[CQ-Contest] Operating Methods or Equipment?

[N7MAL]

There are a bunch of answers to your question: First UP4L's QSO rate was @67/hr yours was 12. 12 Q's/hr won't get you anything in any contest. I'm not being mean I'm being honest. You need to get experience under your belt and your rates will go up.  Ask yourself if you're not working at least 1 q/minute what are you doing with that extra time? Ask yourself if you're in the contest to do the best you can possibly do or are you in it to have fun, because you can't do both. It is work to sit in front of a radio and type 60 contacts every hour for hours at a time. It is work but has nice rewards when it's over.
You asked "" can working just 10 or so more hours, going high power with beams and a tower make *that* much difference in scoring?? "" and the answer is a resounding YES. Big towers and big aerials always beat no towers and poor antennas. If you had one good antenna for one band and dedicated your contesting effort to just that band you would have had a much better score. A monoband dipole always beats a compromised dipole, always. Look at the stations in the US that scored over a million. They all have towers and big aerials and lots of contesting experience.
The most important I saved for last: When your call is UP4L everytime you call CQ there are at least 100 stations calling you, when you're a W5(or W anything) you're lucky if 10 stations call you. I'm surprised UP4L's score was that low. You just have to work harder at it and the more you work at it the easier it will become and the easier it becomes the higher your score will be. There is only one secret to successful contesting, set all the equipment issues aside, when the contest starts you're in your chair ready to go and when the contest is over you get up from your chair. You whole entire function in life for that 12, 24, or 48 hour period is to contest, nothing more nothing less.
HAPPY CONTESTING

MAL                N7MAL
BULLHEAD CITY, AZ
http://www.ctaz.com/~suzyq/N7mal.htm
http://geocities.com/n7mal/
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: KE5CTY Bob 
  To: cq-contest at contesting.com 
  Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 18:54
  Subject: [CQ-Contest] Operating Methods or Equipment?


  This is really discouraging:

  Not crying on anybody's shoulder, just trying to find out what I am
  missing here:

  I thought I did pretty well for my second contest *ever* and then I see
  scores like the one below. As you can see, I was also SO(Single
  Operator) but running LP(LowPower) and worked all bands CW(CW Only):

  Call: KE5CTY
  Operator(s): KE5CTY
  Station: KE5CTY

  Class: SO CW LP
  QTH: USA - NTX
  Operating Time (hrs): 15.95

  Summary:
   Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Mults
  ---------------------------
    160:    0     0       0
     80:   29     0       5
     40:   39     0       7
     20:   70     0      14
     15:   39     0      10
     10:   12     0       7
  ---------------------------
  Total:  189     0      43  Total Score = 24,897

  How can *one* person amass over a million points. There *must* be more
  to this contesting than meets the eye. What operating methods are these
  guys using? Are scores dependent more on operating methods or equipment?

  Call: UP4L
  Operator(s): UN7LZ
  Station: UN7LZ

  Class: SO CW HP
  QTH: KOSTANAY
  Operating Time (hrs): 24
  Summary:
   Band  CW Qs  Ph Qs  Mults
  ---------------------------
    160:    15     53     6
     80:   167    697    30
     40:   381   1688    48
     20:   733   3309    61
     15:   310   1422    39
     10:     8     32     3
  ---------------------------
  Total:  1614   7201   187  Total Score = 1,346,587

  Granted I operated a *few* less hours, was Low Power and working on a
  fan dipole 10-80 antenna up 25 feet at the apex, but even so, can
  working just 10 or so more hours, going high power with beams and a
  tower make *that* much difference in scoring??

  7&3 fer nw,
  Bob
  KE5CTY (old calls WB5ZQU - WY5L)
  10X# 37210
  FP#-1141
  http://www.qsl.net/ke5cty/
  Code may be taking a back seat for now, but the pioneering spirit that
  put the code there in the first place is out front of it all.




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