[CQ-Contest] First Stew Perry! Squee!

[Neil Martinsen-Burrell]

[Excuse the sleep-deprived crowings of a wet-behind-the-ears peanut
whistle. You august big guns can probably skip this one.]

After adding some wire extensions to my 80m two radial, inverted-L to turn
it into a 160m two radial, inverted-L during yesterday's stupendous weather
here in Iowa, I jumped on the Spring Stew Perry for the first time at
around 0400Z. I am fairly new to CW and even newer to CW contesting.

I programmed the memories on my K2/100 with my call and exchange (no rig
interface here) and started working my way down the band from 1.850. I
called to everyone I could hear and worked them all (except N6KR who was
loud but didn't hear me). I found that I could mostly decipher even the
fast exchanges by pre-listening before I called.

I almost turned in for the night, figuring that my compromise antenna and
lack of dedicated receiving antennas meant that I had done all I could. But
then I remembered something that John K4BAI had said in a kind email after
one of the slow speed CWTs. He told me that I shouldn't be afraid to run at
my own slow speed (usually 18wpm these days). So, I headed way up the band
to 1.840 and programmed a memory for "CQ N0FN SP" and started calling.

The recent discussion of running for small stations made me realize that
calling with no response for 10 minutes wasn't unreasonable, so I committed
to that even if no one answered. Looking at the contacts already in the
log, I also saw that I had spent ten minutes without a contact just trying
to decipher a weird pile up with my weak CW skills.

Then I had the most fun I've ever had on the radio! I worked 39 stations in
the next hour, my personal best one hour total ever. Since I was the one
calling CQ and since band conditions on 160 are so inconsistent, I didn't
feel bad at all sending "?" if I only copied the first two characters in a
call sign (which is very common for me). Then, because I was in control of
the QSO, it was easy to ask for repeats on the returned exchange. Hurray
for an exchange that is more interesting than 594 yet still easy to send
with a paddle!

Everyone was extremely patient and polite, slowing down to my slow speed,
patiently repeating, dealing with my poor sending as the night went on, and
calling with great manners. I got to work some of my idols from the ham
email lists: John K4BAI, Jim K9YC, Zac W1VT, Nick WA5BDU, and many others
I'll come to know eventually.

I went to bed with 101 in the log in 4 hours of operating, and got 6 more
this morning when the cat was kind enough to wake me up at 1200Z before the
baby woke up. Needless to say, this is my best ever total in a CW contest.

Much thanks is due to CWOps for their great CW Academy with Bill K5LN
teaching, Mike KM9R who gave me a sweetheart deal on the K2 so I could keep
improving, Jim K9YC for his work on when to choose low, elevated verticals
instead of low dipoles, John K4BAI for his suggestion to try running even
if my code speed is slow, N6TR for a contest logger that is simple enough
for me and lightweight enough for my secondhand Linux box, and everyone
else who made last night such fun.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and thanks for playing this
great game!

-Neil N0FN
Decorah, Iowa EN43