[CQ-Contest] Sweepstakes

[Zack Widup]

Although I fit in with the "speed demons" I generally tried to answer
others' CQ's at the same speed they were sending. My rig has a built-in
keyer with a knob on the front for adjustment of keying speed. I have it
down to where I know exactly where to set the knob without even thinking
abut it.

I didn't try to run in this contest but when I do, I figure something in
the vicinity of 25 wpm is a good speed to use. If someone responds to me at
a speed very much different than that, either faster or slower, I'll adjust
to his speed. I did work a few stations who were going about 15 wpm in SS
this year.

73, Zack W9SZ


On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Scott Monks <scottmonks at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> Zack (w9sz)
> I had a limited amount of time for this one so I only made 163 QSO's but of
> those, every station I worked sent his callsign in the exchange at the
> proper point.
> I followed the same routine throughout: (Call of station worked) TU (serial
> #) (prec) (MY CALL) (ck) (sec)



> Well, I think you were pretty lucky!  I invested about 10 hours in this
> (my first SS) and didn't make a single contact!!
>
> My cw speed is about 20wpm in a normal QSO, but with this style of
> exchange my speed goes down to about 13wpm because of the numbers.  I
> figured that I would go to the novice/tech section of the CW bands and work
> some slower stations there and just enjoy myself, also figuring that the
> high-speed cw people would hang out in the other areas, or at least give
> some room to us slower ones.
>
> Was I stupid or what!?  Those portions of the band were wall-to-wall speed
> mills who wouldn't even take my slower calls!  I would camp on one, copying
> over and over until I had them down pat and know that their next serial
> would be s I wouldn't mess it up, but no one would ever come back to my
> calls!  I didn't hear a single person calling or answering at less than at
> least 25+wpm except for one person who tried to finish sending his info and
> a speedster just jumped right in on top of his exchange and began calling
> the other station--I don't know if the slower station got his exchange or
> not.  Finally I just gave up and went to the top of the band and did some
> cw ragchewing.
>
> However, on the other topic, I did a LOT of copying during my 10 hrs. and
> only heard stations giving their calls in EVERY exchange, although I might
> have been listening to different operators.  I also heard the K7.. station
> calling and calling and not answering anyone, and he was not the only one!
>
> Oh, well, on to the next contest--I have started practicing cw at 30wpm
> now to get my receiving speed up although maybe even that isn't fast enough
> for those speed-demons!
>
> 73
>
> Scott  AA0AA
>
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