[CQ-Contest] SS Musings...

[Gerry Hull]

Wow, I still love SS after 30+ years...

..  I love CW.  You gotta have chops to work this contest.  Sure, DX
contests are fun for the propagation and strategy, but the CW part is
trivial...  you can't "fake it" in SS.  To me, SS is "PRO" amateur radio.
... Though not a plan,   W1UE and myself, W1VE, were both very in SS.  That
extra dit confused a lot of code readers and packet pileups!  Many times I
had to say "No, I'm NOT in your log" when S&P.  Also, my section changes
year to year.
... Activity was AWESOME.   Many KH6 and KL7; multiple QSOs in every
Canadian section except NT... foud VE8 Sunday morning on 20, begging.  79
sections by Saturday night.
... It's amazing how many memories flood my head when I hear familiar calls
in SS...  Thoughs of handling traffic 30 years ago on EAN while calling CQ..
... The low bands went long very early.  Eurpoeans would call me for hours
becuase I was so loud!   On 20m late Sunday morning, I was on 14004, running
the west coast.  After being there more than 40 minutes, some ON came on and
started calling CQ, endlessly for 15 minutes at a time, with little or no
pauses.   He was S5 on the back of the stack.   I turned the beam and asked
me what he was doing, and for what purpose?  He said "It's my CQ
frequency."   Go figure.
... 40 is always the production band from the east coast ... I could never
make great runs on 40 this time. Weird.
... It seems that many do not understand what PR? CK? SEC?  mean.   I asked
one guy, who was LOUD, but there was QRM, for his precidence, about 10
times.  When I finally sent P O W E R  A OR B? at 10 wpm,
    he got it.  Oh well, I should have sent AGN (then, maybe he would not
have got that, either).
... I'm still trying to manage external life so I can do the full 24.. Maybe
next year!

73 es thanks for another year of memories...

Gerry, W1VE  (AK4L back many years ago)