[SCCC] W4EF CW Sprint

[Michael Tope]

           SPRINTCW Score Summary Sheet

       Start Date : 2009-09-13

    CallSign Used : W4EF
      Operator(s) : W4EF

Operator Category : SINGLE-OP
             Band : ALL
            Power : HIGH
             Mode : CW
 Default Exchange : 001 MIKE CA
       Gridsquare : DM04

        Club/Team : SCCC#1
         Software : N1MM Logger V9.5.1

        Band    QSOs    Pts  Sec
         3.5      69      69    2
           7      91      91   12
          14      77      77   30
       Total     237     237   44


            Score : 10,428
              Rig : Omni 6+ Drake L-7

         Antennas : 20/40/80M Inverted-V's at 35ft

Saturday morning I hung 40 meter and 80 meter inverted-V's off of 
separate feedlines via ropes and pulleys from the top of a 40' Rohn 
push-up mast at my place in Littlerock, Ca. The desert winds got pretty 
high by the time I was ready to extend it, so I could only get the 
push-up raised to 35' (fhe last 5' will have to wait for another day). I 
had intended to use a Cushcraft R7000 vertical on 20 meters, but I 
discovered it had high VSWR, so with 1 hour and 30 minutes to go before 
the contest I lowered the 40 meter inverted-vee and then measured out 
and soldered on parallel 20 meter dipole elements. I had been up since 
3:30 AM so it would have been nice to use the extra time for a 
pre-contest nap, but the thought of loading either the 40 meter or 80 
meters dipole through a tuner on 20 was just too depressing to 
contemplate. As it turned out using a matched dipole on 20 meters was 
hard enough - as it seemed like my brethren with yagis were out Qing me 
by about 2 to 1 during the 1st hour. On 40 and 80 meters I felt a little 
more competitive, but by hour four the missing sleep from the night 
before was really starting to show itself as busted sending. I've gotten 
a little better with N1MM in the Sprint, but I still occasionally found 
myself in Run mode when I wanted to be in S&P mode and vice versa 
especially toward the end when I was getting tired (my apologies for the 
resulting improper callsign sequences). Aside from the problem with the 
R7000 vertical and the aging Homo Sapien installed between the 
earphones, all the equipment worked flawlessly. The highlight of the 
contest was having KY7M call me in the last minute and give me #4 for 
the AZ multiplier. Great fun!

73, Mike W4EF.............