SS CW Soapbox built 11-21-2011 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AA4FU Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 118,240 First sweep from my home QTH! If I didn't hear you on 80m, I apologize. I had a intermittent noise source all weekend. Finally tracked it down to a faulty street light in front of the house, guess the town will be getting a call tomorrow. Both of my goals for the contest (100,000 points and a sweep) were met. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AA4GA Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 76,908 CW SS is probably my favorite contest - this was my first time to operate QRP...I have lots of room for improvement! FT817ND at 5w to 80m doublet, 30m delta loop, Par End Fedz 10/20/40 (sloper). It was nice to have different antennas again - fun to watch propagation move around. Probably chasing QRP countries for CQWWCW...and sleeping off turkey! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AA4XX Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 89,920 Now that was fun! I was getting kind of low Sun morning around 11:30 with NWT, NL, MB, and NE still missing from the log. I decided to go for my first sweep, "damn the torpedoes..." Shortly thereafter, NWT and VO1 were in the log, worked thru some pretty intense pileups. So where the heck were NE and MB? Finally, early in the afternoon, NE was calling CQ on 15M. I then started laying a "CQ snare" for a VE4 who was trolling his way thru 10M, but he never took the bait. OK, let's try 15. And immediately, BAM! there's one, just finishing a Q with our pal KAZ. I sure hope it's the VE4's QRG. YES, LIFE IS GOOD!!! At 4:30 the last SEC was in the log--my first sweep. OK, time to get serious of picking up some Q's. I blew a couple hours chasing the last three SEC's, but there's no pressure, right? Shortly thereafter, I ran into K4QPL calling CQ on 40M. Uh-Oh, Jim's running QRP, and we all know he is one extremely FB contender. He's much too sly to let me catch up with him. Good show, James! Thanks for making sure I kept my BIC till the final whistle. Let's share some notes over an 807 next time we get together. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AA5VU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 7,700 ARRl Confirmation #: 4148934.arrl-ss-cw ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AA6XV Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 105,702 Operation from N6DQ. All but ND! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AA6YX Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 140,800 Just about gave up on a sweep, needed NE all day long. Then with only about 30 mins left, I had two NE stations call me on 20 back to back!! So NEVER give up! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AB1OD Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 21,504 The week-long power outage ended after the test had started. So I celebrated returning to the 21st century by working a lot of CW. Operating time limited by many to-dos which had accumulated during the week-long unexpected vacation. So I contented myself with seeking the answer to life, the universe, and everything on four bands. One thing I've got to say about this contest -- it makes me feel young. My check was 10...and the next closest I encountered were 24 and 90. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AB2E Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 70,626 Fun contest. Antennas: all wires. Rig: IC756 Pro III to Acom 2000A. Missed NWT. Thanks to all who worked us! 73 Darrell AB2E ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AB3CX Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 176,640 This was my first time doing any major contest solo at a big gun station, W2RE . Antennas were a C-31XR at 90 feet, a Force 12 Magnum 240 at 96 feet, and an 80 meter dipole, no special receive antenna. Thanks to Ray and Lee, WW2DX for making the special trip to help me get set up. Going in, my goal was to break the existing record for NNY in the U class, which was accomplished. I lost steam for the last 45 minutes of available operating time! Snagged Northwest Terrritories at dusk on 10M, it was really nice to get a sweep for the first time in my career! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AB3IC Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 46,720 SOLP, Non-Assisted Kenwood TS-2000, GAP Challenger DX (40, 20, 15, 10), Low (25 ft.) Dipole for 80. Using GenLog logging software and HRD/DM780 for CW ops (cut and paste between the two). Around 18 hours BIC Last years score was 189 Q's, 65 mults, total: 24,570 (13 hrs BIC) - so a pretty good improvement. Hope to improve even more by next year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AB7R Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 88,140 I was so looking forward to a 24 hour effort. Then the damn horse got sick and had to take care of her. Only got 11.5 hours in. So since it was not looking good for an overall score I thought I would concentrate on the sweep. Had two left....I just could not scare up a SC station anywhere which is strange. Normally they are plentiful. I was working a NWT pile up but he went off the air before I could get him. Still...it was fun with the conditions being as they were. Thanks for all the Qs! 73 Greg AB7R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AC0DS Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 154,240 My first ever sweep, as well as my largest number of Qs in a sweepstakes. Needless to say, it was a good year. Single K3/P3 at 100W and N1MM logger. I put up temporary transmit antennas on Saturday in my small back yard in a HOA no antennas allowed neighborhood. These consisted of a 43 ft vertical wire on a Spiderbeam pole with a remote tuner at the base and radials buried in the lawn. A temporary 40 ft MaxGain mast was used to support the center of a 102 ft doublet fed with twinlead. This was the main horizontal antenna for 20 40 and 80. Also put up PAR endfed dipoles for 15 and 20. A small K9AY array integrated into the plum tree in the front yard and a Clifton Labs active whip were used for receive antennas, allowing for diversity receive for the entire contest. This was a big help in terms of noise reduction and minimizing operator fatigue. After ending up with 79 sections the past two years, my main goal this year was to finally get a sweep. I entered in the new low power unlimited class in order to improve my chances. My overall strategy was to try to run as much as possible early on and then use the spots later in the contest to help with picking up the missing sections. After the first Q with KO7X in WY �" thanks Alan - I found an open spot at 14054 and had the longest run of my ham career. 357 Qs in 5.5 hours. Was glad to see that 10 and 15 were open, as this took a lot of pressure off of 20. Probably would not have been able to hold my run frequency with my low power and wimpy antennas that long if everyone was crowded into 20. My only excursions into 10 and 15 were on Sunday afternoon to relieve some of the tedium of the slow rates on the lower bands. Had some unwanted excitement Saturday night. An unpredicted windstorm came in from the mountains and had gusts up to 45 mph here. Could tell from the wind noise inside the shack that the situation was probably tenuous outside. Went out for a look at 3 AM and found that the one of the guy points for my main mast was ripped out of the ground and the mast leaning at an alarming angle. One of the dipoles was also blown and tangled into a tree. So spent the first hour of my planned 3 hour sleep time out in the dark jury rigging temporary guys for the mast. Then another hour after it got light to make some more permanent repairs. So my off times were not as restful as planned. Had 76 sections when I went to bed Saturday night from my usual pattern of trying to run on 40 and 80 with supplemental search and pounce. Most surprising thing at that point was that I had not even heard a single PAC station. They are usually plentiful here. On Sunday I started to pay more attention to the spots coming in. Picked up VY1 from a spot while running on another band, and was lucky enough to snag him on the second call. By 9 AM was up to 79 sections. Then number 80 came at 9:32 local time when KH7X called me while I was running on 20. That was the only PAC I heard or worked the entire weekend. Did anyone else notice this? Rest of the contest was spent trying to eke out as many Qs as possible, but it was slow going in terms of rate. Some years I have been able to do some reasonable runs late in the contest, but not this time. Seemed to be fewer stations than normal around in late afternoon and evening on Sunday. I was hoping that the good band conditions and new entry categories would increase participation, but not sure if this was the case. Overall I was pleased with the unlimited class. The spotting network was definitely helpful on Sunday and gave me something interesting to play with during the slow times. Even when not using the spots, the display of the activity on the various bands was helpful in terms of deciding where to go next. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AC0E Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 7,544 THANKS FOR THE Q-s. SOLAR FLUX AT 177 AND RUNNING A DOMESTIC ONLY CONTEST. FUN AND GOT THE K3 AND N1MM PLAYING TOGETHER ON CW - JIM AC0E ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AC8E Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 65,816 Stop two of three on this year's SS Tour. Great conditions! This may the first domestic contest I've had where the biggest band was 20 meters. 73 - Jim K8MR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AD0DX Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 57,904 Great contest, missed MB, NL and NT for a sweep. Heard VY1EI but unable to get through the pileup. Thanks for all the Q's, and nice to work folks from the KS / TX / IA QSO Parties. 73's, Ron, AD0DX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AD4EB Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 180,640 Enjoyed the contest, but sure got slow on Sunday. VY1EI gave me the sweep Sunday morning, thanks for finding me. Lots of S&P, taking advantage of the unlimited category. Think I would have wore the radio dials out if it were not for the spots. 73 - Jim - AD4EB ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AD4Z Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 160,320 K3 + Harris RF103A (3-1000) @ 1.5kw Barefoot TS-850 Pro67 @ 70' A4 @ 40' 80m inv-vee @ 68' A big thanks to AD4Z for making the long drive and making your K3 available, and for W1MD for coming out to operate Sunday morning. Non-operating thanks go to AF4Z for the loan of your bandpass filters and to the club members at W4MLB for the use of the club station. First SS QSOs on 10m in a long time! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AE1T Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 66,144 Personal best, even though 40M antenna packed up just after I got started. As someone recently said, Run Forrest Run. Had an 83 hour. What a blast. Missed only CT (!) and NWT for the sweep. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AE4O Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 17,822 Ten Tec Eagle @ 85 watts to horizontal loop up 50 feet. NIMM. S&P. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AE6Y Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 54,020 Various commitments prevent a real SS CWoperation this year, but I got on Saturday night at about 10 pm local time. 40/80 were in great shape, with East Coast QRP signals easily copiable. And of course it was fun to get on 10 a bit Sunday morning. Rig: SO1R this time, K3/KPA500 Ant: 3 el 10-20, 2 el 40, 1 el 80 Software: CQPWIN 12.5 73,andy ae6y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AI4MI Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 9,546 S&P only. Part time effort. IC746Pro,A3S,wires on 40 & 80m. Lots of fun, very cordial op's made it a great pleasure! Thanks for Q's. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AJ9C Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 166,720 Sunspots sure change strategy! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AL9A Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 63,492 My personal best outing ever for the CW edition of SS. My happiness over topping 400 Q's is tempered by the fact that I missed the Sweep by only two Sections. I can understand NL, but SC? Come on, gimme a break! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0AV Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 115,360 Many thanks to Robb, N0RU for letting me set up at his station again this year. To be extra sure of success I brought my own computer - and of course, something zapped the OS as I was hooking up the second monitor . . . and I missed 2 hours right at the beginning! ugh Then I chased the pack for the rest of the contest. Talk about motivation. Worked the second radio like a mad man. Last contact just before the bell was K2HVN (in Delaware) who answered my CQ - he was my last section for my FIRST EVER SWEEP! After a bad start - that was such a sweet way to finish. Rigs: K3 + K2 SO2R: micro2R Antennas: TH-7 fixed at 30 deg., Bencher SkyHawk, 2 el 40 yagi, Hy-Tower, 80 zepp and 2 el TA-32jr fixed to northwest. Computer: cheap crappy desktop Q K0AV 60 CO 73, Alan ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0BJ Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 191,360 K0WA and AB0S have been doing SS multis for over 3 decades. K0BJ has been in the mix since before the turn of the century but this was his first with the team in 4 years. W0NO's quiet, antenna-laden QTH has been the scene for a decade; prior to that it was W0CEM's QTH. DXers complain of the Terible Ts -- well we had the Nonworkable Ns. NL was #78 and was blessedly uneventful Sunday AM. NWT -- we chased the VY1EI spots like everyone else. Late afternoon K0WA was running and saw EI pop up on the bandmap only 2kHz above. Lee slid up in time to hear the end of a QSO and... nothing more of the elusive prey. So he switched back to his run freq. -- which had, naturally, been taken over............ by VY1EI! Got him first call :-) One of those rare times you're glad to lose a freq. NE - I listened to W0KT s3 running a loud, raucous pile on 20 Sunday morning. Later we chased a couple spots with nil found. AB0S served the final hitch at our multi and while running, at 0240 he got called by a weak W0K.... 4 whole minutes later we had W0KT in the log for the sweep. Tnx to W0NO Alan and Phyllis for their hospitality, IC-7700, Alpha 99 and antenna farm. Alan, Lee, Tim and 1-2 others will be doing the SSB version. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0EJ Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 132,000 had to quit early to do some prep for work week. Had 78 when I quit Saturday night. Last was NL and just before that was LA!(must've been celebrating!!) 73, Mark K0EJ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0EU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 190,720 Congrats to K7BG for beating me out this year, but there were several other "A" power guys with high Q counts in the beginning, especially N4EEB/KP4 so we will have to wait to see who's at the top. Couldn't get any response to CQ's in the very beginning. Finally got first Q at 2103. Second Q was with N9RV and he already had 9! I finished with about 1200, so based on that data it means Pat had ... 5400? Never heard any of the big pileups on VY1EI people are talking about. Found him pretty much alone on 21002. Thank you N0UD for my only North Dakota, and VE5UO for #80. Wasn't looking good for a sweep Sunday morning as I still needed five sections but I snagged them all in surprisingly short time. Worked tons of GMCC entries including some FB QRP by K0AV and N0KE. All in all some great ops out there for this one. Especially grateful to the bunch of guys that called in during my last hour on 40M. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0HC Class: School Club HP Total Score = 182,080 Lots of band choices, good band conditions, even an earthquake! When the floor started moving on Saturday evening, I was sure I'd sent one dit too many. But no, it was just Oklahoma sending us a present, the first earthquake I've ever felt in Kansas. Like last year, events conspired to keep me from putting in the full 24 hours. This time it was a Hesston College student mod party on Sunday afternoon and evening which my XYL volunteered to sponsor. I spent extra time away from the radio during slower times. While it didn't help my score, it certainly helped "speed up" the final hours. Thanks once again to VY1EI for the Sweep! My last five sections were SD NL AR NE and finally NT. I had 79 sections by 0617Z, but it took until 1521Z the next morning to log NT when Eric called me. We're hard at work practicing for the SSB Sweeps with our HCARC student team. I hope these great band conditions continue until then. 73, Bob, w0bh trustee, k0hc Hesston College ARC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0IO Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 15,246 Hello???? -- Unless you were first licensed in 00, or if you don't make enough contacts, sometime early in the SS your check will equal the number you are sending. Couldn't get this across to one operator that 61 was both my number and ck -- kept asking for NR? I kept sending 61, even sent "NR 061" Oh well........... Just wanted to pickup some states for 5BWAS. Planned on turning on the amp so entered as high power, but ran 100 watts. Congrats to N0NI for his fine showing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0PC Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 117,156 Missed MB & NT, never heard either one. Having 15M and some 10M really helped to spread people out. The usual jam on 20M & 40 M wasn't there this year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0PY Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 152,320 Sweepstakes was different this year with sunspots. Its been quite some time. Things seemed a little slow Sunday during the day at my location. Thanks to all for the Que's, it was fun. Mike K0PY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0TG Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 80,408 Just a couple of hours before the start, my SteppIR controller came via UPS. The forgot to ship it back with the 80 Meter coil and I found that out on Thursday when that came. So cutting it close! I did not operate as much as I had planned, but ended up operating more than I thought I would. Condx seemed pretty good for LP and a vertical. :) Missed VT, MB, NT and ND. Probably due to missing some prime times on bands that I probably could have found them on. Loads of fun. 73, John K0TG ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0TO Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 159,360 Great operating conditions; lousy operator conditions [head cold]. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0UK Class: Multi-Op LP Total Score = 106,414 We had fun but in a cramped enviroment it was interesting. We missed ND, NT, MB just didnt seem to find them. Those who got a sweep Congrats. Worked GMCC, K0DU, W0ETT, KO7X, W0ZA, W4ZW,KR7C,W0DLE,W0MU, N2IC, If I missed anyone. Let me know. Great going and great ops in this one. Not sure what we will do for SS Phone yet. PTL bill UK ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0VBU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 150,574 Great contest! Wonderful to have the higher bands back! My one-year old IC-7600 shot craps last week, so I dug up the old IC-746 I use for Boy Scout camp...nice enough rig, but couldn't get used to the receiver - especially for high-duty SS CW! Always interesting to see which sections will be rare here from year to year. This year there were lots of KH6, VO, KL7, MS, WY....but I never heard ND all weekend. Two neighbor states - NE and AR - were my last mults. I was fortunate to tune across VY1EI and work him before the pileup showed up. Also, think I only had one DE in the log. Missed the Sweep by one, but it was a personal best from my home station this year, still leaving lots of room for improvement! Where else can you run across so many friends in such a short time?? SS CW remains my favorite! Equipment: IC-746BSR (Boy Scout Radio), TH6-DXX (in its 32nd consecutive year)at 50', 40m dipole at 35', G5RV for 80m at 20' (bet that should be improved!, and the always excellent N1MM logger. Thanks for the Q's....... Bill, K0VBU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K0ZR Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 40,200 Family commitments limited operating time. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K1BV Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 52,992 First of the season's large contests with a new K3 and had some fun. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K1BX Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 168,000 Was 150 Qs up on lat year Saturday night. But Sunday was slower than usual and fell back to a normal total. Was nice to hold a frequency, but normal runs did not develop. Lots of tuning. 80 wasn't noisy like last weekend, but southern stations were quite weak up here. First SS was as a novice in 1975 with HT-37 and HQ170. Worked a check of "11" from a 1x2 call and thought it must be an old club station...nope. Hope 10m SSB brings new interest in SS. CU then :-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K1GU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 80,264 Missed Arkansas ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K1LT Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 179,960 Before the contest I was browsing the list of Sweepstakes winning scores and records and decided that I would shoot for the Ohio High Power Single-Op record, which is 193,700 points at K8AZ in 2006. 200,000 points (1250 QSOs and 80 mults) seemed like a nice round score to try for. Needless to say, I didn't achieve that goal. I didn't even spend 24 hours on the radio. I did beat my previous best by a small margin. I slept too long by an hour. I also had to retrieve my child, which cost 25 minutes. Along with feeding myself and the cats and doing other mandatory housework I probably lost an hour consisting of short interruptions that are not long enough to count as off-time. By extrapolation, maybe I could have made 1200 QSOs, assuming the extra 2 hours wouldn't decrease my average rate (I suffer from optimism). I also tried SO2R again. Since I don't have one of those fancy SO2R switches, I used 2 computers each with an instance of Writelog running networked. On Saturday, Writelog behaved very strangely and the networking wouldn't work, but Sunday it worked fine. I also used a homebrew audio switch to put the 40 meters only S&P radio audio in one ear and the run radio audio in the other, or not. There was lots of hum and noise from my own RF, but it worked well enough to make an extra 20 or so contacts. Now that I know what SO2R is like, I'll try to optimize the setup. Better antenna switching is absolutely mandatory. I started the contest CQing on 10 meters, and got called by all of the hard-to-work sections except NL within the first two hours. I watched to see how long WAS would take, but by 8.5 hours, I had worked everything except ND. ND called the next morning with 30 minutes of starting, so maybe I can claim WAS in 9 hours of operating and 16 hours of elapsed time. KG6DX was a fun way to get a PAC section. I managed to go 20 hours without working any dupes, and then they all suddenly found me. One guy worked me twice in 3 minutes with only 1 intervening QSO for each of us. Some weird statistics: Year QSOs Mults Points Hours Av rate Comments 2007 924 80 147840 23.5 39.32 Division champ 2008 1060 79 167480 23 46.09 2009 967 80 154720 22.5 42.98 2010 1038 80 166080 22 47.18 2011 1106 80 179960 22 50.27 In 2007, my worst year, I accidentally won the division. Apparently, the real winners didn't send in logs. My rate is generally increasing, although at a decreasing rate. I'll have to go back and figure out what went wrong in 2009. Equipment: K3, IC765, ETO 91B (thanks, Jeff) 160/80: 65' "T" and 80 cage with 80 radials 40: full sized ground mounted vertical with 32 radials 20-10: Cushcraft X7 @ 60' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K1RM Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 96,000 My 47th year of operating the sweepstakes and still enjoy as much as I did sitting in front of my Viking Valiant and SX111 in 1964. The exchange makes this a unique and enjoyable contest for me. Family commitments(my birthday) keep me from putting in a full effort. