on for this contest, especially those in rarer sections that
just wanted to help out. This was a fun weekend! Thank you for the QSOs, please
QSL via Tim, WD9DZV. Thanks to Tim, my logs are already downloaded to LoTW.

73,

John KK9A
http://www.w4aaa.com


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