ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB
Call: K8BL
Operator(s): K8BL
Station: K8BL
Class: SO Unlimited LP
QTH: OH
Operating Time (hrs): 22
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 306
40: 271
20: 107
15: 263
10: 79
------------
Total: 1026 Sections = 83 Total Score = 170,316
Club: North Coast Contesters
Comments:
Happiness is having the XYL go out of town for SS!! No distractions, no TVI
complaints, phone goes off-hook & no calls - Nirvana!!!
Happiness is also working VO1, VE8, KP4 & KP2 in the FIRST HOUR! (...and 5
WY's)
Last five Sections for the Sweep were: ORG, WV, QC, VT and finally AK. Had all
but AK before 11 PM and had to wait until 3:30 Sunday to work it. I heard at
least 5 AK's on Saturday, but they were very weak and had big pileups from
the Western States, so I figured they'd be easy on Sunday.
All the Bands were in great shape with little QRN and activity was very good
all the way up to the end. It was tough to find a spot to run since there were
so many very broad signals that overlapped. Some of these folks should see
their signals on a BandScope!!
A big problem for me operating Unlimited is seeing something show up on the
Cluster that I just HAVE to work that takes me away from the Contest. First,
I saw HV0A spotted on 40 SSB which I needed and went off to work. Later, it
was SV2ASP/A on 10M RTTY which I needed for both Band AND Mode!! After an hour
of trying, I gave up and went back to SS - PHOOEY!!
Gripe Section:
- Guys that are having a roundtable QSO every day/night on the same frequency
and leave looooong pauses in their discussions making it appear the
frequency
is vacant. You ask if the frequency is in use and nobody responds. Then, you
start calling CQ Contest and 5 guys jump down your throat!!! I think they do
it on purpose to get their jollies.
- Folks that use Cardinal Numbers when giving you their Exchange instead of
Integers, such as fifty-nine instead of five-nine. It gets confusing and
difficult in marginal conditions or when people have accents or poor audio.
I don't know how many times I had to ask for a repeat when somebody said
fifty-nine and it was actually sixty-nine, or with several other
combinations.
And, a hundred-seventy sounds very similar to a hundred seventeen. But, the
number one-seven-zero sounds NOTHING like one-one-seven. Think about
starting
to type "a hundred-sev..." and it turns out to be
"one-one-seven". It seems
trivial now, but experiencing it hundreds of times in a Contest can become
very irritating.
These things have persisted for years and are unlikely to change. They have
always been part of the challenge of Contesting and that is why we LOVE it!
Posted using 3830 Score Submittal Forms at: http://www.3830scores.com/
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