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K1RX Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 196,000 Murphy hit right in the first 10 minutes when the serial number decided to start jumping up in extra digits i.e. 17 went to 170! Stopped and re-did the network settings, and setup a new log. Effectively lost those other Q's however, several I contacted later in the weekend, explaining my problem and asked for another Q - that worked for probably most of them (thanks guys!). Sorry for your delay and the dupe that will show but the robot will sort that issue out. Other competing issue: XYL had some small surgery done the day before, so I needed to give her a hand during the contest and then had to do some other errands that took away my interest. Generally, seemed the slow rates on Sunday morning were worse than usual and severe boredom rained in. Highlights: Jay, VY1EI calls me, NH2T calls in, several KL7's called in on 40 through 10 M. Last two sections were ME and NE but were wrapped up early Sunday morning - nice! That part was fun! Thanks everyone for a nice weekend, too bad could not muster the full 24 hours! 73, Mark, K1RX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K1TN Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 114,268 Biggest thrill: Called by W2GD in the last hour. Missed NL, NT, NDak. Heard VY1EI and VO1MP each once, on 15; never heard North Dakota. Great activity from KL7 and KH6 (including NH2T). This was the most time and Qs I've done in an SS in 35 years. I hope I have some steam left for CQ WW CW. Celebrated 50 years licensed on Sept 29 (WN9AUM in Indiana). Elecraft K3, Ameritron ALS-600/QSK at no more than 300 watts out, NA software, 110-foot dipole and 40/20 vertical monopole, both in the trees. Jim Cain At The K1TN Superstation Northern Wisconsin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K1TO Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 165,600 Thanks to the KP4 expeditions and the efforts of the two VY1s, the sweep was easy this year. I think ND was the only section with only one QSO. MS was my last one. In my 40th year of ham radio and still (barely) in the younger half of the pool. Great to work so many of the older CKs and nice to work a few new ones. The spotting network influence is dramatic with all the U and M activity. Love that short skip on the high bands that shows up with higher sunspot numbers. Expect to be part time in SS SSB. 73, Dan ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K1TR Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 58,520 Wish I had more time to play. Certainly was nice to hear propagation on 10 and 15 much improved. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K1XM Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 149,760 Before the contest I took out and cut up the trees and branches which fell during the snowstorm. So I was falling asleep at the beginning of the contest. I had a good start but couldn't keep it up, and by 11:00 PM local time I was too tired to continue. Six hours sleep helped a lot. Conditions were good and I managed a sweep. Strangely my last sections were NNJ and MO, along with NL and PR. I really need to put up a decent 80 meter antenna. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K1ZZI Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 164,800 Another Great SS party and we had excellent band conditions. NE and VY1 were my last two sections needed. Thanks to Ed, VE4EAR in MB for always being there year after year. Thanks for ALL the contacts! 73, Ralph K1ZZI ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K2AV Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 100,100 Equipment K3 plus AL1200 and Alpha 76A AL1200 went down, tribander fixed to NE, unable to get it back to NW so operated with a pair of wire antennas, halfwave inverted L on 80, and 40 meter inverted vee broadside E/W at 55' for 40 and 15 meters. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K2PLF Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 136,828 Missed the first 3.5 hours due to attending a wedding. 40 meters was my hot band for Q's and 20 meters for Mults. I was surprised at the lack of activity on 80 meters on Sunday evening. Almost the identical score as last year where I put in the full 24 hours vs the 20 hours this year. All in all, a good tune up for the upcoming CQWW CW contest at the end of the month. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K2PO Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 123,240 I was on track for a personal best SS. Then life intervened, and I had to go QRT Sunday morning. Maybe next year! Missed NWT and VE4 - all the rest came back to CQs. I haven't compared with past years, but it seems the ranks of QRP entrants is growing. 'Not quite sure what to make of that, by my sense is that it's a good thing. 73, Bill, K2PO Oregon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K2PS Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 17,088 Strictly a fresh meat operation Sunday afternoon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K2QMF Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 68,000 Nice Conditions. Lots of fun... 73, Ted K2QMF ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K2SX Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 88,480 Missed most of the contest due to other activities. But, considering the limited time, I was very happy when VE4EAR answered my CQ in the last hour of the contest to give me a Sweep. Ditto when VY1EI called me earlier during the contest for that rare NT mult. Nice to hear some activity on 10 & 15m after a dry few years on those bands. Tnx to those who called. Hope we satisfied some of the need for the SC mult. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K2YR Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 48,300 FT1000MP & FT990. 2El Quad at 45 feet for 20/15/10. Inverted V's for 80 and 40. N1MM microKEYER MK2R+ Always good fun, even for a little while. I ran into a couple guys not sending the full exchange, leaving out their call. That causes a little confusion at best, and is against the rules at worse. Even more fun was I had a couple Q's where they sent their exchange out of sequence!!! Yikes! It's NR, then PREC, then CALL, then CK, then SEC. It's been that way forever. OK? That blew my tired mind when that happened! HI. 73, and thanks for the Q's Carl, K2YR Band QSOs Pts Sec 1.8 3 6 2 3.5 71 142 9 7 66 132 10 14 74 148 13 21 132 264 32 28 4 8 3 Total 350 700 69 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K2ZR Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 104,208 Band conditions were much better this year. As usual 80M was my best band. Never heard anyone from Nebraska and, although I heard VY1EI once, he QSY'd in an instant never to be heard from again. Maybe next year! Had a fun time as usual. 73 and see ya'll again in 2012, Dick, K2ZR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3AJ Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 118,080 Disclaimer: last year I lost an embarrassing number of Q's due to log inaccuracies, so let's see how my claimed score holds up. This year I made a big effort to pay attention to accuracy and ask for repeats a lot. Hope it helped. At any rate, a personal best in CW SS. First ever sweep. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3AN Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 86,110 S&P is the name of the game with QRP and wire antennas. Never heard NT but got 78 other sections easily. AK was harder; he gave up with a "NIL" the first time on 10M late Sunday afternoon but a half hour later he was S7 and he copied me without needing any fills. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3AU Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 159,520 As usual, I was impressed with the quality of many of the Ops. Glad to see some that were not geezers! My objective was 1,000 Q's. I made 1,009 but there were 12 Dupes. Clinched the Sweep about noon Sunday. It came my way without special attention except for NWT which took a little work. Lucky I guess. I stayed up late to take advantage of the first night's action and went to bed about 2am (EDT) when I ran out of energy. 40m is my weakest band and it showed again. I tried to compensate by working 15 and 20 a bit more. I'm very glad they were open. Operation was about 80% S&P and 20% running. I simply don't have the antennas to sustain really extended LP runs with decent rates. Cheers to all participants. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3IE Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 42,450 Beautiful weather this weekend. Had to limit activity since I was on the radio all last weekend in the CQWW DX contest - have to pick your spots. Thanks for the Q's - Hunter K3IE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3KU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 113,128 Manitoba. Heard two different ones S&P high on 15. For one, I even heard him on two different freq's, so I had him bracketed. Called CQ like crazy, but could not attract them. I clearly spent too much time on the high bands. This was my first SS from home with real openings on the high bands, with two effects. First, I did not know if my rates on high bands were satisfactory (yeah, I shoulda been checking 40 and 80 more). Second, although I like to see how well I can score, and I want to help the Club, my motto is still "Tune for maximum fun". The new experience of the high bands was FUN (gee, I worked Guam on 15 with my little 100W and a dipole). And repeating my first-ever Sweep from last year would have been a BLAST! Ah, well. Wait 'til next year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3LID Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 104,000 your heard it right, K3LID ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3MM Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 212,320 Boy it felt strange to be on 10 meters from the east coast in SS! 40 and 20 were the money bands as predicted from the east, but I couldnt ignore some great conditions on 15 and even 10 for some grab'n pounce and even a few CQs. I made a lot of repairs to the antennas just before the weekend, but of course, when I fixed some things, I found others wrong! The big thing was getting my shorty 40 beam repaired and a low inverted V up which certainly helped me out on that band. I found out too late that the matching relay in my stackmatch was open up on the tower somewhere, so had to run with single tribanders on the upper bands. My big surprise was that my low tribander at 38' on 20 meters was the optimal antenna during the day! I dont think that has every happened before, but maybe it's just been too long since we had sunspots! Started the contest CQing mostly, but fairly soon I moved into "grab&pounce" mode, which seemed at least as fast for quite a while. Overslept Sunday morning, so missed some good rate there and only had about 1/2 hour left to take off until the end. Sunday I moved into SO2R mode knowing that I was pretty far behind the leaders, but there was lots of time left and a fresh head to receive in stereo headphones. Later that morning one of my Alpha 87's decided it didnt want to play anymore so I had to take a few minutes for an amp change...whipped out the 'ol TenTec Titan. N1MM was rock solid all weekend with just a couple of minor bugs that didnt affect operation. 73, Ty K3MM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3STX Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 95,520 First ever sweep, so I am happy about that. Was hoping to break 100K points for the first time, but not happy about so few Qs on 80 meters. Last year I had nearly 400 Qs on 80 and finally left 80 at 3am EST with the band still full of life. This year it was "quiet" by 1:15am. Not really quiet, actually, HORRIBLE QRN(was there a solar storm??) with swooshy-sounds and lots of noise. Oh well. But I ran out of guys to work so went to sleep. Sunday morning I took my son to baseball practice then a lacrosse game in late afternoon. So had short stints on my radio in the evening, but could never manage a run. It was fun, I don't think the SSB version of this will be quite so fun. I hate SSB. Oh what I will do to help PVRC beat NCCC (again!). paul Kenwood TS-850S/Ameritron Al-811 at 400 watts, N1MM logger, Kent TP-1 paddles for fills, A&W root beer, pretzels 80 M vertical, 20/40 fan dipole NE/SW up 50 feet, 100' long dipole E/W up 60 feet ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3SV Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 47,040 Outside of PVRC Circle. Last section was MB, VE4. Great conditions. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3TN Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 139,198 K3/KPA-500, TS-850/TenTec 425 to Windom OCF Dipole at 15m height I love CW Sweepstakes - it is what got me into contesting all those years ago. Operating at my single wire station, I know I'm not going to see my call in bold in QST (well, hardly anyone sees their call in QST contest articles anymore, but not even in the online results...) - especially in the MDC section where we get just about every PVRC station on the air for SS in the battle against NCCC. That means I'm just competing against myself - and if the weather is nice on Sunday, I don't have to do the full day slog! CW SS Saturday always lines up with major yard work, so I tried a new strategy: no coffee in the am, yard work all morning, then a nap - then coffee to support just going from the start until 0600 or so. That's a major accomplishment for me, as I am rarely awake after 10pm local time. The strategy seemed to work pretty well and at 2000, I went down to the shack and figured I'd see how 10/15/20 and were doing and decide on my opening strategy. I had already gotten N1MM all freshened up and tested everything out during the week. So, I sat down, fired everything up, took a sip of my steaming hot coffee, QSYed the K3 to 10m and started tuning around. Well, I was tuning around but the K3 was not - the VFO A freeze problem which has plagued this K3 since its birth 2 years decided to come back right then - as we all know, anything with a microprocessor in it is evil and has Murphy's Law hard-coded in non-volatile memory. So, I disconnected the 400 cables from the back of the K3, put it on the workbench, removed the 800 tiny Phillips screws, took took the front panel circuit board out, sprayed the contacts with DeOxit again, reseated the boards, put the 799 tiny Phillips screws back, noticed the one tiny Phillips screw still in the muffin tin, took some out, put that one in, put the rest back in, reconnected the 400 cables on the back of the K3, fired it up - and it was still frozen. A sharp drop onto the desk fixed that and at 2050 I was ready to go. I usually enter B/unassisted, as SS is one of the few contests where I can hold run frequencies and I want to force myself to run more/S&P less - plus it is just more traditional. But, since I hadn't had time to scope out the bands I decided to go U/assisted and use the spotting to get a feel for the bands. So, I connected N1MM to the Reverse Beacon Network skimmer network, limited to just MD/PA/VA/WV skimmers and started on 10m. A quick spin up and down 10 convinced me that the Windom's porcupine pattern on 10m was not a winner, and by then the RBN had filled the bandmaps and available mult windows in N1MM, so I went to 15 and did CTRL-Arrow fast S&Ping up and down 15 for while. But for an East Coast station I knew I had to be on 20, so by 2130 I went there. My usual approach for CW SS is to S&P till I find an open spot and then start running. But I decided to try to use the N1MM Available Mult/Q window for fast S&Ping (instead of CTRL-Arrowing my way up the band) and fell into an entire new universe. I had the window sorting spots by time and would click on the top entry, which had just come steaming fresh out of the skimmer ovens. Often, the station would be just ending a CQ and I'd work them quickly and go back to the top of the list. If they were in QSO, click on the 2nd in the list and away you go. This worked so well, my rate was high enough that I kept delaying settling down to run but what was really interesting is that I lost any concept of where I was in the band - I'd be clicking on someone on 14.003 and then someone on 14.065 but when working from the N1MM Available mult/Q you really don't see frequency, just a list of calls. With the Alt-Arrow/bandmap approach you still have the context of going up and down a band, but this was really weirdly disconnected from the concept of a "band" - but really fast. This strategy had a few downsides: (1) I kept running into K3MM, who was obviously doing the same thing, and also has one of the skimmers and a much better station. So, I started clicking on the second spot in the list, not the first and that got my away from Tyler. (2) I wasn't clicking on any "dead spots" which are usually the best way to find a run frequency that has just been abandoned or neglected by a slow SO2Rer. So, I went back to my old way of working up 20m, found a run frequency and settled down - and my rate dropped! Lots of people seduced by 10 and 15m made it easier to find a run frequency, but meant fewer shoppers were strolling down the 20m aisle. But I hung in there and rates picked up, so I went to 40 a bit later than I normally would. I did the bandmap S&P, found a dead skimmer spot and settled down to very nice rates - I had an 84 hour in here somewhere, and ended up going to 80 much later than usual, somewhere around 0130 or so. Normally, 80 will be my top QSO band, but this year it was 40. I kept going on 80, with occasional visits to 40 until 0600 when I shut things down. Somewhere in there I worked MO and NL for sections 78 and 79 - within 8 hours all I had left was NWT. On CW, I just focus on the score so I knew unless I got lucky on Sunday while running on 20, I was not going to get a sweep. Somewhere in here I had a keyboard glitch - the U key got sticky. I first noticed it running on 80 when I worked someone who sent U for their precedence and when I hit enter to send my return exchange N1MM sent "?" because I had entered an incomplete exchange. Yikes - the poor guy had to resend everything. So, I to really pound on the U key until I got the DeOxIt back out and sprayed into the keyboard... The weather was nice on Sunday so from 1300 - 1900 was all off-time, and we had relatives over for dinner so after 0100 was off-time as well - I missed out on the 80m fresh meat frenzies at the end. Most of the Sunday time was power-S&Ping, with some stops for short runs. The skimmer spots started to get very broken on Sunday for some reason - lots of busted calls, like KE9HN for VE9HF. I ran across a VY1EI pileup on 10 at one point I threw my call in once or twice to see if my fairy godmother was on duty - nope - and then moved on. Random notes: Fun working NH2T for a loooong PAC contact. Never heard W1AW - doesn't any one put it on during SS?? Very few people seem to know what PREC is - had to get fills for that. Not that many S stations on, that is probably not a good thing. K1TN and I continued our contest on who could leave the longest pause between the number and the T when working each other - I am going to program a function key macro in N1MM just for that for next year. About a 20% increase in score from last year, with about the same amount of operating hours. N1MM worked flawlessly and no excuses or equipment problems once the contest started. Next year I'm hoping to have a second antenna up and be SO2R, with bad weather on Sunday to drive less off time... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3WI Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 176,160 Thanks to Jack K4VV for the use of his great station. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K3YDX Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 47,736 Efforts to build and use a "fan" dipole made of 4 conductor rotor cable was a total failure. No resonant point in any HF band of interest. Lacking a decent ant. for 80m, I peeled off the 1/4 leg for 80m and threw it through the trees tied to a brick for a lazy Inv. L with 3 radials. It worked better than the HF-6 vertical but was to long for a stateside contest. Over all a good time with trying new features of N1MM (call history) and the RBN. Overall, to much data flow for this old brain! Amazing contest to build CW copying skills. 73 Hank ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K4ALE Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 25,760 My first serious CW contest. Equipment functioned better than expected. Operator functioned better than expected. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K4BAI Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 187,840 FTDX5000, Acom 2000, 1.5 KW, beams, dipoles, four square. Thanks to Fred, WW4LL and his wife, Jo, for allowing me to guest op his fine station. Next year, we should be set up for SO2R there and possibly at home again. Lots of operator errors and frustration with N1MM and/or microkeyer keying glitches. Some antenna switch problems, with the 8-pak going in for repairs before the next contest. Disappointed in results. Was tired to start the contest and really tired at the end. Next time. Thanks for all QSOs. If there are any county hunters reading this, QTH was in Sharpsburg, Coweta County, GA and I will be glad to respond to any QSLs. 73, John, K4BAI. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K4EU Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 80,340 Not much time this weekend so decided to just run on 10, 15 and 20 and forget searching for sections.... Only managed one low-band hour on 80m Sunday night.... Missed NE and MS.... There were some really great QRP signals out there... A substantial number of folks don't appear to understand 'prec' -- It would be good if stations would automatically add the 'prec' when asked to repeat the number... When I asked for "nr/prec?" repeats, I got a lot of blank stares and eventually they repeated the number which really slows a long exchange down even more... Thanks for the Q's.... 73....//Steve K4EU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K4FTO Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 40,064 Gear: K3 + MFJ tuner + N1MM logger Antennas: Attic dipoles + 80-10m Trap Vertical (helped on 80m only) Score about same as last year-more QSOs fewer sections. Best rate for S&P was 30 for one hour. Logged 8 QSOs with NCCC area stations. 