[SECC] NAQP CW NJ8J Single Op LP

[Ben Coleman]

~                    North American QSO Party, CW

Call: NJ8J
Operator(s): NJ8J
Station: NJ8J

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: GA
Operating Time (hrs): 10

Summary:
~ Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
~  160:           
~   80:   52    22
~   40:  113    42
~   20:   95    37
~   15:   14     8
~   10:    9     5
-------------------
Total:  283   114  Total Score = 32,262

Club: South East Contest Club

Team: SECC Team 2

Comments:

Transceiver: Alinco DX-77T
Antennas:   10,15: Antron A99
~            80-20: 100' Off-center fed dipole

I got to an hour twenty minute late start due to not getting logging
software ready ahead of time.  Normally, I use (Linux-based) TLF, but
it doesn't support NAQP.  No problem, I now have a P90 system running
DOS (normally used for games) at the shack desk in addition to the
Linux box, I'll just drag out my copy of NA and use it on the DOS box,
right?  Except I can only find my original disk, not the updates, I no
longer have an NA download account, and the NAQP rules have changed
some since the original.  I ended up downloading (the now free) CT and
sneakernetting it over to the DOS box.  Nothing like learning a new
logging problem unser fire.

Though planning for a possible part-time effort, I managed to put in
the full 10 hours, despite the late start.  This is, I believe, my
first full-time summer NAQP CW.  I also beat my best winter NAQP CW
score (though that was only a 7.5 hour effort).

Conditions definitely weren't up to letting a bedsprings-brigade level
station like mine run (I tried a couple of times, got a couple of
takers, but never could get a run going), so this is almost all
hunt-and-pounce.  I did make a tactical change for this outing - in
the past I've typically stayed on one band until I can find nothing
but dupes, and then move to another band.  During this contest I
changed this to making a sweep through one band and then making a
sweep through another band before coming back to the first.  The idea
is that for a hunt-and-pounce station time spent listening to a
station who turns out to be a dupe is unproductive time, so you'd like
to reduce that as much as possible.  If, after making a sweep of one
band, you go back to the bottom of that band, you're going to hear a
lot of stations you've just worked, as they're still sitting on their
frequencies running.  If you instead sweep another band, by the time
you come back it's more likely that stations will have come to the end
of a run, been crowded off of their run frequency, etc, so the
composition of the band should have changed enough to lessen the
chance of listening to dupes.

Ben