ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW - 2023
Call: N8II
Operator(s): N8II
Station: N8II
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: WV
Operating Time (hrs): 12:48
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 20
40: 288
20: 344
15: 77
10: 29
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Total: 758 Sections = 85 Total Score = 128,860
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
A different SS CW weekend for sure. This contest lacks a lot of fun factor for
me, more like a job that never ends. I felt tired going into the start; 5PM is a
terrible starting time for a domestic contest from the East Coast favoring
western operators. Around 02Z I started to drag so stopped push to operate
fatigued at 0230Z.
I didn't stay on 10 for long, only a few really loud signals there and I was
getting beaten in pile ups, thankfully found and worked KP2M 3 minutes after
start. 15 was better but not for running. After a quick dinner break the ship
righted on 20M and I was able to get and hold a run frequency in the most active
part of the band working 92 Q's in the 23Z hour and 99 in the 00Z hour.
Conditions were fabulous with loud signals as close as NC, KY, OH, and NY and
plenty of callers on backscatter as well. There was no need to go to 40 until
after a quick break at 0130Z. Skip on 40 was still quite short, very few
skipping over me.
Sunday got off to a good start for 2 hours on 40 with hourly rates of 62 and 68
starting 12Z, lots of casual ops. By 16Z, it was obvious that conditions were
disturbed and there was no prop to northern 7's and 0's on 15M. 10 was only open
to basically NM,AZ,CA at 17Z. NP3Y was found on 10M at 1808Z for PR after
hearing WP3R calling stations at least 3 times on 20M; later he called me on 40.
I still needed ND and TER for a sweep and was not liking my chances of finding
TER. After a long break including visit from my brother, I decided to sweep 15M
up the band. The first signal found not a dupe was N7IV in ND. Conditions had
noticeably improved sounding like a normal day with plenty of northern tier
stations. I S&P'ed and tried a couple of runs moving up the band. Just as I
thought I had worked what I could, VY1CO was found CQ'ing with no pile up around
21053 KHz. Thanks for the sweep! Later he was CQ'ing on 20 with no takers, both
times loud here. I had a good hour between running on 20 and 40 at 21Z with 57
Q's. After that it was slim pickings. Activity was very low on 80 Sunday until
0115Z (sunset is about 2205Z).
A few times I needed a fill and the op had already left the frequency! This was
especially bad with multi-op stations in too much of a hurry to get a
"TU". A few others I heard the sender fine but obviously mistyped, not
looking forward to log checking. One club call op in TN sent a check of 28,
obviously wrong for a N4 prefix, did not wait for my query.
There were many comments on 3830 about low activity Sunday, agreed. Perhaps it
is time for a major reformat of SS CW with less than 30 hours time. Thanks for
the QSO's, fun to have 20M in great shape along with some Es at times. FL was
loud on
20 and 15 for many hours with New England booming in well into Sunday evening on
20.
73, Jeff
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