[SECC] KA9EKJ NAQP CW

[Hoeft, Roger V]

As my experience in this facet of the hobby grows, I've come to believe that adequate physical AND mental preparation can add significantly to the final score.  Case in point:  Greg, K4NO had been trying to pump me up and set a goal of 100K points for the event.  THis seemed like a huge stretch for me, not remembering what my numbers were from last year.  I himmed and hawed at the suggestion and thought that I could set a goal of 400 Qs.  

Saturday rolled around, I got the antennas set FB was getting ready to go.  30 minutes before the start, 3rd harmonic asks if I could put some gadget on his new bike.  A quick look at the watch, another quick look,  "uh, sure son, this shouldn't take THAT long."  Well, at 1758 I hustled into the shack, fired up the rig and laptop, and dialed in the 10M 'meet me' frequency Greg and I set up.  By 1703 I was ready to go.  

No K4NO.  I thought I missed him (in fact, I didn't work Greg at all).  Turns out the skip was way long.  OK, time to start plugging away.  At 1825 I decided to check WWV and make sure the logger clock was set OK.  WWV said 1826, the logger said 1726 - I forgot to reset the laptop clock.  Oops.  In hind sight I should have taken that first half-hour off and re-collected myself and my thoughts and attacked at 1830.

Well, the numbers are like this:

Band	Qs	Mults
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
160	67	28
80	100	34
40	144	42
20	98	36
15	31	14
10	12	9
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
	452	163	73,676 points

For some reason I thought I had 350 or so Qs last year and 400 would be a good number to shoot for.  Turns out I had 403 Qs last year and I was setting myself up short of a realistic, stretch goal.  Like most everyone else this is a personal best as well, but I feel like I left a bunch of Qs on the table and this leaves me somewhat empty.  

Oh, well.  Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

73
	Roger ...
	KA9EKJ