ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW
Call: N8II
Operator(s): N8II
Station: N8II
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: WV
Operating Time (hrs): 23
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 486
40: 225
20: 320
15: 90
10: 0
------------
Total: 1121 Sections = 79 Total Score = 177,118
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
As several have said it's the contest you love to hate. Making 1000 Q's
takes a lot of work; it's more like work fun a lot of the time, especially
on Sunday.
It was the usual slow start, but on 15 I found 3 rare mults including
NP2B (my NR 3), WP3R, and poaching/moving KH6RZ. I should have moved to
20 sooner than 2150, I ran at a decent rate on 20 for about 90 minutes
until skip lengthened past the 5's/0's. Rates were in the 60's until 01Z.
Activity at 2340Z on 40 didn't seem that great and few CQ's were
answered. I quickly moved to 80 at 0015 and during the 01Z hour, I had
my best hour of a whopping 74, 02Z was 73, 04Z was 73, and 05Z was 70
all on 3535 kHz, it was a nice spot to hold and I felt plenty loud enough
out to about as far as W0 land. A decent number of 6'/7's were worked but
rather weak. W7GG/QRP was one of the loudest! The QRN level was very low
Saturday and low Sunday evening.
Saturday morning went pretty well on 40 with some steady strings of
callers interspersed with 3-5 unanswered CQ's. The 14Z hour was my best
of the day with 65 Q's. About 15Z, the activity dried up and I was
forced to focus on 20/15. 20 seemed to be a real grind all day with very
few CQ's being answered. 15 never opened to much of a wide area at once; the
West Coast was loud early, then when NM and STX started rolling thru, the West
Coast was weak. Finally the doldrums broke from 2130-2230Z when I ran 57
stations including 3 from Ak and lots of weak backscatter callers.
Rates were down into the teens during partial hours at 00 and 01Z,
finishing out the test on 80 with 30 Q's between 02z and 0245Z. Most rates
were in the 30's Sunday afternoon, but it seemed I was working awfully
hard to scrape up those I hadn't worked yet mainly in S&P mode.
As for the mults, I had 76 sections logged when I stopped for the night
about 0615Z, needing WY,AB,MB, and NT. WY was pretty easy as KO7X was an
early riser on 3556 or so where I left the VFO from the night before for
my first Q on Sunday! VE6 found me on 20 early which left MB and NT. I
spent some time sweeping 20 and CQ'ing with the beam cocked north
farther than normal at about 290-300 degrees hoping to find them, but I
found neither all day S&P'ing. During the good 20M run at about 2232,
VE3XBI/4 called or I would have missed 2 sections. I never heard a peep
out of the VY1's. There is some luck involved; I don't think I'd have
done much of anything differently given a 2nd chance.
All in all, not a bad effort for SO1R with no 40M beam except for a wire
one to the NE which wasn't used much. Between myself N4ZR, K3WA, and WA8WV
we probably made over 4K QSO's, so WV was pretty well represented. There
weren't quite as many WV calls in my log as usual though. PVRC activity
was up, thank goodness. There were an annoying number of SCV, SV, SJV, EB,
and SF's from NCCC, but thanks the Q's anyway. I decided to run HP to
maximize the club score; don't expect me to put myself thru this again
soon; I was pretty tired after 23Z Sunday. Actual time on air was about
20.6 hours, official hours about 23. It's harder than the CQWW!
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.hornucopia.com/3830score/
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