40m was definitely the go to band for me. Operated "assisted" but that didn't seem to help much. Band map filled up quickly and I couldn't see spots much past the first 30 khz of each band. There must be a way to see the rest of the band spots! Guess I should read the manual again, hi. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K4FXN Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 81,600 Conditions were great! I think the RBN and the U category increase activity. Dan K4FXN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K4QPL Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 90,850 Once again my QRP sweep foiled by Nwt. Didn't even hear him. Conditions seemed pretty good but had trouble getting runs going--I mean more than the usual problem of being QRP. Don't know how Kirk manages to sound louder than the B stations! I guess I missed my goal of 600 by leaving the chair for two hours during the morning. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K4RO Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 130,080 Another SS in the books. Managed the full 24 again, despite some really nagging ringing in my ears. I also have some bad line noise problems, and no sign of pending help from the utility company at this point. Fortunately, I didn't work as many really weak guys, on account of they could not hear me at all. I always love those guys who say "5W?" or "LOUD QRP." I sure hope I'm loud. :-) I didn't feel that way on 80M this year. BTW, my watt meters are calibrated to an Alpha 4510 (the most accurate meter that I have access to.) Forward power is always set to 5 watts or less, regardless of reflected power. There's just nothing like the CW SS, and it's one contest that I really look forward to every year. Running QRP is a special kind of torture. I don't know why I keep coming back to it year after year. One of these days I'll have had enough, but for now I'm working on a record of second-place QRP finishes. I knew I was in trouble whenever I heard W7RM. I figured that op was either Tree, or Chip returning as the ghost of SS past. Congratulations to OM Tree. K5NZ was exactly even with me when we worked, and I was always kept motivated by the other crazy QRP ops who were either just ahead or just behind me. It's good to see more ops going full time in the bang-your-head-against-the-wall category. The sweep didn't come until after 21 hours of operating, with VY1 the last. I had better luck finding run frequencies this year. Band loading sure is lighter when there are more than one or two choices for everyone. SO2R is also a lot busier and more fun too. Despite much better high band conditions, my score is actually lower than last year. I guess that's to be expected, as I can really make hay here when 80 and 40 are the money bands. 80M was way down from last year, and my hardware is the same. Long live Sweepstakes! Log submitted. Confirmation #: 4149150.arrl-ss-cw See you all in the CQWW CW at the end of the month. 73, Kirk K4RO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K4XD Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 136,160 In the week leading up to SS, I decided this year would be different -- no last minute software configuration changes, no bright ideas on how to "improve" my antennas on Saturday morning. And no deciding that this is the perfect opportunity to try a new logging program. The one that everyone else seems to be using. At least they are writing about it all the time. Of course, most of what they are writing is "help, I'm tearing my hair out trying to configure it/write macros for it/upgrade it/learn it/get it to talk to my radio/get it to work at all/get it to stop crashing." Maybe I should take a hint and be happy with my boring old logging program that I know how to use it and more importantly, how not to use. Sort of like any great relationship, sometimes what you don't do or say is more important than what you do. See How to Stay Married 101 for an example -- Don't offer this helpful observation: "Hey honey, I know you think your meatloaf is the best on the planet, but my secretary brought some today for the office potluck that was way better than yours. Would you like me to get the recipe? What's wrong? Honey, did I say something? " OK, where were we? That's right, on our Sweepstakes Pre-contest Best Behavior. So, K4XD, set some goals for yourself, maybe that will distract you from the usual Pre-contest Bad Behavior of random system upgrades. 1. Make a contribution to PVRC. Get points, lots of points. At least 100K in each contest. 2. Try to win a category. Any category. Man this is hard in with my "Fisher Price contest station." 3. Go the full 24 hours to avoid after-Sweepstakes hand-wringing of the "shoulda-coulda-woulda" sort 4. Get a Sweep. It's the contest within a contest that I -can- win, and it provides motivation until at least early Sunday afternoon, at least so far. 5. Run more. I feel like I should join S&P Anonymous. "I am an S&Per, and I have a problem." I'll run for a while and then get bored when the rate drops, and instead of looking for another run spot, I S&P for a while. Hmm, seems like I'm forgetting something... oh yeah, "Have Fun!" Notice how we always throw that in as an afterthought, and then add the exclamation point to make it seem like the main thought? Yes, Sweepstakes is fun, no doubt about it. But it's also physically uncomfortable, tiring, hard on significant others, and an emotional roller coaster. But hey, we're not single dimensional people, we are Contesters! We like a little pain with our fun! It makes the nostalgia that much better! Getting 100K points from K4XD seems to a matter of putitng in the hours at this point. The BIC factor. Grind it out. Close the curtains, ignore the family, don't let your mind wander to all the other things you could be doing with your weekend... just get in the Zone, the Q Zone. It actually does kick in after a few hours, and you can tell the switch has thrown when you take one of the mandatory 30+ minute breaks and find yourself wandering back to the radio "just to see who's on" after 20 minutes, knowing full well that you can't make a Q until 30 minutes or you will have "wasted" your time off. You know it happens... Winning a category... I've made a little pistol fun game out of finding categories that I have a prayer of winning while having some meaningful competition. I know if I go head to head with a lot of the NC PVRC guys in a category and they put in a full-time effort, I'm road kill. But, I've also seen that with a bit of good luck and a commitment to a full-time effort, anyone can get a nice wall decoration or two. The Sweep. Some have commented that I seem a bit obsessed with it... while I've been fortunate to get a Sweep every year since getting licensed in 2006, I've missed it in CW most of the time and then pulled it out in SSB. A CW Sweep would be nice -- after all, you can never have too many Clean Sweep mugs packed away in your attic for your heirs to look over and wonder why you never told them you entered janitorial competitions on the weekends... Back to getting prepped. I actually checked out the SO2R connections to WriteLog on Thursday, a record early start, and even more shockingly, everything worked out of the box. My Icom 756PII is the main rig, and a Yaesu FT-857D is the "second radio." CW came out of both, the antennas seemed to be switching properly, arrowing between the log entry windows selected the right radio... and it pretty much stayed that way through the contest. No drama on that front. This is a sure sign that it's time to tear the entire station apart and rebuild it to make it "better." I've been thinking about a new desk, one of those motorized ones that go up and down so you can alternate sitting and standing through the 24 hour marathon. Stay tuned for the next installment of "but everything WAS working before I made a few adjustments..." Having said all this, going straight into the contest without at least one little station "improvement" is like thumbing my nose at tradition. So on Saturday morning, I was reading reflector emails and someone brought up the subject of Skimmer spot feeds, and configuring the cluster to see only US/VE spots. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered that VE7CC's cluster client program made it dirt simple to configure the cluster spot filters, something that always seemed a bit like black magic to me. I'm a command line sort of guy, but after sending six or seven SET and SH commands to a cluster, I start wondering if I haven't stepped on the air hose a little too hard. "Where did the spots go, and why am I still getting RTTY spots when I thought I said 'just CW, please'." A nice GUI interface would at least give me the illusion of being in control and having visibility of what I was doing. So... Saturday morning, download VE7CC's cluster program, and start fiddling. Long story short, this is a great program, and it was very straight forward to set things up to get spot feeds from W3 and W4 call areas, limit them to spots that were relevant for SS, and hook the whole thing up to WriteLog as the spot source. The Skimmer / Reverse Beacon Net spots really have an impact on operating SS. I think I might have only run across one or two stations in the entire contest that were not already on my bandmap. Whenever I started CQ'ing, my call showed up in a bandmap spot in under five seconds. Pretty impressive! Yes, there were some busted spots, but not that many compared to non-Skimmer spots. Saturday afternoon arrived, and after lunch I decided to take a walk around the back yard and do the ham radio equivalent of kicking the tires -- push on the masts to see if they are going to fall over in the middle of the contest, tighten the guy wires, look up to see if the dipoles are still there (why is it that wire antennas are always in between your eyes and the current location of the Sun?), wiggle the coax and tighten connectors. And a tip of the hat to the Sweepstakes gods for arranging another beautiful Fall day for the contest. It's probably nostalgia, but I always seem to associate SS with clear skies, crisp temperatures, and beautiful Fall colors. The backyard circuit completed, I stood on the deck and surveyed the half acre of mostly stealthy dipoles and military masts that were about to propel me into the world of CQ Ess Ess. I felt the need to do something significant before going into the shack. We need our SS equivalent of a puja ceremony, the one the Sherpas perform in homage to the mountain spirits before tackling Everest. Maybe burn a copy of last year's Cabrillo file at the base of the antenna mast while visualizing having all 80 sections call you while CQ'ing... Still 3 hours to kill. How about a nap? I'll sure be glad I had one when 2 AM rolls around. Great idea! Lie down, drift off... meanwhile, our 70 lb "DX Hounddog" comes through with his usual uncanny ability to know when I'm trying to rest. He can be quiet for hours, and within minutes of hitting the couch, he knows it's time to cry to go out, cry to come in, or bark and howl bloody murder at the neighbor's cats. This year I managed to get 17 minutes of nap in before his excited vocalizations -- "owwwoooooooooo!!!!" -- put an end to that plan. By 4 I was ready for the contest to start but there was still an hour to go. WriteLog was loaded and waiting, the log files were changed over from the test ones to the real ones, and the band map was filling with all those big gun stations who were just "testing their gear." To make it a really valid test, it's important for that gear to be on a prime run frequency. Everyone knows that. I usually S&P up the band to an open spot once things get started, and also to knock the knock-able cobwebs out of my brain in the slightly less embarassing mode of S&P. There's nothing like starting out CQ'ing, forgetting to set "Enter Sends Exchange," typing in the other guys call sign, hitting Enter, and getting a big error message. Now what?! Fumble around in radio silence while the guy on the other end of the Q wonders if you've passed out or just lost interest already. I did do some scanning of 10M, 15M and 20M to get a feel for the bands and it looked like all bands were almost equally busy. The good news - not hard to find a spot to run. The bad news - where to go to find the casual guys? Someone else mentioned this in their writeup already -- we are all happy that the high bands are finally alive again, but the casual guys are spread out more. I chose 20M to start, and within 10 minutes got a run going on 14.056. First Q's were from OH, LA, MO, AR, CO, MN, WI, WTX, NC, IL, ST, CT. OK, no problem, I just need to point my beam NE, N, NW, W, and SW to get optimal coverage! This was one of those times I was glad I didn't have a narrow DX laser beam antenna. Bring out the old trusty two element shotgun. "There's a rustlin' in those bushes, can't seem 'em exactly but spray some buckshot in that general direction and we'll have dinner for sure!" This was definitely the Year of Finally Getting Comfortable with CW SO2R. Some switch in my head flipped, and hearing two different CW streams in stereo, one from each radio, didn't send my brain into overload this time. I wish I knew what the difference was, but from the get go, I found I was able to focus on one stream and ignore the other 9 out of 10 times. If the signal I wanted was near the noise level, I cranked the volume down on the other radio, and that helped. But I didn't need to be constantly pushing the "split audio on/off" button on the EZMaster. Which is a good thing, because pushing that button is not super fast, it's one of those pressure-sensitive things where you have to position your finger just right and then find enough leverage somewhere to actually induce a state change. I wish they had a nice flip switch with a handle. Hmmm, sounds like a good mod? Hey, what about Saturday morning, right before SS SSB?! The first two hours were spent entirely running on 20 and S&P'ing on 15 and 10. I only had 28 Q's on 10M the whole contest, so I can't exactly say it was a huge factor, but the activity level there definitely whet my appetite for the ARRL 10M test coming up next month. Won't that be fun... having 10M sound like a real amateur radio band, and not some bizarre radio X Games -- "Join us for eXtreme Propagation Modes where radio waves bounce off asteroids, barn doors and helicopters to get to your QTH!" My new-found SO2R-ability made a real difference - I'd guess over 30 percent of my Q's were on the second radio. Why am I guessing? Because I just now found the checkbox labelled "Log which radio makes the QSO" in WriteLog, which of course was turned off for the whole contest. Looking at the first hour, I had 27 Q's on 20M and 15 on 15M. Second hour had 18 on 20M, 5 on 15 and 5 on 10. Looks like messing around with 10M might have slowed me down. The third hour was back up in the 40's. And in that third hour, I started a 90 minute run on 40, remembering the need to get some time in there before the band went long. Lots of stations from MAR to TX, MI to SFL. Averaging less than a Q a minute left me time to scour the band map on 15 and hit the light blue ones (unworked) on the second radio. When my run frequency slowed down, I started dual radio S&P for a change of pace. I'm not sure this is the best strategy -- but when your run starts drying up, and the band maps beckon with lots of unworked spots, it gets you feeling like S&P for a while is a bigger win. Who knows, it might be -- but maybe I should just switch radios and start running on the "other" band and S&P'ing on the one where I was running. I need a big sign that says "If you're not running, you're falling behind those who are!" But mentally, CQ'ing is simultaneously more intense than S&P, and more boring. More intense, as you are always a bit in suspense - like waiting for a knock on the door. More boring, when there's "nothing happening" for a couple of minutes at a time. So switching to dual radio S&P is a pleasant change of pace, and maybe enabling more BIC time is better than executing the perfect strategy to the point of early exhaustion. Speaking of CQ'ing and waiting for the "knock on the door" -- if that knock is loud and clear, what a relief! I won't have to ask for 5 repeats, a nice, clear, easy to copy signal, in the log, bing bang boom, my fingers know how to dance across the keyboard. Then there are those quiet taps on the door.... brace yourself, this is going to be a workout of ears, brain, and popping up the WriteLog window that lets me type something to CW. "UR PREC? PREC? POWER? UR PREC? ." This is the only time I wish SS CW was SS SSB ... a lot easier to try to explain this by talking! At 0130, 40 started to go long with EB popping in, leading me to have a look at shifting the main radio to 80 and the second radio to 20. This gave me my best hour of the contest, 49 Q's between 80 and 20 - 40 on 80 and 9 on 20. In the 0300 hour, I focused running on 80 and S&P on 40, and got between 30 and 50% of my Q's on the second radio on 40, while keeping a 2 1/2 hour run going on 3551. SD slipped into the log at 0459, giving me 72 sections just before 0500. At around midnight, the XYL asked whether turning the clocks back meant I was going to have an extra hour of sleep, or an extra hour of the contest. If she had asked me this question yesterday, I might have had a quick and ready answer. But after seven hours of "di-di-dit di-di-dit" ringing in my ears, it threw me for a loop. I felt like that scene where Captain Kirk makes the android freak out by telling him "Everything Harry says is a lie... everything" and then Harry says "I'm lying." So I did my best to look confident in my answer and said, "I'm a contester, I sneer at the thought of extra sleep!" She gave me that "it's so easy to know when you're ducking a question" look, rolled her eyes, and went to bed. I averaged about 40 Q's an hour until I knocked off at 3:30AM local time, and things were actually still going at a decent pace then. I may have timed it just right, but I can't really say I went to bed because the rate dropped, I went to bed because it was 3:30AM and I wanted to get up before sunrise to catch some early risers on 80. Oh yeah, and with 407 Q's and 75 sections in the log. Sorry Jim, I didn't make 500 in the first 10 hours! I was practicing my acceptance speech for my SO LP Assisted US win when the alarm went off at 7... back to reality and a hot cup of coffee. I returned to "the office" to find the band maps full and the radios looking at me impatiently. "And where have YOU been?" Back to work! RI got into the log in the 1100 hour, reminding me why I liked to get up early and hit the bands. Always seems like I get more Canadian / New England / NJ action in that period. Right on queue, QC showed up at 1122, leaving me missing NT, NE and MB. That condition was to persist throughout the morning. At 1330, I started some S&P on 20 to "test" the band, and continued to run on 40 while S&P'ing on 20 all morning. There's something about that Sunday morning 40M run that is disproportionately satisfying. It just feels homey and comfortable. Hearing the whispers from stations in the black hole, the endless stream of OH stations out in force, the Eastern Canadian provinces making an appearance, the guys in all those FL sections who used to be in the MI, WI and MN sections... it's just a good thing. Sunday morning on 40, and Saturday night on 80 - two of my favorite stretches of SS. I continued getting 30 to 50% of my Q's on the second radio throughout this period. I credit the reverse beacon network for this - if you CQ'd and were in range, I knew it! It will be very interesting to see if SSB SS is dramatically different in second radio results due to less spotting. [If you hate controversy and new-fangled technology that Moves Your Cheese, please skip this sentence] Anyone for an SSB Skimmer? Hey, we have voice recognition, how hard can it be? Actually, I'm guessing the NSA probably has one already, maybe we can rent it for contest weekends and help lower the deficit... At 1600, I am happily CQ'ing when a spot for VY1EI pops into view on the bandmap. I pull up the spot and start listening. There's a smallish pile trying to work him, must be a fresh spot. He comes back to someone else the first try, and on the second try I hold off until the cacophony subsides and then throw my call in twice in a row. "...4XD?" comes back from Eric. Holy #$!, did that just happen?! He takes his time to get my info right, as others are continuing to throw calls at him, and with a couple of fills, we're both In The Log. Sweet! Around 1700, from somewhere well beyond the QSO Zone that had become my world, a voice was gently asking "What time do you want lunch?" Actually, that voice was shouting and my noise-cancelling headphone sealed head, with two radios blaring, one in each ear, had been blissfully unware of the first, second and third calls from She Who Must Be Obeyed. Pointing to my headphones, as if they were invisible to her, or perhaps had been on so long she had forgotten they were not part of my head, I said "I have headpohones on, sorry" and a look of recognition (or was that exasperation?) crept over her face. "Oh, anytime" I said, referring to lunch. "Just as soon as the bands quiet down a bit, it will happen any time now." Well, just like at 3:30 in the morning, when the rate was supposed to die down, it wouldn't die down now either. Hunger for food beat out hunger for QSO's so at 1730 I took a lunch break. I found myself wandering back to the radio with 25 of the obligatory 30 minutes expired. Hey, there's a station I'm pretty sure is NE. Easy and in the log. Wow! There's the VE4 again. Earlier he had such a big pile he sent "QRM QRT" and disappeared before I could get him. I pull up the spot and start listening. The pile is manageable, and I get into the log on the third try. Third time's the charm today, and I have my sweep! Time for brief victory dance, sigh of relief, and then remember that my goal this year was 24 hours, not get the sweep and slack off. And it only cost me 5 minutes... no wait a minute, it cost me 30 minutes because my 25 minute lunch break no longer qualifies as time off! Doh! So, I have only officially had 3 hours and 34 minutes off. Well, we "know" the afternoon is s-l-o-w so it should be no trouble scheduling the remaining time off. Au contraire, mon ami, for me the SS train just kept on rolling at a steady pace all afternoon. As the day wore on, I moved my CQ'ing radio up to 20 and S&P'd on 15 and a bit on 10, and then reversed things at 2200 heading back down to 40. I kept checking 80 to see if it would wake up early, once the sun set, but 40 definitely had more action so I continued CQ'ing there and S&P'ing on 80. By 0100, my 24 hours was up and so I missed the last minute burst of activity, if there was one. Hey, the wife and I got to watch The Next Iron Chef live instead of on DVR... Another year, another SS CW. I was tired but surprisingly not exhausted. I could still stand to look at a radio, and even the thought of another SS in two weeks didn't make me doubt my sanity. Hey, after all was said and done -- I had FUN! