Hi Archie:
There was talk about closing the Thomasville Federal Courthouse, but
Judge Sands, who sits in Albany and is now our Chief Judge for the
Middle District was opposed to it, and I think it is being used more
than ever now. In fact, both District Judge Land and I will be there at
the same time this week. He will have pretrial conferences in chambers
and I will use the courtroom for hearings and use a jury room as a place
to stay instead of chambers when the hearings are not in session.
You should excel at SS CW. The format was intended to be the same as a
standard ARRL message.
When I first started SS (my first one was in 1955), the exchange was
like this:
#1 R K4BAI 54 GA 2100Z Nov 2. Later, the R was replaced by the current
(and more informative) A, B, Q, M, etc letters and the time and date
were dropped.
The date was originally the current date and was later changed to the
date of your birthday, and I sent MAR 27 a lot.
So, what is left is a shortened version of the standard heading for an
ARRL message. Number, precedence by letter, call of originating
station, check (year), and place of origin.
The main thing is to find a frequency and CQ if you get answers. If you
don't get many answers, then you S&P. The number of QSOs affects the
score more than the sections. It is always fun to work all sections and
I'd not pass up a rare one early on (like VY1/VE8 or NF
(Newfoundland/Labrador), Virgin Islands, etc, as long as it seems likely
that you can get through in some reasonable time. But most everyone
will get within two or three of all the sections if they make a lot of
QSOs and the big difference is the number of QSOs. WP3R in Puerto Rico
operated by KE3Q will be one of the really big scores, so I'd not wait
too long for him early on in the contest. But, if you hear a loud VY1JA
or some other VY1 or VY0 or VE8 or even a KL7 early in the contest, it
might be worth a short wait to get through to them while propagation
permits. KH6 is usually easy, but you never know for sure. Some years
some sections like VE2, VE4, SD, or ND, or Nebraska, or Mississippi may
be hard to find. Eastern NY can be rare. But, most of them will come to
you if you can find a CQ run frequency.
It has been our experience that running from GA is very difficult on the
high bands, 10 and 20, particularly on CW. Most of the running on those
bands is done by the West Coast and off shore guys plus maybe a few guys
with really big stations who are really confident on those bands (K4WI
for example). So, those bands are mostly S&P for us here (and that is
also my experience so far from W4AN). The CQ/run bands are generally 20
and 40 and sometimes 80 if the band is quiet and the high bands go long
early. The exception to running on 10 and 15 is if we get some e-skip
(short skip) to the north/northeast. If that happens, as it does
sometimes, it is possible to run from GA on those bands even on CW.
You might want to consider running your amp and doing high power. There
you will lose the full QSK that you can have using low power since the
AL80A is not QSK without mod or an external switch. But, you will get
more answers to your CQs and it will in part make up for your lack of
aluminum. Is it time to check out your neighbors' sense of tolerance
for one weekend? If not, still try the CQ thing from time to time. You
may find it easier to do so high in the band or low in the bands with
Extra class segments. I don't even listen down there except in the
multi op situations, but I find in FD that it is often possible to get a
CQ frequency down there with 100 watts that works pretty well.
Don't hesitate to ask for repeats if you aren't sure about something.
There is still a penalty for calls "not in the log" and you will lose
credit for the QSO if you get some of the info wrong.
I don't know what Writelog does for SS, but, NA (and CT, I think) used
to have a "default" for the precedence of "A," since more guys are low
power than any other precedence. I found one year that most of my
errors were where I left the default "A" in and failed to change it to
"B" or "Q" or whatever. The problem is that you don't realize that you
didn't copy the "A." If you are having trouble getting a message
logged, you may finally think that you got it all OK, but you have never
heard the "A" that the computer program put in as a default. So, later
versions of NA have no default in them. This change was suggested by me
and W4AN got K8CC to make the change. So, if your Writelog program has
a default precedence in it, you might see if it is optional and remove
it or just be very careful that you know that the other guy actually
sent the "A."
It helps to become familiar with the ARRL section abbreviations.
