One again I took to the road for CW SS. I did only 5 stops this year vs. the
six in previous years, as K8RM has moved into a new house in a no-antenna
development. I was also a bit less psyched up than in previous years, so I
got a bit more sleep and a bit less operating time.
Anyway, the results:
N8TR AC8E K8MR W8AJ K8AZ Overall
80 1 109 0 0 7 117
40 198 201 0 40 188 627
20 57 28 311 171 124 691
15 46 0 23 51 49 169
10 23 0 24 20 0 67
Total 325 338 358 282 368 1671
Mults 73 73 70 69 70 80
Score 47450 49348 50120 38916 51510 237,354
Time 5:00 4:31 4:29 3:51 4:22 22:13
Operator: K8MR
Missed: WMA AR NNY NNY VT
SJV NM DE DE NNY
EWA SB SC MS DE
NL ND AR SJV SC
MAR NL MS WY PAC
QC AB EWA AK AK
VI YT MAR WV SD
QC NL MAR
MB MAR MB
YT MB YT
YT
Club: Mad River Radio Club
This year in Ohio I found there were no meters like 20 meters. There was much
short skip, and most of the time the rest of the country as well. Signals
from W9 were booming, which with all the (I assume) SMC generated activity
made for fun.
The worst equipment failure was before the contest: I stopped at the local
McDonalds on the way to N8TR, and found their shake machine was broken, so I
left empty handed (and stomached).
The worst operator failure was at W8AJ's. Alan and his family were at
parent's weekend at Indiana University, so he had given me keys to get in the
house and instructions on how to turn off the security system. Unfortunately
I screwed up on #2, thereby setting off the alarm. I was able to shut if
off, but 15 minutes later there were two police officers in the hamshack
wondering what I was up to. Fortunately my drivers license, the set of house
keys, and my explanation was enough for them to leave and me to stay there.
The second biggest problem was at K8AZ. I use NA at the other places, but at
AZ it would have required some work to get NA going, so we stuck with the
usual CT. I thought I noticed a few funny sounding outgoing numbers before I
realized the CT quirk that the qso number does not increment if there is
nothing in the callsign field. Therefore when I picked a call from the
pileup at the last instant, sent it manually, and then punched F2 to send the
exchange, it sent the previous qso's number. Why CT does this makes no sense
to me, but I eventually got into the habit (if I had not typed the call) of
hitting any random key(s) before sending an exchange. Do the log checkers
give any mercy for errors of +/- one in the qso number? (I understand that
they do in the Sprints.)
The third error, resulting in the stangest qso, was at N8TR. Somehow in
changing back after a second-radio qso, I also changed bands from 40 to 80. I
didn't notice this until after I had worked someone on 80 with everything
tuned up for 40.
It was another good weekend of contesting, and my annual effort to cure the
Sunday afternoon SS blues, certainly for myself and in some small way for
everyone else. If only some of the others complaining would take up this
SOMS approach.
And thanks again to all my hosts, most who had to spend some significant time
reconfiguring their hamshacks for my once a year visit.
73 - Jim K8MR
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