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5AF Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 81,440 Fun! Decent high band conditions, with 15M being particularly good here. Using an OLD version of TRLog. There must be some missing bits and bytes because it seems to send more choppy CW every time I use it. Severe lid-itis at times, I need to do this more often to clean up my act. While band conditions were generally good, but I've discovered a dreadful QRN problem on 160M and 80M, S9 noise most of the time. Will have to track that down before the next outing, or else just not operate on those bands. Thank you for the Qs, did my first SS in 1962 and it is always fun! Paul, K5AF ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5DU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 242 I operated mobile on Sunday. Well, sort of, I started the first QSO while I was in motion, but thought better of driving when I fumbled logging the QSO until I parked. My operating spot was right next to the historical marker at Rice's Crossing at the intersection of FM 973 and FM 1660 in Williamson County. I never send /m when I'm mobile, it's just extra work. My goal was to work as many CTDXCC members as I could. I didn't hear any on 10 meters. I worked one Saskatchewan, and three in CA on 10 meters. I did learn about Mr. Rice. On 15 I finally heard a CTDXCC member and worked K5NA along with 4 others. Then I moved south to Travis County to the Aqua water tower on 973 where I worked two more stations on 15 meters. I made one QSO on 20 meters later when I put out the trash at the end of the driveway. Final report: 10 meters 4 QSOs 4 sections 15 meters 6 QSOs 6 sections 20 meters 1 QSO 1 section Final score: 242 - Not worth adding up. Susan K5DU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5IID Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 68,000 I decided that I would stop if I completed the sweep, which I did about 2300Z. I went LP U and that was kind of fun. It was really rough trying to figure out where VY1EI was gonna be the next time he QSYed but he had the right idea. There seem to be guys that just keep calling. Anyway, I finally got him for the sweep. The next to last was AR of all things. Anyway it was fun as usual. There don't seem to be the same amount of "younger" checks as there were a few years back. All in all, to me it seemed that activity wasn't as high as I expected. See you next time! Tom K5IID ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5KG Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 140,160 Station: K3/P3 (Golly Gee, do I ever love this radio!) C31 @ 60' 10m 6el @ 30' (on a Stack Match with the C31) 40m 40 @ 75' 80m Inv Vee My intention was to do SO2R in SS. I set up the two radios (K3 & ProIII) and antenna switching early on Saturday. However, after several hours of trying to overcome a keying focus problem in the setup (Writelog with DX Doubler), I gave up on the effort, and re-config'd the station to SO1R with the K3. (Many tnx to W4TV and N3RD for helping me with the problem on Saturday.) I got the sweep at 1753z with VO1HP on 15m. (Two hours later on 20m, both VO1BQ and VO1MP called me one right after another, much to my surprise.) My next-to-the-last section was NLI. For ND, I worked N7IV and KE0A, both regulars up in the north country. Jay, VY1JA, called me on 40m at 0600z, and gave me his number 006. I later worked VY1EI, who I later heard several times. When I worked John, N4EEB/KP4 at 0020z, and he told me he was sick. I said what was the problem/ He said "dunno, but I have an infection and a fever". I really felt sorry for him, as he worked so hard on making his SS operation in Rincon a success. Wow, what a trooper, and congrats to John for the most entertaining 3830 write up! 10m was open very nicely on Sunday morning, but most of the stations there had already worked during the night. One thing to note about 10m, however, was that later Sunday afternoon I had one yagi to the north and one to the west, and three ME stations called in, including AA4AK, a QRP station who was massively loud. It seemed like I really had to stick to S&P during most of the contest. That was until the last four hours of the contest, when I could finally get some runs going. Later Sunday afternoon and eveing, I was had good runs on 15, 20 and 40, where many new-comers called in with their low numbers...that was fun. By 0146z, I had my 24 hours in, so I had to QRT on a very nice 40m pileup. My comments would not be complete without a special mention to all of the stations that I worked who were not in the Lower-48. They were: KH6LC KH6ZM N4EEB/KP4 (loud) KH7X (loud) KH7Y KL7AF KL7RA KL7SB KP2M KP2MM KP4UNO NH2T (Tnx Dave) NL7V NP2L NP2X (Fred was the loudest of all) NP4DX Tnx to all for a great SS. Hope to see y'all on SSB in two weeks. 73, George, K5KG ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5NA Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 201,760 I had a good start but had a hard time making QSOs on Sunday even though 10M, 15M, and 20M were very open. Maybe it was just me doing a poor job of it. 73, Richard - K5NA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5ND Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 20,160 Wasn't able to work the entire contest, but got on mostly on Saturday with a bit on Sunday. Running K3, Skookum Logger on the Mac, and Cushcraft MA6V Vertical on 20 to 10, Butternut HF2V on 40 m. Thanks for the Q's. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5NZ Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 96,672 Congrats all Q guys, some really great scores and ops! And to everyone, it seems the level of skill and consideration was as great as condx! Not once did a HP jump on my QRG and just blow me off.. Fills were done professionally, quick, just was a pleasure to be on the air this weekend! Last minute got the itch to operate. But wait have no antenna for high bands and only a 40m dipole working. So Sat morning I worked on a broken TH6 on the ground and get it somewhat working, throw up a pulley on the tower and pull it up to 35ft and zip tie it to the tower pointed N. (Photos on QRZ.com) Got TR running and TS590 set up ready to play. Wow, condx were outstanding and had a better start than I have ever had running Q class! Didn't even miss not having SO2R at first because I could actually CQ very low or high in band and get answers! But after a few hours it got very slow and really needed SO2R, sure I missed my 4 mults because of it. It was fun but could only manage 16.5 hours then the 20 rate bored me out of the chair! Thanks everyone for the Q's, really enjoyed the time on the air. Never heard NE,NL,NT,MB.. Biggest surprise.. having K9PG call me with a SJ...Been so long since I've heard him on the air had no idea who it was! Thank PG! Other biggest was making over 150 Q's on 40 with a dipole at 40ft! 40 was so quiet here, it was unreal!!! So it made me realize you can still have fun in a contest with minimal equipment/power! Heck I may pull it back up for SS SSB........SSB....... Nah! nz ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5TR Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 176,160 SS! Thanks to George for another SS-CW opportunity at his super TX Hill Country QTH. 73, Larry K5OT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5WA Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 204,000 SS is my annual radio fix since I don't have a home station. It seems like I prepare better each year but never see any increase in score. I must be fixing the wrong things or the operator is in serious decline. ;-) Nebraska was my last section. Thanks VY1EI and VE8EV for making the tough ones easy this year. Lots of fun, as usual, and I see more and more new contesters working as hard as they can to learn what the heck is going on. It sure would be nice if some contest club sponsored a pre- and post-contest webinar where newbie questions could be addressed. I'd love to have this question tossed at me by a newbie: "Why does he keep asking for my power by sending "PR?"? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5WO Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 61,950 Much better prop than last year on 15 and I stayed there as much as I could. Had a few good runs but not nearly enough. 40 was a disappointment, couldn't get anything going. Thanks to all the great ops for picking out my puny signal! Hopefully next year I'll be louder :-) 73, Bob K5WO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5XA Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 48,822 Rig : Elecraft K3 Antennas : F12 C31-XR@128'; F12 C31-XR@81' Fixed 44°; F12 Mag 240N@ 137'; 1/2 Wave 80M Sloper > 45° Amp : Ten-Tec Titam Soapbox : I installed the Ten-Tec Titan for the first time since 1995 for this contest. My first hour was S&P - trying to get the CW cobwebs out of my head (don't think I did it!) - and bumping up the amp a little at a time till I got it to about 900W and left it there. From that point on it was operate on again off again - some CQ, some S&P. With just a little over an hour left to go, I was missing WV and MB, and started S&P again. At 0050Z I found N8II on 7018 and just needed MB, More S&P yielded nothing else except another WV - K8JQ at 0138Z also on 40M - "just in case". But no sweep! N1MM has me operating for 10:14, but didn't include the last hour or so that I was unsuccesfully looking for MB I have observed all competition rules as well as all regulations established for amateur radio in my country. My report is correct and true to the best of my knowledge. I agree to be bound by the decisions of the Contest Committee. Date : 2011-11-07 Signature : ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K5ZD Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 195,840 My 35th year in a row with more than 1000 QSOs in SS CW! I love this contest and its history from traffic handling. Fun to see if you can copy the full exchange without having to ask for a fill. Nice to have VY1EI call in. Last section was VO1, then worked 4 more. Worked 2 or more of everything else. 20m sounded like 40m all day. Very short skip. With the high bands open, there was room to spread out and it was easier to keep a frequency. Had one stretch using dual CQ to run on two bands. Never able to do that before. Was fun to chase W1UJ and AA3B on getscores.org. QSO/Sec by hour and band Hour 80 40 20 15 10 Total Cumm Off 2100Z - - 65/26 26/17 - 91/43 91/43 2200Z - - 14/2 58/11 8/1 80/14 171/57 2300Z - - 21/1 56/3 5/1 82/5 253/62 0000Z --+-- --+-- 16/1 11/1 --+-- 27/2 280/64 37 0100Z 11/2 - 50/2 24/2 - 85/6 365/70 0200Z 62/4 8/0 14/1 - - 84/5 449/75 0300Z 61/2 11/0 - - - 72/2 521/77 0400Z 60/0 15/0 - - - 75/0 596/77 0500Z 11/1 59/0 - - - 70/1 666/78 0600Z 17/1 27/0 - - - 44/1 710/79 0700Z 15/0 16/0 - - - 31/0 741/79 4 0800Z --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- --+-- 0/0 741/79 60 0900Z - - - - - 0/0 741/79 60 1000Z - - - - - 0/0 741/79 60 1100Z 11/0 12/0 - - - 23/0 764/79 43 1200Z 14/0 41/0 4/0 - - 59/0 823/79 1300Z - 21/0 24/1 - - 45/1 868/80 1400Z - 13/0 45/0 - - 58/0 926/80 1500Z - 13/0 32/0 3/0 - 48/0 974/80 1600Z --+-- --+-- 21/0 18/0 2/0 41/0 1015/80 1700Z - - 7/0 - 17/0 24/0 1039/80 33 1800Z - - 20/0 4/0 7/0 31/0 1070/80 16 1900Z - - 26/0 32/0 - 58/0 1128/80 2000Z - - - - - 0/0 1128/80 60 2100Z - - 14/0 6/0 - 20/0 1148/80 36 2200Z - 8/0 11/0 3/0 - 22/0 1170/80 28 2300Z - - - - - 0/0 1170/80 60 0000Z --+-- 2/0 3/0 --+-- --+-- 5/0 1175/80 55 0100Z - 3/0 13/0 - - 16/0 1191/80 39 0200Z 10/0 8/0 15/0 - - 33/0 1224/80 Total:272/10 257/0 415/34 241/34 39/2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6BL Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 105,280 Thanks to Dave and Barb for a fine time. Great food and exceptional stormy weather, power outages, hailstorms and freezing wind. Wonderful to have 10M back! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6CSL Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 24,180 This was fun. Conditions were great, the bands were crowded and some of the pile-ups were really big. I still can't believe I never found LAX or SB. I was very obviously late on 80. When I got there I only found WWA, EWA, WTX and BC. I thought I would never find NV and UT. I finally worked W7RN(NV) just before the end of the contest on 15M of all places. I finally found AF7Z in UT, my next to last QSO at the end of the contest on 40. the last 2 hours I tried 80, hoping to find LAZ and SB, but there was no one there. The mults I usually miss, MS, DE and ND were easily found this time. What really is discouraging is when I get #725 Q from NN7SS in WWA on 40 during the next to last hour of the contest. I can't really imagine that kind of score with 5W. TNX to all the KB'3rs that gave me points. Bert, K6CSL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6CTA Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 72,656 Had not planned on doing much of anything this year, so this was a low key effort. Did not get on in the evening, so it turned out to be just a 2 band effort. Great conditions! Maybe I should have spent some more time on the air! 99% was spent running, so all of the mults came to me. I was pleased with the station....everything worked well, and no glitches (other than a few operator induced mis-ques with the logging). Thanks for the Q's.... 73, Ed - K6CTA Elecraft K3/P3 Alpha 89 8 ele yagi WriteLog ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6III Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 14,400 Single Band, 10m. Trying to finish up the 10cw WAS... got 3 of the 4 I needed (missed SD). Sent lots of 10m Spots. Missed 20 sections, mostly close-in, but a number of East Coast and central US areas. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6JEB Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 66,750 I was unable to participate until late on Saturday. I got up on Sunday and sat mostly and called on one frequency and had a pretty good rate despite my amp relay getting stuck ON (I need help with this). I had a blast actually considering I ran only 11 hours. Rig was a Yaesu FT-857D, Dentron GLA-1000B amp (500 watts), and an A3S up only 25 feet, and a Butternut HF9VX with < 64 Radials. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6LA Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 213,440 This year the doldrums hit early. The rate dropped dramatically in the 0600 hour. I decided since the high bands were so open, I would use almost all my off time at night. Bad idea. The Sunday afternoon doldrums were as bad as ever. The high bands were wide open, it was easy to find a CQ frequency, but not many came calling. And S&Ping on the other open high bands produced all the same suspects, over and over and over again. AARRRGGGHHH. At least the sweep was easy. All sections wound up calling in, although I worked KP4 on S&P and found my last mult, SB, also while S&Ping. Lots of NL this year. 73, Ken, K6LA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6LRN Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 61,620 Missed NT & DE. Heard VY1EI, tho-but that doesn't count. Did the contest LP as new amp is somewhere west of SLC, UT...I hope. Hi to K9BGL, K0DEQ & others w/ ck 55 that I worked as a Novice in '55. Thanks to all for the Qs!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6MM Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 160,640 You know you're having a good time when 60% of your multipliers come from 10M -- and when both of the NT guys (VY1EI, VY1JA) call YOU. The Propagation Gods were with us this year. 50% of my QSOs were on 10M + 15M. Great conditions on the higher bands. Always a challenging but fun contest. Entire system ran without a hitch all weekend: K3 + ACOM 1000 + SteppIR + G5RV + N1MM Logger. Thanks for the Qs and CU in SS-SSB in two weeks. 73, John, K6MM. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6NA Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 201,760 I missed the event in 2010, but activity this year seemed reduced compared to 2009. In addition, with ten meters open at the start this year, there was definitely a thinning-out effect as folks picked where to be. So I thought there was a bit less QRM than usual. It will be interesting to see if participant-log totals will be less than those of the past couple of years, even though more bands were open. As a high-school kid in 1961 or 1962, I bumped into my first Sweepstakes contest by accident ("What's all this noise?") and was hooked for life. I've missed several along the way due to work commitments or antenna damage, but the CW SS remains a high point on my calendar. These days, I'm lucky to make the Top 30 list, with the competition level so high-- but it's still a blast. Newer operators should understand that this is a very difficult contest, and the Top Ten dudes really deserve our respect. 73, Glenn K6NA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6NV Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 79,158 Almost a sweep, chased the VE1 all over 10m today as he kept moving to avoid the crowd. As usual I spent too much time in S&P and not enough running. Wasn't going to enter this year, not a full effort at all. FT-1000MP AL-80b 3 el yagi up 60' 40m dipole up 80' 80m dipole up 50' Writelog (worked perfectly) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6OK Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 36,112 My check is '09, so up until now my modest dipoles have not had any provision for 10 meters. Why bother putting up something for a dead band? With the consistently high SFI numbers I decided right before the contest to do something for 10. I bought some aluminum tubing and rigged up a dipole at 25 feet. The thing looks exactly like a commercially made rotatable dipole, except mine doesn't rotate, I just pointed the lobe slightly north of east. That effort paid off nicely -- lots of QSO's on 10, and it was fun doing S&P on a band filled with signals. Used the cluster to fill my N1MM bandmap, but I can't say it helped me find that many multipliers, as S&P was productive enough on its own. The exception being VY1EI in NT, as his every move was well advertised on the cluster. Great fun, hope the SFI stays high for Part II SSB in two weeks... thanks to all for the Q's. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6RB Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 103,040 This was the most fun I've had in SS in a very, very long time. It certainly helped that 10 and 15 meters were in glorious condition. But, now having a pair of K3s and P3s, I understand how being able to "see" as well as hear can make a huge difference. I could easily spot an open slot on any band and slip in there within seconds. How cool is that? And, the K3s in their first SS were great. The usual amount of adjacent channel signal crud was either gone or not bothersome. We did have a big amount of rain static, last night, and it was something to watch the noise floor on the P3s move up to S9. Now, I could see what was going on. During the worst of it, I just took a break. I set my goals beforehand to getting a sweep (preferably without spots) to amass 100K points. The only one I needed to use spotting to snag was N4EEB/KP4 (who was consistenly erroneously spotted as N4EED/KP4!). I was called early by VY1EI and VO1MP, so before heading for bed, last night, I had 78 sections and was lacking only QC and PR. Got called by a VE2 and used the spot to nail KP4. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6SRZ Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 191,200 Pending log checking, my best ever! Thanks for the QSOs. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6ST Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 9,588 Played around with about 50 watts on ham sticks ... lots of set up issues with a bad keying device and lots of line noise but finally got on the air and had fun ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6WSC Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 32,000 My first clean sweep! 73, Bill K6WSC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K6XN Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 36,260 I had originally planned a better effort operating from our cabin up in the Sierras at 5000 feet for the entire weekend but the first snow storm hit Thursday, the temperature dropped to 27 degrees and three inches of snow fell at our cabin. This was the *weak* storm. The second major storm was expected to hit on Saturday and deliver an additional 6 to 11 inches more snow. When I heard the second weather report at noon on Saturday (an hour before the ARRL SS CW contest was to begin) I started to pack up and shut everything down. Our cabin is in a wilderness area at 5000 feet elevation in the Sierras on top of a mountain and it is over 3 miles in four wheel drive on a forest service dirt road from the nearest paved road. Bottom line, after two hours of packing everything up and preparing the cabin for the storm (draining the water pipes in the cabin, putting antifreeze in the drains etc) and a four hour + drive back to the bay area I didnt engage in the contest until Sunday morning. Lots of fun in the contest once I was able to engage but I spent far less time operating than I had planned. I spent most of my time on 10M and 15M and really enjoyed the improved propagation. Thanks for all the contacts! 73, Ted, K6XN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7ABV Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 55,286 considering my limited time, I was very happy to get 77 sections, found several called me at the end of the test, just never found RI, NE, or VE4...thanks for a fun time...K7ABV ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7BG Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 195,040 Had the sweep before 0600 Saturday night. VE8EV called me with his #4 and KE0A called from ND. Lots of activity from the KP4 and KP2 to boot. Worked multiple stations in every mult butcept ND. Thanks for the memories, Matt--K7BG ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7EG Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 22,436 Got 79 of 80 sections. Missed NWT. VY1EI could not handle the pileup on 10M andkept going QRT. He was blown away. Need to get some good ops in NWT to handle the demand during SS. My 142 Q's were not many but all I was focused on was a SWEEP. Well, there is always next year. Close but no cigar. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7FA Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 44,352 Rig: K3 Sfw: N1MM-Logger V11.11.0 Very limited effort due to schedule conflict. 73, Tom ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7GK Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 98,434 Very tough going with low power and stealth wire antennas. Quite disappointed with not working the sweep, especially after VY1EI calling in at 21:04 and working VO1HP fairly early on Sunday (thanks for sticking with the exchange!). The secion missed was... wait for it... South Carolina! Heard AA4NN CQ-ing on Sunday and as I was about to call he disappeared! Of course I worked 20 North Carolina stations and a fair number of GAs, TNs and others close by. Alas. If I were to do this again, second radio is definitely a must. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7HBN Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 79,716 Only heard VY1 briefly on 40 and never heard NL First SC was W4/DL3YM, and he was the only SC heard until K2SX in my last hour on 20. The TS-590 was very nice except for the noticeable AGC pumping on 10 meters (up-conversion). 