[SCCC] ARRL CW Sweepstakes Strategy

[Leigh S. Jones, KR6X]

As in all of contesting's events, your strategy must include the assumption 
that your observations, your experience, and your intellect will dictate 
changes in your operating.  Some will simply call this flexibility.  Having 
never used your station in a contest, an outsider, even a top contester, may 
not know enough about its readiness to tell you how to operate.

There are a few simple facts to be observed.  Number one is that the 
majority of your contacts will be with stations about two thousand miles or 
farther away, in a generally Eastern direction.   Your beam headings must be 
perhaps a couple tens of degrees to the North of East for most of these 
contacts.  About a third of the population of the country is two F2-layer 
hops away, with a beam heading of 70 degrees +/- 5 degrees and an angle of 
radiation predominantly about 12 degrees above the horizon, with another 
third of the country being one hop away -- lower radiation angles -- and a 
wider range of headings. We are coming into a period where band conditions 
might dictate that 10 and 15 are the "money bands" from California for most 
of the contest period.  You should expect that contacts will be extremely 
hard to come by for the six hours from 0800Z to 1400Z because during this 
time everyone sleeps, and the moving sunrise blocks propagation rather 
effectively.  Because of this, putting in a full 24 hours is rather 
dependent on putting your full 24 hours from 2100Z to 0800Z Saturday and 
from 1400Z to 0300Z Sunday.  I personally have tended to push the bedtime 
hours back to the period of 0900Z to 1400Z due to a possibly flawed belief 
that I need to save a couple breaks for Sunday.  It can mean a lot in the 
event that a solar flare occurs, or if there is a power outage on Sunday, 
and this kind of thing (in a broader sense) has occurred on about a third of 
my own contest weekends -- very close to 80 Sweepstakes contests, counting 
both phone and CW, by now.

First step, find the current sunspot number a few days before the contest 
and use it to decide whether you should be serious about starting on 10M at 
2100Z Saturday.  Then, regardless of your decision, listen on 10M before the 
contest begins.  If you hear loud stations from call areas 1 and 2, then you 
MUST start on 10.  If you hear a lot of loud signals from the Midwest on 10, 
you should probably start on 10.  Then proceed down to lower bands when you 
think band conditions have taken a serious turn for the worst.

Note that many good operators, myself included, will not strictly follow 
these rules.  I make band changes MUCH more frequently.  Once you've learned 
just when to make fast band changes to determine where you should be 
operating, you will have a distinct advantage over your inexperienced self.

Knowing the sunspot number means that you can use a propagation tool such as 
ITSHFBC "ICEAREA" to gain an understanding of propagation that will aid you 
in making band changes, but on-the-air observations trump propagation 
software.  You can begin to compare the expected ITSHFBC propagation for a 
given sunspot number and assign a more accurate "band conditions" sunspot 
number to use if you've got enough experience doing this.

Try to get as much use out of 20M as you possibly can on Saturday evening. 
Don't make the change to 40 earlier than you must.  Expect disappointment 
with 40.  Be prepared to go back to 20M and milk it for everything you can 
get out of it until it is dead, dead, dead, and then go back and try again 
every half an our or less.  In a multioperator situation, try to have the 
ability to listen on 20 while operators have at it on 40.

The Sweepstakes becomes a "saturation" contest on Sunday.  You'll hear a lot 
of stations you've already worked, but few that you haven't.  Your success 
Sunday can be improved slightly if you can work a different pool of 
operators Saturday than Sunday.  To do this, you pay attention to the 
distance and beam headings for stations you've succeeded in working.  If you 
succeed in operating effectively later than 0800Z, on 80/75M you will be 
working more relatively local stations than you would on 10M on Sunday. 
This leaves stations available for contacts Sunday.  If you spend too many 
hours working the Midwest one-hop on higher bands Saturday, then you'll need 
to work more from W1-W2-W3 on two hops Sunday -- this 1-2-3 pool of 
operators is harder to work effectively if you're on 10M and the propagation 
is only good to W8-W9-W4.  At the same time, be aware that a large number of 
operators on 10M seem to come from a separate pool of operators than those 
on the other bands.  This is especially true on phone.  You've got to work 
10M and get that separate pool covered.  But you've got to work 20 to get 
those 1-2-3's.  You've got to work 80/75M to get Californians -- you can't 
just work 40 all night.  You've got to make frequent band changes to bounce 
between one pool of contacts and the other, and contact them all as 
optimally as you can.

Sunday, things will slow down horribly.  It is depressing -- lots of 
operators stop having fun and drop out, so things just get worse over time. 
But the problems are all the worse if you don't spread the contacts out over 
the country.  Sometimes, this means pointing the 20M beam to the North and 
working what you hear.  If you don't, you'll probably miss a lot of 
multipliers.  Be sure to get VE4, VE8/VY8, KL7, etc., Saturday night on 20M 
by pointing the beam North.  Get KP4 and KV4 stuff on Sunday morning at 
1400Z or so on 15M or perhaps even 10M if 15M is too active already.  Get 
KH6 on 15 about 2300Z -- point the beam there and they will pop up loudly. 
You have to take the risk that it will be a waste of time -- one multiplier 
could be worth something like 12 to 18 QSO's to a competitive single 
operator.  But know that when you turn the beam North you'll be working a 
new pool of contacts, and even slowing down a touch to do that can be 
worthwhile if you do it early in the contest.  Also, you're potentially 
working a pool of operators who rarely do hunt-and-pounce operating whenever 
you do hunt-and-pounce operating yourself, and working a pool of operators 
who rarely call CQ whenever you call CQ yourself.

So you have to mix it up, balance your operation, bounce band to band, call 
stations, call CQ, zip your beam around, chase multipliers, float like a 
butterfly, sting like a bee.  And whenever you find something that is really 
working for you, you have to pound on it hard and efficiently, because it 
will be gone soon enough.  If something isn't working for you, don't do it. 
This includes trying to do too much -- so don't drop something that is 
really working for you.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Timothy Coker" <n6win73 at gmail.com>
To: "SCCC" <sccc at contesting.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2011 7:04 PM
Subject: [SCCC] ARRL CW Sweepstakes Strategy


> Hi all, I'm hosting a couple of local SCCC members at my place for the Nov
> ARRL CW Sweepstakes. That being said, while I build up some hardware, I
> realized that I have not ever been serious about a Sweepstakes. I'd like 
> to
> ask fellow SCCC members about operating strategy from this geographic 
> area.
>
> It appears that 40 and 20 are the money bands, but that operators make
> excursions to other bands also. Is this because people get crowded out on
> the money bands, or the rate got low and a band change felt like the thing
> to do?
>
> What are the common off times that people find useful?
>
> How long does it take to receive your mug?
>
> Any advice about operating strategy would be appreciated whether Single Op
> or from your past Multi-Single events.
>
> 73,
>
> Tim / N6WIN.
> _______________________________________________
> SCCC mailing list
> SCCC at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/sccc
>