[CQ-Contest] RE: 80 in 80

[Doug Grant]

>I had always heard of people accomplishing a clean sweep in the minimum
>number of contacts (recall that in 1999 it was 79).=20

I tried that once, in 1996 on CW. I got to "N-1", needing only Nebraska, =
in a few short periods of operating. Sunday late afternoon, I figured 20 =
was the best band for NE at that time of day, and found AJ0I on about =
14027 working someone he had called. Went up a couple and called him, =
but no luck. Tuned up a bit further, and found him working another guy =
he had called. I went up a couple and called him...again nada. This went =
on all the way up to about 14080, where I lost him. Figured he had =
probably gone to 40, and there he was on 7025 working someone. Went to =
7026, called him, then heard him working someone on 7027. I chased that =
guy up the whole 40M band alternating with calling him directly, CQing =
(hoping nobody else would call me!), and jumping on his previous QSO and =
sending "AJ0I UP". Nothing worked. Finally he disappeared at the top of =
the band. Figured he went to back to 20, and sure enough, there he was. =
One more time the chase was begun, with no luck. When I finally lost him =
at the top end of 20, after about 2 hours of chasing him, he was gone =
forever, and no other NE was heard in the waning hour of the contest. =
Maybe AJ0I was also trying to do 78 in 78 (or whatever it was) and =
already had all the W1 sections.

I could not operate the phone weekend for some reason that year, and =
it's the only year since the mug program was started that I didn't get =
one (a WRTC-96 mug fills that spot on the shelf). All the rest have been =
on SSB, where it generally takes about 5-6 hours of well-placed CQing =
and a half hour of figuring out where VY1JA and a few others are most =
likely to be operating.

And I remember when a sweep was SO hard that the elite few lucky Clean =
Sweepers merited their own special box in the SS writeup.=20

73, and a Happy New Year to all!

Doug K1DG



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