80, 40,20, and 15 down conversion bands no problem. It did however seem to reduce power when the noisy fan came on "high" during a run. If I reduced power to around 75 watts out this did not occur. If someone was driving an amp which only required 40 to 50 watts they would never notice. No sweep, but did work all states. This is still my favorite contest even as age seems to reduce the "competitive desire". Interesting low power battle locally between W7WA and N7WA de K7HBN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7HP Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 127,664 Bummer , no NWT/NT qso for me this year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7IA Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 107,520 Best SSCW ever, despite a grumpy start from the equipment. With K3 still at Elecraft, I planned to use the K2/100 barefoot for the event. With its audio DSP option, it's a better Rx than the old TT Omni 6. But with less than an hour to go before the event began, the K2 and N1MM refused to talk to each other, even though K2 talks to the master station logger, XMLog. Out came the Omni, and it got along with N1MM just fine. The Omni's Rx audio string has a problem--full audio output with the gain knob barely cracked. Guess long term storage isn't ideal for radios, but with a K3 on the desk, why run anything else? I had to become the AGC with the RF gain knob and the ATTN button, just to preserve some hearing. No such operator fatigue with a K3 (or a K2)! New antenna additions made a huge difference. Late last August, Milt (N5IA), his son Jason, and Jason's bethrothed Paulina (they're tying the knot on 11/11/11 at 11:11 local time!) came over to put up a new 90 foot tower and install antennas (2 el M2 40m yagi at 92 feet, refurbished (by me) old HyGain TH5 tribander at 60 feet, and vees for 80 and 160m at 85 feet) supplementing the workhorse 4 el SteppIR at 52 feet). Wife Erin, KB5ZKE, and I began the new tower project last February by surveying, laying out, digging holes (solid rock here), and installing foundation hardware and backfilling with homebrew concrete. What a chore! Mucho appreciation to all for the help and hard work to create my first reasonable antenna farm in over 50 years of hamming! I owe you!! Sweepstakes CW is a wonderful contest, principally because it attracts a large number of fine operators, and it offers a challenging exchange duplicating part of the ARRL Radiogram preamble. As an old CW traffic handler during the Viet Nam era, the SS exchange brings back lots of memories. And, like traffic handling, the exchange must be received and logged correctly, a challenge not offered by most contest exchanges, e.g., RST plus Zone). Add to that, wonderful conditions on all bands plus great performance by the antennas made for a very enjoyable outing. As though that weren't enough, I reached some milestones, some of which were desired but not expected. I put the last two QSOs needed (for a long time) in the log to qualify for the 6BWAS(CW) certificate: AK on 10m and NV on 15. If they just QSL via LOTW, I'll be home free in a few days... I also received my first Sweep. Number 79 was VY1EI, and it came delightfully easy for me--I was running on 20 and he called! I couldn't believe it, but sure enough, it was Eric's call within the exchange. Pretty exciting, and typist's fingers tend to fatten up during such exciting times. Thanks, Eric! Number 80 was more difficult. Operating as unassisted, the only way I could hope to find NL was to point a yagi correctly and cruise the bands looking for a pileup. I found VO1HP on 15m and did the usual listen, listen, listen thing, getting Frank's pattern. I called a few times, of course, but Frank made the QSO happen because once he calls someone, Frank sticks to that callsign until the QSO is made, despite the bedlam from the pile of ops that hasn't figured out what's going on! Many thanks, Frank! It tickles me to say this, but I can always tell when K8IA is using his callsign and not the Club's--I encounter a plethora of "dupe" notices! After the Sweep, the only other milestone was to improve on last year's result, which was easy, considering how low it was and how good condx and antennas were. Fatigue from Omni was really getting to me, so I decided to repair the recently portablized Butternut vertical's Q-section feeder and put the Bnut on the air to see how it would play. Nothing like contests can demonstrate how antennas work! It worked well for unincumbered QSOs, but it wouldn't bust pileups. The Bnut will find work in QSO Party portable ops, saving us from further ops in tall tree/wire antenna country (read: snow and bad wx ops!). Others have posted their band-to-band condition reports. I'll only say that 160 was empty every time I checked--I hope it was the condition of 80 and 40 that diverted the operators and not a problem with the simple vee here. There were a surprising number of QRP stations with big signals and big serial numbers--another indicator of great conditions (it's been only in recent years that I've operated SSCW as anything but QRP). Thanks to all, including tower & antenna crew, for making this event what it was! 73, dan k7ia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7JQ Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 50,400 My first SS since the 1960's. Using N1MM was easier than the (paper log) last time :>) Operated an hour here, a couple of hours there, in between other activities. I was actually able to generate a few small runs...something not possible in the DX contests with a screwdriver antenna. Band condx were generally good, and hope to put in more time next year. Thanks for the Outlaw Q's. 73, Bob, K7JQ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7NV Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 202,080 It was kind of exciting to get the little station fixed and up and running after a couple years of abscence & neglect! Tons of stuff got fixed in the 4 days I took of from making a living to fix it (there's not enough time & bandwidth to try to explain all of that!)....... Too bad I didn't really get it ALL exactly right! I decided to finally take the plunge and retire my trusty old TS930's & put my two new radios into the station....one FT1000MP Mark V (thanks to my Dad, W6KUT,SK), it had only been sitting on the floor of my office for 2 yrs, and a FT1000MP (Many thanks to N6RO for a "good friends" exchange for some hours on towers, etc...!!!). Now, that I had these radios on hand, with no more places to park them....I had to do something to get them out of my office and truck! I think I like these radios! I know everyone else is running all the latest best gear.....I'm always a decade or two behind everyone else in that department. The contest went pretty ok for me into Sunday morning.....but then the wheels seemed to fall off! I expect one of the reasons was that I encountered one of my stoopid oversights thrashing to rebuild the station & putting the MP's into the station with my old tried & true homebrew audio switching system built for the 930's back in 1985. It all went totally wonky and I had to abandon the headphones, and spent all day Sunday doing SO2R listening to everyone thru the MP's native speakers! Some of you guys sound pretty good that way ;-) Y'all ought to try it sometime, it's a real hoot, but not terribly efficient! I know what that problem is all about now....just one more thing to fix....but since I "played hooky" last weekend with you guys, who knows when I'll ever get around to it ;-) Assisted Living In the Contest: I signed up for the Assisted category, because maybe it would be better for me.....I was connected off & on to the N7TR Telnet connection all weekend. My wireless laptop is not connected to my logging computer, so there is no "click & call" here. I was so busy operating most of the time my laptop just went to sleep all the time and disconnected from the telnet. I never made a single qso, or found a mult from it! All the mults called me, except PR, which I found on the second radio after midnight Saturday. But, I did use the Assistance to check the solar conditions, and go find others to see how far I was behind them to motivate me to go work my headphoneless SO2R extraveganza more earnestly..... Thanks to all for the very entertaining contest time! It's good to have the little K7NV experiment back on the air, and get to use it again! Station: Same old little low antennas as shown at k7nv.com, but they were all working again ;-) 73, Kurt ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7RF Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 32,092 My report is testimony to the quality of ops in this contest who were able to dig my call out of the noise and qrm. Thanks to you all. jon k7rf ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7RL Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 205,280 Personal best in SS CW. Finally heard VY1EI on 10m for the sweep Sunday afternoon. Thanks to all for the Qs. 73 de Mitch, K7RL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7SV Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 79,040 I found cw ss to be a bit more fun this year with ops spread out amongst the high bands. Using SO2R made it more interesting as well. My time was limited so I ran on one radio and searched for mults on the other. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7VT/M Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 12,614 Tried out the mobile for a few hours using a FT-450 and hamsticks for 10m and 20m Sunday, utilizing our GMCC club call. Had good time working many loud signals who seemed glad to log a new station during the Sunday dulldrums. Great signals on 10m - thanks for hearing the mobile signal. - Ken, K7VT/m. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7VU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 148,668 missed NT and ND ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7WA Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 85,760 Operated from the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park where I have a two-month volunteer job. Set up the 40 meter dipole a half-hour before the contest and couldn't get it to tune on 15 meters. Paper log and dupe sheet. Was a big thrill to pick up the last two sections in the final hour to complete a Sweep! thanks for the QSOs! Jim K7WA IC-706MkIIG, battery and solar power 20 & 40: 40 meter dipole at 16 ft 10: indoor zip cord dipole ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K7XC Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 136,000 SWEEP! VY1EI (#80) kept QSYing when the pileup grew too unruly making working him very tough. Chased him up and down 20 KHz of 10M. New 4 ele Monobanders on 10 and 15 plus a new full size 1/4 wave vertical on 40 all played magnificently! This was be the "Last Harrah" from this location. Lack of sleep Sat Night dropped me in my tracks Sunday Afternoon. Quit at 01:30Z as I just couldn't focus anymore. KUDOS to ELECRAFT on the K3!!!! First time in my life I could actually "HEAR WELL" in SS CW! An amazing machine!! Hang On LOTW... Here is another log to digest! HI HI ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K8BL Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 160,960 It was great to have condx so good on the higher Bands. Seems so long since I was able to get more than a handful of Q's on 10, if any. However, I think activity was somewhat lower on 40. My suspicion is that lots of folks were taking advantage of the much better condx on 10/15 and they spent much more time there than in past years. Many of the newer Contesters probably never experienced the ability to make so many Q's on those Bands and were cashing in! My goal is always to reach the 1K Q level. I still had 50 to go with almost 2 hours left to operate and was really starting to sweat! This was my first experience in SS as Unlimited and even with a BandMap staring me in the face it was very difficult to find new stations still on the air to work on ANY Band. I must have changed Bands 10 times in the last couple hours and calling CQ repeatedly to finally hit 1K with less than 15 minutes before I went QRT. I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it to stay on to the bitter end versus using the time up much earlier in the Contest. My recent construction/installation of Double Bazooka Inverted Vees for 80 & 40 to replace my old ones seemed to be well worth the effort. They are totally insulated and at DC Ground and it makes them quieter than antennas with exposed metal. I credit this aspect for allowing me to pull out so many of those Q Class stations. Speaking of Q Class... Doesn't there seem to be quite a lot of them lately? And, they often are putting in really good signals! And, why does it seem like almost all of them are in either CO or MN??? I'm not entirely sold on being Unlimited is much of an advantage in this Contest. It didn't improve my score at all versus previous years, but it was nice having a BandMap to see where unworked stations were at. However, unless the station's Call explicitly indicates their Section, you can't really use the Map to show the ones you still need. Often, stations would be gone by the time you got around to them. I feel nothing beats a good frequency to CQ on and getting a good run going regardless of Limited/Unlimited. Maybe when I'm an Old Timer (many years from now!), it'll be easy to just sit back and point-n-shoot the BandMap versus the effort of turning the dial to find stations - HIHI. As usual in SS, I'm DRIVEN to do a Clean Sweep! If I don't get one, my XYL says I sulk for at least a week and mutter unkind things about Yukon, Newfoundland, Wyoming or Northern New York. This year, the pressure was off before I even took my sleep break. I got my 80th Section (ME!) at 8 1/2 hours and my 427th Q. And, where were all the WV stations? I finally worked one as my 72nd Section! Finally, working NT was a nice and easy stroke of luck this year versus endless searching and a massive pileup. I had just worked a MN station on 15M and looked at the BandMap to where to go next when I heard VY1EI call the same MN guy. On a fingers-crossed hope and prayer, I waited 'til they were done and bumped the VFO up 1/2 a KHz and called the VY1. HE CAME RIGHT BACK TO ME!!! I nearly fell out of my chair since I NEVER worked that Section so easily! I'm sure THAT will never happen again!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K8GU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 116,000 Eh, about the same number of QSOs as last year in four more hours. Lots of dupes called me. One even did it twice! 80 was noisy here...constant S9 in a 400-Hz BW. Pleased to finally get the Sweep from home (and unassisted), though. Thanks for the QSOs! 73, --Ethan, K8GU/3. http://www.k8gu.com/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K8IA Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 183,360 What a crazy weekend! Times of near blackout cndx, times of severe QSB, and times when QRP stations were very S9. My 80th mult was VO1HP at 1343Z. Early for me (no packet). Almost threw in the towel late Sunday morning as things got painfully slow for several hours. I am glad I stuck it out, as 40m turned the trick late Sunday afternoon and evening. No SS SSB planned for me. CU all next with N7AT gang in CQWW CW! 73, Bob K8IA Arizona Outlaws Contest Club ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K8MFO Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 12,800 My operation came to an abrupt end at 0223Z when I worked K0NE in Nebraska, and realized I had run out of sections to work. What a letdown! I had even worked WA1UJU in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, hoping that would count as a double multiplier, but the rules did not permit. KK8D was over earlier in the day for an antenna party, and he convinced me to do an 80 in 80 effort, which I did. Sat in the chair for less than 5 hours and accomplished the goal. When you search and pounce, limiting yourself to one QSO per section, you sometimes need to be creative. Thanks to VO1BQ and K0NE in particular for finding me, calling them! This is the second time that K0NE has provided NUMBER LAST in CW SS. Just for kicks, I looked at my 1961 CW SS log, which, miraculously, I was able to find. In that year I made 179 QSOs, and I took a close look at who I worked. Well, 50 years later K4BAI and W0ETT made it in the log again, still using the same calls. K4PUZ is of course now N4ZZ and we worked again. I did hear others from 50 years ago using new calls, but I had run out of sections to work. Used a K-3 with an 80 meter inverted L, single element Mosley on 40, and a Mosley PRO-57A on 20, 15, and 10. The PRO is up 124 feet, a bit high for domestic work, so I had another secret weapon, the driven element from the TA-33 of DX legend W8BKP. At 48 feet it worked very well. I take my limited time in the chair very seriously, and it's nice to hear so many old timers still pounding away, and to hear more recently licensed folks like VY1EI continually improve their skill level. You sounded great, Eric. Another one down the chute. Hope there are more sections to work one of these years. 73 Don K8MFO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K8MM Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 94,240 I have the station mostly disassembled at this time and only one radio available. I retired from QRP as that was something that K8DD and I challenged each other too. I took many breaks to enjoy the nice wx and catch up on some yard work. See you guys in SS SSB. 73, Ian - K8MM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K8MR Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 61,040 This year my annual SS tour was shortened a bit by a requirement to attend a surprise birthday party for my daughter's boy friend on Saturday evening. This kept me from my usual schedule of Saturday at N8TR and AC8E on the opposite side of Cleveland. So on Saturday I operated from home around the party times, skipped my visit to K8AZ, and did Sunday at AC8E and N8TR. I was concerned that after the great conditions in CQWW SSB the week before, people would be too burned out for SS. But the similar great conditions for SS made up for any burnout. Very nice after all those low sunspot years to have 4 bands going at once, to have no skip zones on 40, short skip on the higher bands, and no aurora issues. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K8NY Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 93,936 was using my paddle and paper log. Pain in the neck writing out the info. My first serious contest ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K9CT Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 187,360 Setup a temporary station at the new contest station. Just installed antenna switching on Saturday. Not able to rotate antennas yet because of calibration problems...antennas were either east or west but never moved! Ran out of time and did not get low 40m antenna up. Anyhow, the first couple of hours were scrambling around the upper bands trying to get some rate. 40 is going to be my best band and needed to wait until everyone made it there. Best hour was 2330Z Saturday at 85 qsos. Last mult was VY1EI on 10m. Prior to that was VO1HP on 15m. AR was last state but ended up working two more after being concerned. I setup two K3s with a microKeyer MK2R+, Array Solutions 8X4 antenna switch and band filters. Amps were Alpha 87A. The Steppir DB42s were used extensively and used some of the stacks during runs. A low 80m dipole and the 4 Square were switched through an "in shack" StackMatch. N1MM ran SO2R on Windows 7 computer. No problems..... See you in the phone version in a couple of weeks. More work to do..... 73, Craig K9CT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K9ES Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 1,452 High wind caused unstable SWR on C31XR mounted on testing tower at 22 feet on pulley system. Got on Sunday AM at 7 AM local for about 5 minutes to work KP4's and KP2's on 20M when wind died down. Then got back on 10M for about 35 minutes on Sunday afternoon, working PAC, AK, ND, NT, KL7, ME, NH, EMA, SFL, and other sections while working on XYL computer. Nice to see 10M in great shape. Just had very little time to operate. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K9GS Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 73,458 Only operated Saturday night and almost exclusively on 40 and 80M. The rates were very good during the 05 and 06Z hours. Missed NE, YT and VE4. I heard all of them but always S&P QSOs. Thanks for the QSOs! 73, Gary K9GS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K9MMS Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 106,240 K3 + (AL-80B) + (Win-Test) + packet 76% of QSOs via CQ runs. Worked 79 sections on the first day. Found ND for the sweep early on the 2nd day. Nice to have the high bands open again. Thanks for the Qs and Ms. 73, Gary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K9MU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 10,500 Only a couple of hours for this one at the huntin' shack. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K9NR Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 162,880 Nice to have ten meters back! Could have done better...had to stop a few times to sell my old van. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K9NW Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 116,320 Another part time effort (three years in a row now) but should have planned for full time as my work travel schedule was cooperative this year. Maybe next time.... Great to have all bands open and productive - sure spreads out the activity so finding a CQ frequency was easy. Sweep was in the books at 0541z! 73, Mike K9NW ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K9QC Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 19,370 Just dabbled on and off for a couple hours to test out newly fixed tri-bander and dipoles. It'd good to get my dipoles more then 10feet off the ground! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: K9YC Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 183,840 This is by far my personal best for Sweepstakes full time at home. Usually I do 11 hours or so at home, then 12-13 hours somewhere else. Indeed, I'm not sure if I've ever done full time at home since moving here in 2006. Last year, I went to bed with 594 Qs and a sweep. This year, I went to bed with 680 Qs and needing VY1, which I worked early Sunday morning. With the second tower added this summer and the wires added last year, I now have separate antennas for every band, which has allowed me to get really serious with SO2R, and this is the first time I've ever felt I was actually making good use of it. I was doing a bit Saturday night, but nearly all of Sunday was SO2R. I'm really liking the YCCC SO2R box. I did much more preparation this time around, and was also trying to be far more disciplined about how I was working. All of the things the club has been doing to help us build our skills seem to be paying off. And for the first time in a while, nothing broke or went wrong -- no ice storms, no windstorms, no power failures, no rig failures. Only the brain QLFing once in a while. 73, Jim K9YC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KA2D Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 70,356 missed NL and MB ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KB3LIX Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 66,202 Missed sweep by one section: NE Operation hampered by the return of severe powerline interference. