My first SS was the 1958 SS at age 14. I did work some CW traffic nets 4RN
and RN5) but found that I was too slow on CW. In 1958 I had to throw a
toggle switch which was painful on either CW or AM phone. Shelton Morgan
W5DQK had won the Mississippi section the past two years while placing in
the top 3 or 5 scores. In those days the SS was 40 hours out of 73 over two
weekends and as John (K4BAI) mentioned
you had to pick CW or Phone. The real trick was to pick the right 40
hours. Being a newcomer I worked 19 hours the first weekend and ended up
with 400 QSO's after dups. W5DQK worked 24 hours and had 520 QSO's (most
stations worked 22 to 25 hours the first weekend as the second weekend was
usually slower). I did not know any better so I jumped in and worked fast
and furious the second weekend and finished up with 921 Q's to 777 for
W5DQK. Place third on Phone.
I found that the W6 contenders would jump out fast the first few hours while
in W5 we would creep along and pass the 6's by late the second weekend. But
we had to careful as they could finish with a strong last few hours. In
1962 K6EVR and I dueled to the end and he finished with a strong last hour
(of 40( to beat me by 13 QSOs. I turned the tables on him the next year.
In those days the winners had to run 150 watts input or less. There was a
multiplier of 1.5 on Phone and 1.25 on CW (for QSO points).
All of the section winners were listed with the gear they used. I sure miss
that. I used to borrow a pair of 4-125A's from W5GRP (he finally gave me
one) and I replaced the 4-400A with a 4-125 in the final and carefully set
the auto transformer so that I did only hit 150 watts on peaks (I think we
set the final voltage to 1400V from 3000 and I ran 100ma on the big Triplett
meter. I had the club secretary certify that I ran
150 watts or less at all times. I heard rumors that several of the
contestants ran higher power and still claimed 150 watts. The ARRL Division
director visited me in 1959 to make a further check. That year several of
the high scorers failed to turn in logs on both modes. Guess ARRL was
concerned...This was the same year that FCC checked several prominent
stations during the CQ WW and eliminated a whole layer for overpower (of 1
Kw input).
But as John mentioned the exchange was a bear in those days. You had to
log both signal reports, sections, QSO number, power level,
check, both dates/times....A logging program would have run out of room!
ARRL intended for the exchange to be a message preamble
as most contesters (and SS entrants) were traffic handlers. They cut the
exchange down in 1963 and using mostly SSB (with VOX) I showed that 1000
QSO's in 24 hours was possible. Until then Phone played second fiddle to
CW...as John said AM was a chore!!!! I did get on with my Yaesu barefoot
several years ago and work 102 stations in one hours just to stay sharp.
I do remember the Georgia phone winner during that time was W4FGH (Augusta
or Savannah) and he worked only 40 meters. I have QSLs from K4BAI, K4TEA,
W4BFR, W4MCM (W4HR now), and W4YWX (now N4PN) from those early (for me)
years. I remember several gave me checks before 1920. W9NN is the only one
left from that crowd. W9IOP was early to mid 30's as was W4KFC.
73 Dave K4JRB (retired from the SS after 1963)
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