Probably some of them will be familiar from the old CD Parties. But
there are some new sections since then, such a WTX, ENY, WCF (West
Central FL), VI (used to be with PR as a part of WI (west indies)), the
VE1/9 and VO1/2 and VY2 sections used to be all MAR, etc. A few minutes
studying the current section list will be helpful. This is particularly
so on SSB where a lot of casual ops will need help in determining what
their section is. This is particularly true in California, where many
guys (even ARRL members) may not remember what their section is.
Sometimes they will give their Division instead or just Southern
California. It really helps on phone for a run station to have
familiarity with Calif (and Fla etc) sections. I have the impression
some guys even have a data base with county names in it to help the
casual guys get their section right. That is not much of a worry on CW
since, basically, there are no casual CW ops in CW SS. And, if there
are a few, the chance that you may be their first attempt at a QSO is
not very great.
As we discussed before, I'd listen to the bands for a few hours before
the contest starts and try to get a feeling as to what they are doing
and what might work best for you. Since you can only work a guy once in
the whole contest, it matters little what band you work him on. But,
you will not work many VE8, VY1, KL7, and KH6 stations on 80 and 40.
And you will not work many Southeastern US stations on 10, 15, and 20.
So, you will want to work all bands when they are best for your rate and
trying to maximize the chances that you will get all sections in the log
by the end. If 10 and 15 aren't too hot, I might start out by CQing on
20. Then do so S&P on 10 and 15 and try for those few rare sections and
the loud guys that you can work on the first call.
You can check 40 before dark for some close in stations, but there is no
real urgency on that because you can get all those sections and stations
on 80. So, stay on the higher bands as long as your rate is good
there. If you go to 40 and the rate drops, you might want to go back to
20. I have never made an SS QSO on 160 even during the three years
doing SO2R from W4AN. (I did listen on 160 in the middle of the night,
but that was probably too late. I assume some SS QSOs are possible on
160 and some of them might even be guys who work only that band, but
I've never really proved out that theory myself.)
The real test for every SS operator who is doing close to full time, is
the Sunday afternoon doldrums. The rates will drop and the bands will
be full of stations you have already worked calling CQ SS. Varying
speeds (more slowly) and going higher (or lower?) in the bands may help
some. This is the time when many guys could have a ball. If the guys
who are not doing it close to full time would get on on Sunday afternoon
and evening, they would be "fresh meat" for the serious contesters and
could have a ball and have some nice pileups to work down. Some guys
who are good contesters do this and this is one reason for the fulltime
guys to save some operating time for the latter part of the contest.
I don't recall the details now, but the QRP guys have a short sprint SS
competition toward the end of the contest. Maybe some QRP guy (AD4J,
K9AY, ?) could fill us in so we might get the advantage of some QSOs
from these guys.
If there is such an activity, it might be centered on the "usual" QRP
frequencies, 3560, 7040, 14060, 21060, 28060. Of course, those
frequencies are usually active CW SS frequencies already (unless covered
by RTTY QRM on the higher bands).
Of course, we do this for "fun," and, if it stops being fun, as broadly
defined, most of us will drop out. And I recommend that rather than
"burn out." However, I never take my own advice and I am unlikely to
burn out after 47 previous SS contest years on one or both modes. Only
year I missed both modes was in 1968 when I was in Korea and DX stations
are not eligible to participate. Perhaps I should have mentioned that.
Stations outside the US, Canada, and possessions and territories cannot
participate even if they are ARRL members. I try to ignore most DX
callers during SS if I can be busy with a SS QSO that will count for
points. But, I will sometimes try to give a quick RST to a caller.
Unfortunately, some of these guys won't just give a quick RST back, but
want to give their life history followed by PSE QSL. I do remember
being called by a DXpedition to Nepal (9N) during CW SS one year and I
did respond to him, hi. That was really rare then, being just after the
time when 9N1MM, Father Moran, had the only license in the country. If
I do work someone who doesn't count for the contest, whether it is
because he is DX or because he can't figure out the exchange to send (or
won't send the exchange), I do keep a normal logbook to make a quick
entry of the QSO in case a QSL comes in months or years later.
Hope some of these random thoughts are helpful to you and perhaps to
others. I will copy this to the reflector in the hope it might
encourage others to get on and work K4GA, W4AN by K4BAI and other SECC
members as well as non-members.
Hope everyone has a nice week and a good contest.
73,
John K4BAI.
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