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KB7Q Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 190,560 There must have been some great NFL games on Sunday, where did everybody go? LOL. Saturday was fun, Sunday was hard to get any decent runs going. Gene ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KB9UWU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 43,632 First ss since 2004, second cw ss ever. I decided to do this contest last Thursday. I put a dipole in the attic Friday afternoon and put the rig on a card table in the basement. The paddles were in a box in storage, glad I saved them, or maybe not because I hardly know how to use them :) 100% S&P, usually to hear the station send the exchange a few times since I'm terrible with cw... thanks to those who had to listen to me send my number a few times (I think everyone I worked)! Here are the mults I didn't stumble on NNY WV NE ND NL MB AB NT (funny huh?) 40 meter dipole in attic (20') w/ ft1000mkv (built in tuner) Matt ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KC4HW Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 27,216 Not much time to spend. But all worked very well. Thanks for the QSOs. Jim/KC4HW ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KC9ECI Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 47,250 315 QSO's...I was aiming for 100 75 sections worked 5 sections not worked (DE, NE, MB, NL and NT...that last two I just couldn't break the pileup and the others I never heard....it's easy to find the hard ones with the Flex...just look for the pile on the screen, chances are the DX is near there.) Score 47250 4 on 80M (1%..I hate 80M) 121 on 40M (38%)Caught the PAC multiplier here early Sunday morning 98 on 20M (31%) Finished the contest here and snagged the AK in the last hour. 68 on 15M (21%) 24 on 10M(7%)Really should have spent more time here. Radio: Flex 1500 Antenna G5RV Tuner: Elecraft T1 Beer: Guinness Black Lager...mmmmmmmm. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KD4D Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 195,200 Great fun! Thanks to John Evans, N3HBX, for letting me use his fine station again. I pushed too hard on 80 Saturday night - clearly I should have spent more time on 40. One of the high points of the contest for me was working VY2EI! I heard him answer a CQ on 40 and went up a couple of kiloHertz and called CQ. He came back to me in a minute or so. I really enjoy it when that "trick" works. Wyoming was my last section. But, the 77th section was Missouri! I can't remember ever seeing Missouri as the 77th section. I had the sweep before 1:00AM EDT - I think this is the fastest Sweep I've ever had in CQ. Thanks to everyone for the QSOs! GO PVRC! 2001 SS CW - KD4D HOUR 80CW 40CW 20CW 15CW 10CW TOTAL ACCUM ---- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ----- ----- 21 0 0 78 14 0 92 92 22 1 0 35 29 0 65 157 23 2 56 0 18 0 76 233 0 34 4 19 0 0 57 290 1 42 0 23 0 0 65 355 2 46 10 7 0 0 63 418 3 58 12 0 0 0 70 488 4 57 14 0 0 0 71 559 5 23 36 0 0 0 59 618 6 17 54 0 0 0 71 689 7 16 26 0 0 0 42 731 8 10 25 0 0 0 35 766 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 766 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 766 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 766 12 21 34 0 0 0 55 821 13 5 27 4 0 0 36 857 14 0 41 7 0 0 48 905 15 0 20 20 0 0 40 945 16 0 0 17 15 0 32 977 17 0 0 20 0 6 26 1003 18 0 0 13 1 2 16 1019 19 0 0 31 12 0 43 1062 20 0 0 7 6 0 13 1075 21 0 0 10 32 0 42 1117 22 0 6 11 5 0 22 1139 23 0 16 4 0 0 20 1159 0 15 12 0 0 0 27 1186 1 14 18 0 0 0 32 1218 2 24 13 0 0 0 37 1255 TOTAL 385 424 306 132 8 2011 SS CAW - KD4D 1. Va 73 2. Oh 53 3. Il 53 4. Mn 52 5. Mdc 52 6. WWa 42 7. Ep 41 8. Wi 35 9. STx 33 10. Tn 31 11. NTx 30 12. Scv 30 13. Nc 29 14. Or 29 15. Co 28 16. Mi 28 17. Az 27 18. Sv 26 19. In 26 20. WNy 21 21. Em 21 22. Nh 19 23. On 19 24. Ga 18 25. Org 16 26. NLi 16 27. Sdg 15 28. NNj 15 29. NFl 14 30. SFl 14 31. WPa 14 32. Eb 13 33. Lax 13 34. ENy 13 35. Ky 12 36. Ks 11 37. Me 11 38. Sf 11 39. Nm 11 40. Ok 10 41. SNj 9 42. WcF 9 43. Sjv 9 44. Ct 9 45. Ia 9 46. Mo 9 47. Mt 8 48. Mar 8 49. Ew 8 50. Wy 8 51. WTx 7 52. Al 7 53. Wv 7 54. Qc 7 55. WMa 7 56. La 7 57. Ar 6 58. NNy 6 59. Ak 6 60. Sc 6 61. Ri 6 62. Id 5 63. Ut 5 64. Mb 5 65. Sd 5 66. Pac 5 67. Sb 5 68. Nl 4 69. Vt 4 70. Ab 4 71. Bc 4 72. Vi 4 73. Nv 4 74. Ms 4 75. Ne 3 76. Nd 3 77. Sk 3 78. De 2 79. Pr 2 80. Nt 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KD8GOX Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 25,900 First attempt at QRP contest. I was hoping for a clean sweep but I am happy with 70 sections. Did not work overly hard at this contest. Missed sections that surprised me were NE, OK, AR. Worked NWT and PAC with ease just showing how good conditions were. Never heard AK or NNY. Lots of MDC's out there! Thanks for the effort at picking me out. Antennas were log periodic for 10M - 20M, and verticals for 40 and 80. Rig Orion, power monitored with Elecraft W2. 73 Karl ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KE0G Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 30,972 K3/10 at 5 watts and two dipoles at right angles. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KE3X Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 191,360 First, many thanks to Jack Reichert N4RV who has graciously hosted me for several Sprints and Sweepstakes in the last 15 months. Each time we are getting closer to finding the limits of Jack's station, but we are clearly not there yet. I will use this 3830 post to make personal notes for next year, starting with the 'Disappointments' (to get them out of the way) first: 1. Lost one amplifier: Murphy arrived early the contest, when I lost audio in the right headphone whenever the Radio 2 amplifier was turned on. Nothing fixed it: swapping cables, cleaning ground leads, removing/replacing connections to the DX Doubler box, even swapping in a spare amp. We figure maybe a faulty component in the DXD box or a bad coax shield allowing RF into the shack. So running with HP was limited to 40-Meters (based on station layout, except for a short time running HP on 80-meters in the last 3 hours on Sunday night, but by that time it was too-little-too-late) , and the second radio was limited to 100 watts. Not being able to run effectively on 20-meters was a huge disadvantage all weekend, and it showed in the band totals. 2. Slow start: the first four hours were 74, 66, 70 and 58. That's a small improvement over 2010, but for some reason it always takes me a while to get going in this contest. Never had a hourly rate above 80 all weekend. Where do guys find those 100-hours in SS CW, anyway? 3. Hard to hold a CQ frequency when pouncing on the second radio: I wish I had a nickel for each time I had just begun to send my exchange on the second radio when I heard "QRL? QRL?" in my left ear and had that sickening feeling of "Oh no, in 8 seconds I am going to lose my run frequency and there's nothing I can do about it". Many options to combat this, but none of them are very pretty! Thankfully with the bands wide open I could usually find another run frequency without too much hassle. Next, the 'Bright Spots': 4. Better SO2R results: The primary goal this year was to push hard on the second radio and add another 100 Q's to last year's total of 1,100. This year the Gross QSO count was 1,215 and Net was 1,196 so I'll chalk that goal up to the 'Win' column (even though propagation helped). I had a good laugh at VY2ZM's observation: "I never tuned so hard for anything that moved". Yeah - I was wondering why I felt so wiped out by Sunday night ... Here are a few snippets from the log: FREQ UTC NR CALL 28043 1554 0852 N5OE 07033 1555 0853 NS8O 07033 1557 0854 W3ABT 07033 1557 0855 VA3EC 28029 1558 0856 N6RK 28034 1559 0857 W6SC 21004 1602 0858 K9MU 21006 1604 0859 K5MV 07035 1605 0860 K4FXN 07045 1607 0861 KB9OWD 14035 1609 0862 KM5PS 14039 1611 0863 N7NM ... and later: FREQ UTC NR CALL 21039 0019 1138 K2NO 07007 0021 1139 NU8Z 21022 0027 1140 W6WQC 21023 0028 1141 W7WHY 14068 0032 1142 NE7D 07008 0034 1143 W4HZD 07008 0035 1144 AA5TD 07005 0038 1145 N6ZA 07029 0041 1146 KJ4FDV 07046 0043 1147 KE0L 07062 0044 1148 K1PQS 03549 0053 1149 W4HEX 03549 0056 1150 KQ8M 03552 0057 1151 KO4OL 03531 0058 1152 K4EDI 07059 0100 1153 K3UA 07053 0102 1154 W1TO 07029 0104 1155 N4GG 07025 0105 1156 WB0GKH 07021 0109 1157 K9MA 03535 0111 1158 KA9FOX I have not checked the total number of band changes, but it must be over 250. 5. Finally Learned to use the DX Doubler in 'PTT Mode', which mutes the sidetone when you are transmitting, and switches both ears to Radio 2. By the end of Sunday it started to feel automatic. My thanks to the NCCC Sprint gang and Eric, NO3M in particular this year as I have tried to climb up the SO2R curve. Still a long way to go. 6. Interesting Band Conditions: W1's were workable on 15-Meters from the DC area ... what's up with that? Last time I recall these conditions I was in high school (1977-80). Need to relearn my 'Propagation A-B-C's. And finally, I'll close with a story from the 'Dumbass Department': N1MM Logger started malfunctioning when I tried to send CW using F2 on the right-hand radio, giving a '.wav file error'. Re-starting N1MM did not work. Rebooting the PC did not work. Total panic. Was I going to have to log by hand for the remainder of the contest? At that point, Jack wandered into the shack and casually pointed out the second radio 'Mode' switch was accidentally set to LSB instead of CW :-) I think that was after only 20 hours of SO2R ... I really have no idea how some guys do it nonstop for 48 hours. Overall, this was great fun, and I think Jack's station is capable of at 1250-1300 Q's in SS CW given optimal band conditions, two working amps, and more skill from the op! I will be at home for Sweepstakes Phone, probably doing a 'family style Multi-Op' with my sons. 73, Ken, KE3X ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KE7X Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 174,400 Hello all from the chilly north. A winter storm rolled in as I headed west to Ken (K0PP) and Rose's (N7HKW) warm hospitality. Got the two radios and new laptop set up in good time. The first couple of hours were hard to get going with the unaccustomed propagation on the higher bands :-). What a luxury! Ken's station worked its usual magic except for a broken 10 meter filter on the triplexer box which limited the 10 meter activity (only 80 q's). Great to hear everybody and to finally work a sweep after missing it in SO unassisted class the last couple of years. Unlimited class really helps with that operation!. Many thanks to Ken and Rose. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KF6T Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 158,240 Can't wait for the 10m contest - was working EC after dark! Great overall conditions plus no noise on the lower bands. The well ran dry the last few hours so didn't quite make 1K. 73, Jack - KF6T ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KG0Z Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 65,056 Great to see old friends again! 15M was wonderful! Having this big loop at an elevation of 10,000' up here on the mountain sure helps! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KH6LC Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 91,476 Unfortunately, had to miss the first 2 hours due to final exam at school. Was pretty tough to make up for all of those missed Qs! Heard neither SC nor AR. Heard VY1EI, but couldn't work him for NWT. "NR?" 73 & aloha Rob, NH6V www.kh6lc.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KH7X Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 224,000 15 and 20 meters closed early here. Forced to go to 40 meters before sundown, I was lucky to get a great frequency at 7036. Then, at 0348z I was forced to take the first of three 1/2 hour off times between then and 0830 due to a bizarre wide band noise that showed up at 25 to 40 dB over S9 across all bands. Never heard anything quite like this before, and hope I never do again. Tried to play catch-up the rest of the way, with a solid opening on 10 meters Sunday morning helping me to make up some ground, but that ended too early in the day as well. Still, always fun to battle the challenges in CW SS. Thanks to all that made it into the log, including the many that are not all that experienced at CW, but are still in there making the effort to join the fun. We appreciate your participation. Aloha - KH6ND ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KH7Y Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 91,352 Family business this weekend so only had a few hours to play. Ten meters hot again this weekend, like on WW SSB. I think I worked about 100 Q statons, many more this year with good signals. Thanks for the QSOs, Aloha, Fred KH7Y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KI7Y Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 112,000 Reached my goal of a sweep. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KJ4FDV Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 58,064 Great condx here across the board this year! Missed NT, NL, MB, and NE for the sweep. Heard all of them but NE at some point. Next year.... My new homebrew balanced L network did well with a 50 ft. dipole up 50 ft (broadside N-S). Also ran a 130 ft. inverted vee up 35, and a full size dual band trap vertical on 80/40 with 13 seventy-foot radials. Rig Ten-tec Omni V. Thanks for all the QSOs in the best domestic contest around! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KJ6MBW Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 23,301 Rig/Ant: 100w and a home made vertical Spent a few hours operating on 40m both evenings and an hour or so on 15m during the day on Sunday. 73 Sergey ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KJ6RA Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 11,124 First time doing any amount of contesting for about a year now. Thought we would get a little time in before we head back to Alaska on Wednesday. It was nice to get on the radio, to bad we'll be at work for the phone part. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KK7S Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 170,080 I managed to meet both of my goals in this one -- a sweep and 1000+ Q's -- so I'm pretty happy with it. It was a big improvement over last year. I hope I don't lose too much in scoring. All of my extra QSOs this year came on 15 meters. That band was amazing. I put up a homebrew 15m moxon at about 30 feet in time for this contest and it performed like a champ. I felt like I had a Russian KW and an aluminum forest. But I imagine a hunk of random wire at 30 feet would have been pretty darned good today on that band this weekend. As usual, I blundered a bunch. I kept trying to hold my run frequency while doing S&P on the 2nd radio, but with the long SS exchange, it's very hard to time this right, and it led to all kinds of QLF. I'd inevitably get my brain and fingers tied in a knot and I must have asked for fills in 40% of my QSOs. On the bright side, I only lost my run frequency a couple of times. I also messed up my schedule and ended up having to work my last 1.5 hours of the contest while taking care of our 2 young kids and baby. I was using skype and remote desktop on my laptop in the kitchen to work S&P on 20m and 40m while feeding the baby and making dinner for the kids. Brings a whole new level of complexity to contesting... According to N1MM, my rate during that time was about 27Q's/hr. Better than nothing. 80m is just horrible with my location and antennas. Next year my strategy will include avoiding that band as much as possible. I'll take all of my off time at night. As always, it was great to work all the regulars from NS sprints and WWDXC. Thanks for the Q's (and all the fills, too). -Chadd KK7S ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KK9DX Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 48,320 Like always, just part time, I had to work on Sunday.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KL7RA Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 193,920 First... Thanks to Rich for the use of his station.... and for his dedication to keeping us communicating with the world... both by radio and by road. Weekend snow storms turned snowblower duty into a Greek tragedy... Sisyphus... as soon as you get the road cleared, more snow falls. As for the radio, the contest was a blast. I was slightly disappointed by the condition... they were good, but not solar flux of 173 good. On the other hand, it made choosing my off time easy enough. All of the bands produced... even 80. It made for a good place to tune while cycling CQs on 40. I mostly neglected 15 meters, because the pairing of 10 and 20 did the best job of filling the geographic holes. Thanks to everyone for the Qs... and thanks to the more difficult sections for the calls. The 80th section for me was WMA. As a wise snowblower operator once said, "They're all rare when you don't have them..." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KM6I Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 175,840 K3 + AL-1200B 80M dipoles @ 110' 2 el 40 (2) 5 el 20 5/5 el 15 5 el 20 Beverage Thanks to Kevin AD6Z, for letting me operate again from his wonderful station in the mountains overlooking Silicon Valley. Hardly anything went wrong this weekend, which scares me for SS Phone. :-) This is a personal best score for me. Thanks for the Qs, everyone. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KM7W Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 27,876 Just a little operating Saturday early evening, and then the last hour and a half or so. Lots of fun with the bands in such great shape! A fun little sprint to the end to break the 200 QSO mark. A great way to wash out any SSB residue leftover from last weekend. No cluster was even better. -Chris KL9A HF6V, 100w ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KM9M Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 14,960 Congrats to the "high rollers!" Working 12 nights both sat/sun killed this for me. Low wire shorted, used ground mtd vertical for the 3 hrs I operated. It's hell to get old, needing sleep to go to work. Same op sked for SSB. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KN3A Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 56,000 My first Sweep! I got NT very early in the contest Saturday and was fairly smooth sailing for the rest. The last two I needed were MB and NLI of all places. Anyway, took a while but got MB for the sweep around 1:00 pm local time. Once I achieved my goal of sweep, I just gave points out here and there and ran for a little bit, which is something I normally don't do. Band conditions were very good this year. I notice more people are reporting sweeps than in years past, and also I worked a lot of QRP stations. That's good news and I chalk that up to propagation. A couple of things I observed. If you take over a frequency to run, either listen first, do a QRL? or even a ? but more importantly give someone a chance to say yes or no that a frequency is in use. Looking forward to the November SS Phone, but not looking for a double sweep this year. Scott KN3A Kenwood TS 450SAT Dipole @ 35 ft. 75 watts N1MM Logger ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KN4QD Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 10,660 Limited time owing to my son's birthday so I decided to do a single band 10-meter entry in celebration of it's coming to life. I was pleased with the effort and the band was in nice shape from here in the SE. Hope this continues for CQWW! K3, Hexbeam, N1MM Logger ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KN4Y Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 19,170 My attention span is not contest correct for this event. So I go slow and listen long and log fast. Enjoyed the fun on ten meters. I missed SFL because we do not share our frost with them, and their pumpkins rot. I digress, another reason I missed the sections I did not work. I had fun, what else can I ask. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KO7AA Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 160,160 That was painful.... I think this is a taste of the future, the dwindling number of CW contesters spread out over 3 open daytime bands. Maybe it was just the conditions in AZ. I started out on 15, the band was open to the entire US, short and long skip. The rate was just slow. I had 20 2nd radio Q's each of the first 4 hours, and my hourly totals were still behind the last 2 years. At 0230Z it was like a door slammed shut on 20M. I moved the run radio to 40M and the 2nd radio to 80M and it was like my antennas were down. Nobody to work. Nobody louder than S5 on 80M. I realized I wasn't going to be able to do 40/80 for 4-5 hours and shut it down. On Sunday the new goal was 1000 Q's and a sweep. Even that was painful.... At least frequency fights are a thing of the past !! It sounded like some people were having fun. I congratulate the persistance of those that operated 24 hours !! 73, Bill KO7AA in Tucson ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KO7X Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 111,840 Thanks to VO1HP and VY1EI for #79 and 80 for the sweep. Conditions seemed to be excellent. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KQ6ES Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 51,684 On Saturday I operated at N6WIN as part of the multi-op. Thanks Tim! Sunday I was single-op from home. Altogether an enjoyable and productive contest weekend. As N6WIN there was Missouri a'plenty, but as KQ6ES I didn't hear any of them. Have I ever missed the MO mult before in any contest? I doubt it. I expected better from 10m, not sure if conditions have weakened or my timing was bad. John kq6es FT-1000MP, AL811 running about 400 watts Cushcraft A3 at 20ft and Butternut vertical ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KR2Q Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 86,268 I love QRP, but..... Wish I had been more pumped about this one; my heart just wasn't in it. I think coming off the great power outage and spending time cleaning up so many broken limbs and living in a one room EconoLodge rental for so many days took its toll on me. On the plus side, I have never encountered so many other QRP stations during the SS. Did I miss some sort of announcement or something? They were all over the place! Highlights were snagging NH2T on one call(even though I already had several PAC mults) - not bad for QRP - and having a VE4 answer my CQ (my only MB). Heard VY1 but gosh that was a big pileup...thought I'd wait to even try. Guess that was a mistake. Most difficult QSO: I was calling CQ on 80 and I heard this weakest of weak signals...is he call me? After a few overs, I found it was W7RM. After several (felt like "many") repeats, I finally got his exchange. Apparently, he had no trouble copying me, but with only a simple inverted V, I had plenty of trouble copying him. But the QSO made it into the log. Wow...2x QRP on 80, coast to coast. And that QSO number he gave me? Surely that was a mistake (but it wasn't). BIG NUMBER! Low point: reading all of the comments on 3830 by other QRP entrants who say that entering QRP is somehow "torture." Not me...I LOVE QRP. Every QSO is a joy and something to celebrate. Gee guys, if it so "bad," why do you do it? de Doug KR2Q ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KR7C Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 55,480 Took a while to get going, and I didn't stay in the chair as long as I should of, but I really enjoyed my first SS. Next year, more running and less S&P. