ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW - 2020
Call: WW2Y
Operator(s): WW2Y
Station: WW2Y
Class: Single Op HP
QTH: NNY
Operating Time (hrs): 19
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 316
40: 251
20: 281
15: 9
10:
------------
Total: 857 Sections = 83 Total Score = 142,262
Club:
Comments:
Thank you for the contacts. On Thursday afternoon, I began the 6.5 hour journey
northward from central New Jersey to Malone, NY, where I met my brother, John
and his dog Finnegan, a four year old Labrador retriever. Eventually, this would
be her first camping trip. They have already arrived in the area traveling from
New Hampshire earlier in the day. We stayed at a hotel for the night.
Early Friday morning, in separate cars loaded with camping and radio gear we
went to several local shops to purchase last minute items, such as gasoline for
the generator and filled two small gas cans, fire ring, ice, food, canine
treats, and Saranac Winter Brew beer. Then we headed roughly 25 minutes south to
our site in the norther Adirondacks to set up camp on a plateau placed on top of
a ridge. It’s the same location where I operated the CQWW VHF Contest during
July of this year. Four inches of snow had accumulated earlier in the week has
completely melted away due to unseasonably warm weather that began on Wednesday.
This location has fantastic sweeping views of the Salmon River valley that drops
off sharply several hundred feet below for at least 6 miles and multiple peaks
rising high in the distance southward from northeast through northwest. We
understand Salmon River is loaded with native Brook Trout as well as Rainbow
Trout. John and I eventually want to fly fish this waterway. I’m certain that
Finney would have a grand time exploring unfamiliar scents and chasing abundant
wildlife in the area, such as grouse and squirrels, etc. (We recall she flushed
out at least four grouse during our stay.)
I used a pneumatic tennis ball antenna launcher to shoot ropes over tall pine
trees to suspend three dipoles ranging from 50 to 80ft in height while John was
cutting up dead a tree with a chainsaw. He then gathered and split firewood
while playing with Finney with a deflated soccer ball. Suddenly and excitedly,
Finney discovered the utility of the tennis ball launcher for chasing and
retrieving plain tennis balls being hurled at great distances. She had a blast,
no pun intended.
Shortly afterwards, John and Finney hiked down the steep slope from the edge of
the clearing and through the dense forest below to the Salmon River. Finney
careened herself into the chilly water to cool off. I began to set up the
station inside the larger tent consisting a Yaesu FT-991 transceiver, Nye Viking
MB-V-A tuner, laptop running Wintest, and Acom 1000 amplifier. All powered by a
reliable Honda EU-2200i portable generator. Most of the equipment was
operational and tested by 4pm.
We set up the campfire using a fire ring in the middle of the clearing to watch
the sunset while having a cold one for a drink. Then we ate dinner and admired
the milky-way that spanned overhead. This location is void of light pollution
and I can’t wait to bring my 10” reflector telescope with wide field eye
pieces. By 10pm, all of us hunkered down for the night. At about 3am, I was
awakened by Finney’s deep sounding barks. Obviously, she heard something
interesting and wanted to go out to investigate. A pack of coyotes started to
yip and their howls echoed loudly through the dense woods. This continued for
several minutes. I thought to myself, how cool is that? (We heard them doing
their nocturnal ritual every night during our stay. In July, I heard a
Whippoorwill every night.)
We woke up early to watch the sunrise and had scrambled eggs for breakfast that
John whipped up over a Coleman stove. I made coffee and we sat out in the
clearing in awe of the view. By 7:15am, all three of us decided to go for an
hour long hike around the area through several logging trails that traversed up
and down small hills for roughly 1.5 miles.
When we returned, I wanted to check out the laptop being hooked up to the radio
to see if I had any RF issues while running a KW on 40m. Sure enough, there was
a problem with the USB port causing the radio to lock up while in transmit mode.
I solved the problem by placing few turns of the USB cable on a ferrite core.
40m is notoriously problematic for some reason and it was anticipated ahead of
time. I played in the Ukrainian DX Contest on 20m CW for a while to hand out
points and get a feel how the antennas are playing. Conditions appeared to be
decent and signals from Eastern Europe were strong.
At about 2pm, John and Finney ventured out to the Deer River Flow to hike around
and take pictures, which is about 20 minutes away from our site. I hung around
to tidy up the place and get organized for the start of the CW Sweepstakes.
At the start, I was on 20m running stations trying to get most western sections
logged before the band closes. The rate was steady, but nothing to rave about.
When I went to 40m, the band conditions seemed long, even it's early in the
evening. Signals sounded mushy and hollow, knowing it would be slog. I took a
break and had dinner with John and Finney by the fire. I couldn’t resist
having a beer that has an alcohol content of 7.5%, which it has a strong kick!
When I returned to operate, I went to 80m to run and productively stayed there
until about 10:30pm. By this time the temperature is now in the 40s, I became
sleepy and went outside to shut off the generator and climbed inside the mummy
bag to crash.
I woke up at twilight to operate more on 80m for about an hour before taking a
break for breakfast just after sunrise. 40m was in fine shape and spent a few
hours there before heading for 20m by 11:00am.
In the middle of Sunday afternoon, I needed four multipliers for a sweep. They
were KH6, KL7, NT, and ONN. I occasionally tried to run and tune on 15m hoping
to snag any of the western multipliers that might have been on. I finally tune
across a sizeable pileup, which turned out to be for KL7SB. I started to call
him and after a few minutes go by without hearing me, I had realized that I was
competing with larger stations. Also, I didn’t want to fall into a time trap.
At about 19:40z on 20m, I found Roger, VE3ZI from ONN while tuning the band. It
only took several calls before he heard me, even though we were relatively close
to each other in terms of distance. Shortly afterwards, I checked 15m again to
find a KH6, but the band appeared to be closed. I switched back and forth
between 40m and 20m to run. It’s now past sunset. I tried a mixture of
running and tuning 20m hoping to find KL7SB again. While tuning high up the
band, I heard someone send AK at the end of the exchange, which turned out to be
AL1G, who had a decent signal. He didn’t have many callers and I was confident
he would eventually answer my call. He came back to me a few contacts later and
now it’s in the log.
I took another short break to have dinner with John and Finney by the fire pit.
The sky appeared to be very clear and stars filled the field of view more than
previous nights. Also, it felt quite cooler too. When finished with dinner, I
tuned 20m again and eventually ran across KH6TU with few callers. He was easily
worked and I went down a few KCs to call CQ in hopes of getting the last
multiplier, VY1/VE8. George, W2VJN calls me from Oregon for a contact and to say
hello. He questioned himself what he heard in my exchange. He asked for my
section again and he replied “Wow.” Later on, I moved to 40m and 80m to
finish the contest at about 0215z. I was very pleased with the result, even
though I never heard a VY1 or a VE8. It was nice to work WZ2T and KB1EFS/2 in
NNY. Thanks guys! During 2016, I was in NNY operating from a different
location and didn’t work my section.
We woke up early to tear everything down and headed for home at 11:00am. This
adventure was worth the effort and we all had a great time.
73,
Peter
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