[Skimmertalk] N4ZR ARRL DX CW - Skimmer experiences (Pete Smith)

[Pete Smith]

I used "Aggressive" throughout.  In version 1.4, this requires several more 
repetitions of a callsign on a frequency before it is validated, compared 
to version 1.3.  73, Pete N4ZR.

73, Pete

  At 12:27 PM 2/24/2009, W3OA wrote:
>Hi Pete -
>
>I'm sorry to hear your neck problems are serious enough to curtail your
>operating.  I hope they are solved soon.
>
>And thank you for your report.  I'm wondering what settings you used on
>the "Calls" tab?
>
>73 - Dick, W3OA
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:57:46 -0500
> > From: Pete Smith <pete.n4zr at gmail.com> (by way of Pete Smith
> >       <n4zr at contesting.com>)
> > Subject: [Skimmertalk] N4ZR ARRL DX CW - Skimmer experiences
> > To: skimmertalk at contesting.com
> > Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20090224065658.034365f8 at mail.comcast.net>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
> >
> > Knowing that my neck problems would prevent anything like a full-time
> > operation, I decided to live a normal weekend life, except for operating
> > sessions in the morning and afternoon.  That meant stopping for lunch and
> > dinner, almost no operating during hours of darkness (early Sunday AM
> > only), and only about 16 hours of operating time.  I decided to use the
> > contest mainly as a chance to test various tactics for using CW Skimmer 
> - I
> > did not use an internet cluster.
> >
> > The results were pretty gratifying.  My overall rate of 93.5 QSOs/hour is
> > the best I've ever sustained in an ARRL DX contest, and I had a 147 hour
> > Sunday morning on 20.  Skimmer caught the brief 15 meter opening on
> > Saturday morning, and I used it in vain looking for another on
> > Sunday.  Most of the time, Skimmer was on the same band as my second 
> radio,
> > looking for S&P QSOs (and particularly multipliers).  That allowed it to
> > work while I was running on the other radio, and it found more stations
> > than I could possibly work, given the run rates and my limited SO2R skills.
> >
> > However, the most useful tactic, I found, was to take the "opportunity" of
> > losing a run frequency to survey my current run band and see if there were
> > enough new running stations to warrant a quick S&P sweep of the
> > band.  Typically, 2 minutes spent with Skimmer on an open band would
> > produce spots of 200-275 stations (most of them dupes, of course). I would
> > then swap radios (Alt-F5 in N1MM Logger), and move quickly up or down the
> > band working the non-dupes.  Doing this, it was common to see my 
> rate-meter
> > at 150+ for the last 10 QSOs, which made S&P this way almost as productive
> > as running on a good frequency.  On Sunday afternoon, I did a lot of this,
> > trying to boost my multiplier total, and found it interesting to see the
> > new waves of CQers show up on a given band, confirming what we know from
> > experience to be true.
> >
> > The European pileups were horrific - they sounded like packet pileups to
> > me, judging by the sudden onset, but looking at DX Summit I was surprised
> > by how few times I was actually spotted (though I wonder if some European
> > clusters are limited in their spot distribution to national
> > boundaries).  Perhaps it was just the ruckus on the run frequency that
> > attracts people.
> >
> > Anyway, a good time.
> >
> > 73, Pete N4ZR
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
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> >
> > End of Skimmertalk Digest, Vol 9, Issue 8
> > *****************************************
> >
> >
> >
>
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