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KT0R Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 177,920 Station: C3 with 40M element @ 50 ft B&W folded dipole @ 45 feet 500 watts N1MM with DX Doubler for SO2R Comments It was great to once again be KT0R in SS. I got some nice comments from people and saw great spots from K0RC and KE0L on the cluster. I walk away from this one with a sense of satisfaction for not letting Murphy destroy me. Murphy does his best when one is tired and can't think straight! I made some changes to the station this year. My old Array Solutions SO2R box died so I bought a DX Doubler and got coaching from K0AD on how best to use it with N1MM. I practiced quite a bit but in the heat of SO2R it took awhile to get comfortable with it. After 24 hours I have to say I like N1MM SO2R and the DX Doubler. Thanks Al for your help! The contest started well with a 78 Q first hour. I stayed on the same 20M frequency for 5 hours! VY1EI called me just before I left 20M so that left me pretty excited. I went until 3 AM with no breaks and went to bed needing ND, NE, VT, and NL. My first Q back on was VT and within the hour I had ND and NL! Yea! Things were going well. I had a 61 hour CQing on 40 while S&P with the other rig on 20M. Then about mid morning the second rig had out of sight SWR on the folded dipole, which I depend on for 2nd radio Q's on 20 through 10. I kept going while screwing around with the second rig. My rate dropped to a 38 hour with this distraction so I took a break to figure it out. I was convinced it was a intermittent connection in the Six Pack I use to switch antennas. I tried a different port and things suddenly worked. I walked away to eat something and came back only to find the SWR was out of sight again! Argh!!!! I decided to keep going now thinking it was a intermittent connection in the coax that the strong winds were exposing. For 2 hours I kept going with no 2nd radio Q's. Then out of the fog my tired brain suddenly came up with the solution. It was so windy the first thing I did on my previous break was to look outside to make sure the folded dipole was still up. It was but I noticed my tubular tower was really whipping around in the wind. It took my tired CW saturated brain this long to figure out the wire on the folded dipole could be brushing up against the tower while it whipped around, which would cause a short. I have the folded dipole hoisted up on a rope that attaches to a pulley on the tower. Normally I don't have problems with this. I took another break and went outside to tie the coax to a tree so it pulled the dipole away from the tower. Problem solved!!!! Now I was pissed with myself for my slow problem solving. I went from the depths of despair to being fully motivated. I couldn't let down the mighty KT0R! I was now starting to panic with no NE. I finally saw a spot for W0KT on 20M but he was weak and the pile up was huge. I kept checking in on him and finally the pile up died down and I got him for the sweep. I also had another NE station call me on 40M later for double insurance. The last few hours were a blur as I pushed to break the 1100 Q mark. I was close to pulling the plug during the several hours of no 2nd radio Q's but, I knew Dave would keep going while looking for the answer. The many memories I have of his determination kept me going. It's been four years now since we lost Dave but he still is pushing me to my best. Thanks Dave. 73, Greg K0OB ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KT4LST Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 3,168 This is my first time running in any cw contest. Also my first time running in the ARRL CW Sweepstack. I had a boat load of fun however I had a lot of Line noise in my receive that hindered me in many qso's but all in all I had a lot off fun and look forward to it next year ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KT4Q Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 61,908 All S&P for me. Conditions seemed quite good for me. Rig: Yaesu FT1000MP MV Ants: Cushcraft X7 @ 50ft Carolina Windom/Beam 80 @ 35ft Gap Titan @ 30 ft Log: WriteLog ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KT8K Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 78,540 Great conditions for my QRP signal to be heard - nice and quiet - but the QRM was often hard to get through. Some of my QRP competitors (probably those with towers and big aluminum) were whipping me and my wires in the trees by up to 100 Q's when I worked them, but I'm hoping they pushed hard early and were running out of time. I'll be happy to make the top 20 QRP ... especially since a social commitment held me to under 18 hours on the air. I did get a personal best of 4 runs > 10 Q's - a first! All were with rates between 30 and 48 Q's/hour (a 48 hour Sat night was my best). I did so well early on that I was having trouble finding stations to work until the "fresh meat" stations showed up Sunday afternoon and evening. I never heard LAX (go figure) or NT, and failed to snag the one MB station I heard several times - always with a pileup (thanks to the spotting networks). Overall, though, this upheld my regard for SS CW as one of my favorite contests of all in spite of the much tougher competition. I hope to do well again (as I did last year) in the SSB version in a couple of weeks, and hope most folks will eschew running QRP SSB in favor of higher power levels. In the meantime, I find myself still aching for a big tower (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNWZjzrzgwA) and wondering if someday I could wangle a guest op invitation somewhere not too far away from home. It would be big fun to actually have some directional antennas with GAIN to call on with my QRP power level. If I ever get that big tower my competitors had better Look Out! Thanks to all who hung in there for a few repeats to dig my signal out of the QRM/QSB. It was sad that a few just blew me off after one attempt and wasted my and their time, but ... contesting skill levels vary as well as temperaments. Happy to have worked many familiar calls again this time. Best reception to all and C U in the next one! 73 - Tim, KT8K ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KU7Y Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 58,968 My first time using spots. Was fun but different. Did all S&P as the QRN here at the RV park is so loud I can not hear the weak stations! RF feedback on 10m kept me at less than 50w. Had interruptions that held down the total time. Thanks to everyone for the contacts. Missed NWT and NL. Heard both but very weak and nasty pile-up every time! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KU8E Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 104,000 CW SS is one of my favorite contests but for some reason my heart wasn't into it this time around. Been a little under the WX since I got my flu shot so I wasn't in the mood to do a full 24 hours. It was also a letdown operating from my small station at home after being at WW4LL for CQWW SSB the previous weekend. I quit after the first 1 1/2 hours. Did some family stuff and got back on after 3 hour break for a decent run on 40/80 meters until around 4 AM. Slept in late and did some more family stuff and settled back in the operating chair around noon or so and went until 7:30 PM. First time in awhile that I managed to get a sweep on CW. It was a challenge to finally get thru to VY1EI for my final section. I chased him around 10 meters all afternoon. Every time I found him he had a unruly pileup and would end up QSYing. I got lucky and found him before he was spotted and was able to get thru. 73's until next time. Jeff KU8E ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KV8Q Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 134,080 Another CW Sweepstakes behind us. I am always amazed at how many folks stop for a second to say Hello. Conditions were great and I found a sweep for the second year in a row. I put up a temporary antenna for 15/10 meters and it did actually work. Then, Mr. Murphy showed up and began producing a bunch of noise from the remote antenna switch. That made 15/10 meters useless the first afternoon for the second radio. With flashlight in hand, I bypassed the switch around 5:30am Sunday morning and then was able to use 15/10 meters again Sunday. But, honestly, with the second radio and the ability to tune while CQ'ing on a different band, was more of a distraction for me than a help this past weekend. I've got the hang of it down now. I just need more practice at it to make it beneficial for me. With my elaborate antenna system - a G5RV at 45' - my main money bands are 20/40/80 meters. It seemed like activity was down there this weekend. I still felt loud and could hold my frequency - just not as many callers it seemed. maybe everyone was having fun with the sunspots. No complaints about conditions. Eighty meters was very quiet all weekend with a nice mix of long and short skip. My QSO total was down a bit this year; but, the fun level was way up there. Thanks to everyone who made this a very, enjoyable contest. I look forward to seeing you all agin next year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KX7L Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 37,914 Didn't get to put in as much time as I would have liked, but had a lot of fun. Great conditions for QRP! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: KY7M Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 163,360 Enjoyed conditions because even the weak signals were not buried by QSB and QRN, so I rarely needed more than a single repeat to get the exchange on any band. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N0BUI Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 107,954 Thanks for all the Q's. Sorry if you had to tolerate one of my fat finger attacks. 73, Mike N0BUI ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N0IJ Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 67,080 This was my second operation for the contest--first using W0TVD from MN. It was fun being "new" for 6 hours on Sunday afternoon. Missed ND and VT. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N0IJ Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 161,950 Limited time, but pretty wild at times on the high bands (and 80!). Spent most of Sunday getting antennas repaired and ready for next week. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N0MA Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 81,760 First CW sweep from the Radio Farm after many years of only Phone Sweeps. New blood means more fun for everyone. Interesting to see our lowest activity was on 20m. Solar Flux is your friend. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N0NI Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 229,920 Wonderful to hear all the bands open. Appreciate the efforts of all who took the time to get on during the weekend to make some contacts. Thanks again to Toni and Colleen for making their home mine the first weekend in November of yet another year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N0TA Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 104,438 Missed ND - heard them on 15m, but just too weak to work. Maybe if I hadn't run out of gas Saturday night, I might have found them! I was surprised with the number of stations I worked that were not in my History file - not sure if I have a "light" History file, or there were lots of new people. Thanks for the Q's! K3 & KPA500, verticals & doublet, and N1MM. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N1CC Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 105,600 Equipmenmt: FT-990, MFJ Noise Canceller, ClrDSP Audio Filter. Antenna: Force-12 C3 @ 40', 160-80-40 Inverted Vee, DX Engineering 43' Vertical with auto-tuner at base. Very Good conditions, severe congestion - it's obvious that some folks move on top of weaker signals without listening first. Tight radios on CW more than any other mode allow good ops to handle the congestion. The first 77 Sections were no problem. Beating down the competition for NE, NL, and NT took a lot of patience. Final mult was NT -- by coincidence Eric, VY1EI and my QSO numbers were the same! I was going to work as many hours as I could. However, for the first time in years I made my pre-contest goals, 100K and the Sweep with 3 hours to spare and decided to take a rest! Was able to run for long periods, average during runs of 75 QPH and the overall average of 38 QPH with low power. No storms this year and bands were quiet enough to pull most of the QRP folks out easiliy. See you all in SSB! 73, Jim N1CC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N1LN Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 164,800 I really tried to stay in the chair for all 24 hours, but the many Sunday afternoon distractions along with the excellent weather pulled on me too hard. Worked VO1HP at 0438 UTC Sunday morning for the sweep. That was the only Cluster Assisted mult. Just wanted to get the sweep done. By Sunday evening I was really pleased that I did operate U class. I actually stopped full time BIC operating at roughly the 17 hour mark and went in and out of the shack checking spots for the next few hours. If there were spots I worked them, if not, back out I went. Some of the off times must have exceeded the 30 minute gap as N1MM shows only 18.5 hrs. See you in SS SSB. 73, Bruce N1LN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N1SNB Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 127,040 That was fun! I'm glad I decided to participate. Had the snow and ice not ruined last weekend's contesting I probably would have skipped this. Clean sweep seemed fairly straightforward. Nebraska made me a little nervous but using skimmer is like shooting fish in a barrel. I had the 6 most likely to be active NE callsigns dialed in - just waiting. Finally, W0KT was had on 20. Other tough sections for me were AR, MB (only 1 each). See everyone in a few weeks for CQ WW. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N2AW Class: Multi-Op LP Total Score = 24,704 ARRL Section : VA Club/Team : Potomac Valley Radio Club Software : N1MM Logger V11.6.2 Band QSOs Pts Sec 7 31 62 15 14 1 2 1 21 161 322 48 Total 193 386 64 Score : 24,704 Rig : ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N2BJ Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 77,760 Don't know why I did this but for the sweep chased VY1EI around the bands for at least 2 hours, maybe 3, whast a waste of time and lowered my run rate and qso count also gave me a headach. Probably not as bad as he had what a nightmare of a pileup on this poor guy! I really felt bad for him as I know that these CW pileups when I call CQ are not pleasing to me at all! Pulled the plug early as activity and spotting activity was way off this year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N2GA Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 123,360 Last three sections were ME, SC and NL. VO1MP called me while running for my first sweep ever as a single op. There seemed to be a lot of loud QRP stations this year. Generally good conditions on almost all bands and it was nice to have a choice of band to spread out. Biggest gripe was stations not calling QRL? before CQing on top of existing QSO's - this is very poor operating practice! Thanks to all the great operators out there who pulled my call out of the mud! Hope to CU in the upcoming CQ WW CW contest. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N2IC Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 238,080 Great conditions, great fun ! If only everyone understood what "PREC?" and "CK?" mean. Thanks for all the QSO's. 73, Steve, N2IC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N2MM Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 146,240 I thought I would try something different other than SOA-HP. It was a good thing that I did because a problem surfaced with my high 20mtr beam on LP! Probably it is due to some corrosion on the beta match. Since I usually run HP, I would have never noticed that I had a problem. Fortunately my 50 ft TH6DXX was usable to work stations. Unfortunately it could not generate runs. Both VY1JA and VY1EI were heard very weakly early on 20 & 15m and there was no way I could work them. Fortunately got lucky Sunday afternoon and caught VY1EI after he qsy'd from the pile-up, all alone. He was s-9+ !!! The only other scare was working DE. Being only 60 miles away it should have been easy, but I had to wait until Sunday morning for N8NA to appear on 40m. As luck would have it, another DE called me later in the contest. Every section was worked at least twice, except for VY/VE8 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N2NT Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 220,000 Nice to have SunSpots + SS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N2QT Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 40,000 This really isn't my contest. My cw skills at contest speeds are adequate for a callsign and a zone or state abbreviation, certainly not the exchange used here! Last time I was in this contest I left tail between my legs with less than 20 q's. This time I stuck it out, even though I usually had to listen to a couple of contacts with each station I worked to be sure I had things right. I did get the sweep, but using packet almost makes that seem unfair. K3, Alpha 87A KT34A at 60 ft, 3 el Steppir at 48 ft 40M rotary dipole at 54 ft 80M dipole at 50 ft ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N2WN Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 72,000 Got off to a rough start, apologies to K6XX and K6NA for the clumsiness. Got everything sorted out and for the most part all went smoothly the balance of my time on. W0KT in NE was the last needed for my first ever sweep! I was sweating it with SC and NE being the last two needed. Found them within 10 minutes of each other at the very end of the contest! I stayed on four hours more than planned, just because I had a shot at 80. My main reason to be on was to try and finish off WAS on 10m, and hopefully work someone from DE and WV who uses LoTW. Not DE or WV worked on 10, but landed ND in the first 20 minutes. So 5BWAS completed, once confirmed. I have to say there were some impressive QRP numbers exchanged. It looks like a great year for pipsqueak signals. Look forward to reading the comments. Thanks for all the QSOs, repeats and fun. 73, Julius n2wn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N3AM Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 131,520 90% S&P, using filtered RBN spots. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N3BB Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 211,200 First serious contest (other than the Sprint) since I took nearly three years off to finish my novel. (It will be out in two or three months.) Was not sure what to expect in the SS. My ears were rusty but they came around. Had my usual lackluster start. Never did feel like I was really doing well but the contacts kept coming. I stayed in the chair. Things got very slow Sunday, and it was a major "find" to tune across a new station to work on the second radio while plugging away with continuous CQs on the run radio. I worked the two radios really hard, and constantly. 15 meters was the only thing that kept me sane Sunday, and I should have stayed on that band longer. Got the sweep thanks before I went to sleep Saturday night. That was comforting since it meant I could focus on rate Sunday. Rate? There was none. The sections (with six or fewer contacts) for me were these: 6 WTx, NNy, De, Ri, Qc, Sb 5 Id, Ab 4 Nv, Sd, Mb, Vt, Sk 3 Ms, Ne, Nd, Nwt, Vi 2 Nl, Pr As I recall, my last section was (drum roll) ... OK! The operators in VY1/VE8, VO1, NP2, NL, and KP4 are especially appreciated for making a special effort to be on. Every one called me except for a portable in KP4. (The VY1/VE8 stations were really loud and clear very late on 20 meters.) Also, the VEs were active, especially in the west. It's surprising that some of the US sections continue to be so scarce. I never felt loud. This contest is hard! It's humbling. Thanks to K5OT's encouragement, the CTDXCC turnout was really good and quite a number of central Texas stations were on. That was fun. Also, it was fun working so many of the Thursday night NS gang. Had several instances where relatively rare DX kept calling, and even though I sent "SRI USA SRI," they kept calling. One was a VU2, which is not all that common in these here parts. Also some deep Russia and some west EU stations. I'm still using TR and it worked great. They will have to pry my steely copy on a 3.5 inch disk out of my dying hands, to quote Charleston Heston, or someone. Congrats to some of the amazing scores posted on 3830 already, with several of the big guns still outstanding. These results are really hard to achieve. Well done. There were several of the CTDXCC gang on seriously (K5NA, K5OT at K5TR, K5PI at W5KFT, KU5B at NR5M, etc). I've seen none of the scores, but the local competition made the weekend even more tense. Thanks to all for the activity and the contacts. Same old station: TR-log running on a 66 MHz IBM 486DX, Two FT-1000MPs, two Alpha amps, stacked yagis on 10 and 20, a single yagi (one of the stacks on the 15 meter tower has gone bad and must be repaired) and that hurt me, two yagis on separate towers on 40 (combined with a Stackmatch), slopers on 80. Same old operator. 73, Jim N3BB ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N3BM Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 56,564 Missed MB. Icom 756 Pro3 AL-811H Force12 C-3SS Inverted L and Ewe Receive antenna WriteLog ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N3KN Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 37,960 I wish everybody who's a B would leave a just a skootch more space between the serial number and the precedence. All jammed together, it's easy to mis-hear the B as a 6 and foul up logging the s/n. 73! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N3ME Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 23,562 Worked myself to death as I am NOT a CW operator - was in the 70's & 80's but have lost the ability. Participated in the contest strickly for the good ol' PVRC. Hope everyone had fun. C u in the ARRL SS SSB - ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N3MK Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 78,880 Clean sweep. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N3QE Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 94,080 First sweep ever. Last two were NT and then MB. Amazingly after I picked up MB late Sunday afternoon, I picked up 3 more MB's in the next few hours. My new rig came two days before the test: a Ten-Tec Eagle. Performed wonderfully. The sweeps are a wonderful contest because: everybody is sending their call or the other guy's call all the time as part of the exchange. This is such a win. I will never ever gripe about the exchange because the presence of calls in the exchange makes this so good. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N3RC Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 81,120 Snow arrived in Montana in time for SS. Very happy to get a sweep again!!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N3SD Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 108,264 Good condx most of the time. Sun spots sure make a difference!!! 73 Greg, N3SD ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N3UM Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 127,190 My claimed 127 K this year is off from the 146 K I claimed in 2010 and 134 K in 2009. I got about the same number of QSOs on 40 m. this year as in 2009 and 2010, while on 80 m. I got only 57% and 58% as many Qs as in the last 2 years, despite serious effort.: 80 m. propagation was only fair at best. With more sunspots, 20 m.was more productive this year, and I found a few tens of Qs and 3 mults (AB, PAC, PR) in a few easy minutes on 15 and 10 m. But, the better high-band totals were not nearly enough to make up for the 80 meter deficit. In hindsight I might possibly have done better to spend an hour or two on 20 m. instead of 40 m. at the very start of the contest. Fatigue from minor surgery 4 weeks ago may have reduced my score a bit, but my BIC time was only 1 hr .less than in '10. One mult. short of a sweep: missed NEBRASKA! Crazy. NT, PAC, AK, NL, WY, PR, EWA, DE, etc. NO PROBLEM! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N3ZZ Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 164,320 40m and 10m were the money bands tonight here. Local line noise on 15 metere, otherwise VFB conditions all around. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4AF Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 204,480 Really sweet condx. I think having the high bands open up helped spread folks out. Most sections were well represented. Summary @ http://n4af.blountscreek.org/stats A tough year, not really able to keep up with storm damage. 73, Howie ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4CW Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 109,200 Lots of fun with good band conditions. So many good signals...and so many QRP participants! Still a few offensive key click stations out there, but not a single station worked with a chirp; remember the "old" days? Missed ND and NT for a "clean sweep"... Enjoyed the many fine CW operators out there; THANKS! Bert, N4CW ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4DJ Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 99,360 Rig: OMNI VI+ Drake L7 Dipoles for 40 through 10, Half Square on 80 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4DU Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 101,244 Missed ND and NWT, but did hear VY1EI but he never heard me. 500 watts into A3S tribander at 43 ft and wire for low bands. Best three hours of CQ where 78, 71, 70 qso/hr. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4EEB/KP4 Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 132,800 This represented my first trip outside of Florida (and the U.S.) to operate in a contest. I rented a beautiful house in Rincon, PR on top of a hill overlooking the beach. I'd like to thank Eladio WP3MW for the logistical support he provided. I would not have been able to do this without his help. Unfortunately, Saturday morning of SS, I began to develop a severe ear infection which got worse every hour. I had to end the contest early and go to the hospital for treatment as the pain and swelling got the best of me. As a result, my score suffered badly. I still had loads of fun, and I will be back! Operating 10-meters from PR was a blast. I can't wait until next year. 73 John. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4FX Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 139,360 First multi op in SS ever. My brother who has not been on the air in 20 plus years retired and wanted to do SS. He has held and let expire at least 4 other calls. He got KC9PQO about a month ago and wanted to do SS. He last SS being in 1986 or so. He noticed a few changes right away, like no paper logs, no paper dupe sheets, computer logging, digital radios, packet clusters, computer sending etc. RBN spots, S&P from a needed mult list. He was at about 25 wpm when he got here, 2 days on morse runner and he was in the 30's. The first two hours of SS blew him away but after that he was handling it like a pro. Looks like this could be an annual event for us. 73 Chet N4fX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4GG Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 61,152 Both fun and frustrating. Company around the house all weekend, so got in the first two hours and the last four. Missed NE, and NL. Heard NL in the first hour but made the mistake of setting it aside. Great to hear 10M in such fine shape. It changes the dynamic of the contest. 80 sections looked easy with a little more BIC time. This is one of the few contests the wires-in-the-woods station can make top 10 - so its always frustrating to have op time cut short. OTOH, the runs at the end when you are fresh meat are lots of fun. Hope to be company-free in two weeks. 2X: FT1000MP+INRAD+ACOM2000A, HB SO2R, WRITELOG, wires-in-the woods. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4JF Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 107,282 TX FOR ALL THE Qs. The bands were in good shape...Missed NT. Hrd him on 10 and 15 but just couldnt break the pile up..My ss contest are limited now that I am getting older..72.Been a SS participant for 56 yrs. Again many tx to all who pulled my peanut parcher signal out of the noise. 73s JERRY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4NW Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 69,520 Only NWT station heard was VY1EI, on 10 & 15m. However, both times he fled the frequency - seems like he could hot handle the massive number of stations calling and did not try to work split. Clean sweep avoided me again! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4PN Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 158,720 Sweepstakes is always Sweepstakes! Ole ham friends show up for this party every year. Bands were in really great shape. No QRN on the low bands.. Only had 39 Q's on 20m when I went to bed early Sunday morning but much better later in the day. Guess lots of stations went to 10 and 15. Needed NE and ND after the first night. Got N7IV early on Sunday morning and KB0LF called in at 10:30am for NE. Eric, VY1EI, made my day early with my number 87 and his number 6. Heard Jay, VY1JA, but the pile too big for me to get thru. Plenty of KH6, KP4 and KL's....Nice to have Dave, (N2NL) NH2T, call in with a great signal. Now to rest up for SS-SSB and CQ WW CW... 73, Paul ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4PSE Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 72,206 FIRST TIME IN ALMOST 50 YEARS OF SS OPERATING THAT I EVER HEARD ALL 80 SECTIONS. I PASSED ON TWO VE4 OPPORTUNITIES EARLY SATURDAY EVENING AND NEVER HEARD THEM AGAIN! SPENT MANY HOURS SUNDAY TUNING FOR ANOTHER - OH WELL GUESS THAT'S WHY I'LL BE BACK NEXT YEAR. TEN WAS TERRIFIC; THE ONLY PLACE THAT CQ'ING WORKED FOR MY QRP/ LOW ANTENNAS. Q'S WERE AT LEAST 90% S&P. STILL NEED TO IMPROVE MY TIME IN THE CHAIR ----- RIG 756PRO3; TA 32JR AT 28'; BUTTERNUT HF6 AT 10 FT. NOT ONE QSO MADE WITH MY 80M OCF- IT'S COMING DOWN SOON! THE HF6 BEAT IT EVERY TIME. TRYING TO FIGURE OUT S02R FOR NEXT TIME. THERE IS PLENTY OF TIME BETWEEN Q'S WHEN WORKING QRP. SPECIAL THANKS TO VO1HP- HE'S THE MOST PATIENT OP I IN RAN INTO TRYING TO DIG OUT MY LIL SIGNAL! WE FINALLY CONNECTED ON ANOTHER BAND SEVERAL HOURS LATER. CU YOU ALL NEXT YEAR. JIM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4YDU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 71,928 Limited time this year, but rates were decent. This contest would be incredible if one could work stations once per band. Had fun! Looking forward to CQWW CW. 73, Nate/N4YDU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4ZR Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 156,000 Had to cut short Saturday evening about 0430Z, or this could have been a personal best. I was using the Reverse Beacon Network, which really helped with S&P on Sunday, but I wasn't motivated enough to use all my time, once the first-night volume had been missed, so I watched the Redskins get hosed, took a nap, and had dinner with my wife. Ah, civilization! 73 and thanks for the Qs, Pete N4ZR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N4ZZ Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 202,720 Great condx and weather was very nice outdoors, but managed to stay in the chair all weekend. Really hard for me to not work the ss cw contest. Thanks to all that help keep this great contest going. 73 Don-n4zz ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N5DO Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 140,480 I built the YCCC SO2R box some time ago, and just got around to using it for this contest. I finished installing the software Friday night and didn't test it out well. It turned out that there were rf problems on 80 and 40, so operation was difficult on those bands. Other than that it functioned very well. My last two mults were Oklahoma and VE4. Oklahoma called me on 20M (short skip?) with about 3 hours to go. Amazingly, VE4EAR called me with 5 minutes to go on 40M. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N5EE Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 95,472 90% S&P with some good CQ runs on 40M on Sunday morning. Heard VY1EI booming in on 15 just in time to hear him send he was QSY. Heard him once more just in time to hear him send he was QRT. Never heard a NL station. Obviously conditions were fantastic and it was a thrill to operate Sweepstakes again after a 10 year absence since I moved to OH from NTX. Next year my new QTH will be WWA where there are a covey of strong QRP ops. I want to thank Gary, W8VI for lending me his fine station during the contest. 73 ... Ken ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N5NA Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 87,856 This is my second year to give QRP a try. I was shooting for 600 QSO's but didn't quite make it. Missed NE, DE, NL, & NT. Never heard DE or NL. Heard NE S&Ping Sunday night. Heard NT on 10m Sunday but he QSYed after about 1 minute. My 5 watts would have never made it through the pileup anyway but I may have gotten lucky! Not operating any QRP the rest of the year it always amazes me what 5 watts will do. I rarely had to do any fills on 10 - 20. Even had a 2 hour run on 15m averaging 60/hr. 40 & 80 were more of a problem but there are some good ears out there. Thanks to everyone who pulled my signal out of the noise! Equipment: K3 at 5 watts C19XR, Sigma 40, 80m inverted Vee ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N5QQ Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 105,924 Another Sweepstakes PARTIALLY done! Nice to have 10 and 15 showing life! Quit too soon Saturday night and missed out on 80m. Just ran out of gas and couldn't make it through the whole 24hrs, managed just 13hrs. Missed the typically elusive NWT plus MB, so no sweep. Thanks to W5WW for running out Saturday morning and getting our CRIMINALLY DAMAGED feedlines back in operation. Thieves had cut off about 20ft of the feedlines and control cables on the 10/15m towers sometime in the last month. I am sure they got at least $10 for their efforts at the scrap yard. They left 20m and 40m towers alone, but had tried to pry open the shop door to no avail. Oh yes, and maybe next year I will remember what time to START this contest. Equipment this year was SO2R setup of two K3's and Alpha 99's, two-high 40m stack, two-high 20m stack, three-high stacks on 10m and 15m, plus 80m dipole @ 100ft. Used N1MM that k5MR had setup the SO2R scheme for me, thanks MR! Complaint dept: When you have two responses to a CQ, and you ask FOUR times for repeat of the partial callsign you could copy, the OTHER caller, whose callsign is nothing even similar to who you are trying to engage, needs to shut the h--- up and not keep calling and calling and calling.....even though you have repeatedly sent the partial letters of the callsign (with a question mark each time). Why is that so hard to understand I wonder.... 73 de QQ/Ron ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N5RZ Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 222,240 Always fun. Low bands didn't treat me well this year & fell way behind. Thank goodness for 15M on Sunday afternoon. VE6EX called in for the Sweep at 0538Z -- Nice! First time using N1MM Logger for SS -- I have the SO2R windows about halfway tamed, but still lots of lidly moments - Sri folks - thanks for your patience. Thanks to all for the QSO's. Congrats to the high scorers. Elecraft K3 + Alpha 87 Elecraft K3 + Alpha 99 Tower #1 TH6DXX @ 50' 80M Inverted Vee @50' Tower #2 HyGain 153BA @ 55' 40M Rotary Dipole @ 50' NE & NW 580' Beverages 73, Gator ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N5TM Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 54,432 Ok, MDC guys... Someone needs to volunteer to move to Nebreska. This is the second year that I've missed NE. What gives??? Worked VI, PR, AK, PAC no trouble, but on NE... I know SS is a tradition, but it really bums me that only one Q per station is allowed. With a modest station, you just run out of potential Qs long before the contest is over. As an experiment, next year, I'm going to stay off the air until Sunday afternoon. I'll bet I have ths same score, and have a whole lot more fun. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N5UM Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 111,864 Yikes - missed only ND, which is usually not a problem. Also surprising was not working anyone in MI until Sunday afternoon -- not sure what's up with that. Had some other commitments at various times during the weekend, so only long stint in the chair was Saturday evening. But, even that was interrupted by the 5.6 magnitude earthquake (an Oklahoma record) here near OKC at just before 11PM local time on Saturday - just to shake things up a bit. Was happily running on 40M when everything started to rumble and rattle in the house. It lasted about a minute or so. Then, took about 1/2 hour off to make a couple of phone calls (nearly impossible due to heavy traffic), then back on for a couple of hours before calling it a night. There have been many small earthquakes around here lately, but I never felt any of them until this time. Won't be able to work much SS SSB as I'll be at a Boy Scout campout that weekend. Rig: IC756 (non pro) 100W Antenna: Hustler 6BTV on ground, 28 radials. 73 and thanks for the Qs, Al N5UM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N5XE Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 80,580 Had an earthquake about 7 hours into the contest...shook things up a bit. Thanks to all that made this contest fun!! Hope to see you all again next year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N5XZ Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 102,560 Part time contest for sure, but really enjoyed it. I love watching the amp needles move automatically with long exchanges! This is the first time I've been able to get a sweep since there were 75 sections! Thanks for a great contest and great conditions. 10 meters was HOT! Allen N5XZ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N5ZO/6 Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 34,704 Just doing some relaxing operation from home on Sunday afternoon after coming back from CQ WW travels. Equipment: FT-1000MP + Alpha 78 + R6000 vertical TNX for QSOs, 73 de Marko ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6AJS Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 43,800 Rig: FT-450 100W Antennas: Wire dipoles 10,15,20,40 Logging: homebrew spreadsheet All S&P. Conditions were great. CU in SS SSB! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6AR Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 64,272 Just a few hours available here just to help the club effort. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6BV Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 174,240 Thanks to Smitty, W6CS, for the use of his fine station and his wonderful hospitality. IC-756 Pro III IC-PW1 kW amp 4 ele SteppIR @50 feet Cushcraft 40-CD @60 feet 80m Inv. Vee @70 feet 73, Dean, N6BV ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6DA Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 71,456 IC-7000 & ALPHA 87A WIRES ON 40, 20, 15. GP ON 10. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6DE Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 26,400 Here is where I operated SS CW this year: http://public.fotki.com/N6DE/sweepstakes-2011/img-0631-jpg.html This was a fun trip to scout a CQP 2012 expedition location. 40m Inv-V at 46ft. Elecraft K3 Yamaha EF2400iS generator I stopped at 200 QSOs. Had a good time! 73... -Dean - N6DE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6DW Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 56,248 Missed MB although I heard all 4 VE4s at various times. I tried to join the pileups but they were out of control. I figured I would catch them at the end. That should teach me. Get 'em while you can! Station K3, ALS 600, 43ft vert and dipole ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6EE Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 152,160 Great contest: excellent conditions and lots of activity. Made the Sweep at 0600 when VE4EAR answered my CQ on 80M. Thank you Chet, W6XK, for the use of your wonderful station: K3 + KPA500 + Alpha 89 + C3@105' + C3@75' + 2L 40M @90' + 2L 80M @ 90' And Thank You Karen for the lovely meals :) Sure wish my body could take more than 19 hours out of the 30 available (They say it's Hell to get old!) Thanks for all the Q's - See you in two weeks on SSB. 73, Ron N6EE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6ER Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 30,284 Only spent a few hours on Saturday, but had a blast. New (old) M2 KT-36XA is a beast - wish I could had spent more time on the high bands. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6HC Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 140,960 Although I haven't been participating in many contests recently, I couldn't resist participating in the annual CW Sweepstakes brawl. I wish that I could have put in a full effort but Sunday (November 6) was my birthday. The phone rang intermittently on both Saturday and Sunday with well wishers congratulating me on my good fortune surviving another tumultuous year. Usually the phone is ringing because the neighbors are complaining about RFI but nary a call was received from the usual suspects. My wife an I enjoyed an intimate birthday party complete with cake, ice cream and candles on Sunday afternoon. All in all, I'm sure I lost 5 hours of contesting preventing me from breaking the 1K QSO total. Fortunately, I managed to find the necessary multipliers to achieve a complete sweep. I operated with N1MM logger in assisted mode and I enjoyed watching the activity around me and on other bands. I don't think the use of telnet changed my strategy significantly and only helped in snagging one or two of those rare multiplier stations. At least Murphy was on vacation for the weekend; the station played without a single hiccup. Congratulations to Bob (AA6PW - SOLP), Kurt (W6PH - SOHP) and Tim (N6WIN - MultiOp) for fantastic signals and bodacious final scores from the Orange section. 73 de Arnie N6HC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6HE Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 29,862 Great conditions! Ran SO-Assisted, HP this year, but only wire antennas at 25'. Limited to S&P because I type with 2 fingers and my copying speed waaaaaaay outpaces my ability to get the dern looooooooooooong exchange into the log, so I either S&P or look like an idiot - I guess I could CQ at 18 WPM, but that would be agonizing... So I spent all my time filling in the boxes for my CW 5BWAS, mostly on 10 and 15M. Only needed 6 on 40M, and got 5 of 'em. Secondary goal for fun was to try for the sweep.... ended with 79 (a high for me) and missing NL. Heard VO1HP on 20M, but the pileup was huge and I didn't stay long enough to get him. Final QSO count was 189 with 79 sections for 10 hours BIC. Frustrating to hear RI (needed on 3 bands) on again after the 1st QSO and being unable to work him on the other two bands. Hrmph! All in all, a great time being on the air with sunspots present. SFI = 177 for pete's sakes! Now if A would just get back below 4... Thanks to all who gave me QSO's. Great fun! 73, Ray N6HE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6KI Class: Multi-Op LP Total Score = 136,160 Got a team together at last minute. Getting Mike W6RW out of Contest Operating retirement and tortured him by operating LOW POWER, where he really had to work for those QSOS ! I got a few hours in at the start but then had to leave to and put some serious time in at W6YI MS HP effort. I was hoping that 10 mtrs would be our money band but could never get any good runs going as we did on 15 mtrs our best band. Was hoping to do 1,000 Qs but had to be satisfied with 851 and a SWEEEEEEP ! The team put in a lot of work between CQing and S&Ping to dig out Qs ! N6KI ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6KJ Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 19,468 Could only operate about 3 hours on Sunday. Wish I could have operated more. This was the first time I ran HP in a contest from this QTH. It really helped! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6MU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 12,800 Another 80x80 sweep challenge. Last two were MB and NE. John, N6MU TS-570 & 4BTV ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6RO Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 216,800 My 58th CW SS, and personal best claimed score. Getting harder to stay in the chair for 24. All bands good, but 10m really shined. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6VR Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 10,272 Still building the station. Got on to make a few point and see how the antennas work with 100w. 20m & 40m not bad, but 80m was difficult. Just to work the midwest on 80m took many calls. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6WIN Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 169,600 This was my first ever multi-single from my QTH. Doug, N6RT, and John, KQ6ES, were willing to join me. Each operator committed to one day of operating and I ran the mult position, interleaving QSOs between their work. Bill, W1HIJ, was going to operate all of Sunday, but had last minute out of state family travels and could not join us. The preparation to make my single radio QTH into a small multi-single (really, a modified SO2R setup) was something else. I had no clue how much time other hams have put into their shacks to host the smallest of multi operations. I have a new found respect for the time and resources that goes into these operations. I want to acknowledge and thank my Elmer, Jay W2IJ, for all his pre-contest support. He helped me prepare many cables, connectors, solder kits, etc. Without this help I would not have been in full operational condition. The W3NQN filters, from Array Solutions, really paid off for my QTH. I am using a single tower and mast setup. My 20/15/10 is a F12 C31XR with interlaced mono-banders. The running of legal limit into the antenna without stubs would not have been without much more interference without the higher rated NQN's. I had thought about saving money on the lesser rated band pass filters out there and I am now glad that I did not. I have made an Excel spreadsheet showing the interference level using this interlaced yagi and I am happy to share this data with anyone whom may be interested. John and Doug did a great job at logging the QSOs. I was very happy to have two fellow SCCC members over to share the contest experience with. We had 79 sections by late Saturday night and I was able to find NL for our last section around 1430Z Sunday morning (thank you VO1HP). Doug and I ended the contest an hour early as we both had family and work commitments after surpassing our collective goal of a clean sweep and 1,000 QSOs. 73, Tim / N6WIN. Operating equipment: Run Position: Elecraft K3 Acom 2000A Mult Position: Elecraft K3 Alpha 78 LM354HD 54' Tower Force 12 C31XR Cushcraft XM240 80m inverted-v N1MM latest version Antennas and W3NQN band pass filters selected automatically by Top Ten band decoders. Array Solutions Sixpack at base of the tower feeding each band with individual feed lines. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6WM Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 43,488 Only had a few hours carefully sqeezed into a very busy weekend. Had to shoehorn this time in! the bands were in great shape.. Each time I started calling cq the rate meter started creeping up.. sections that in the past I had to search for or face a pile up calling me.. etc. really really wish I had more time to dedicate to this.. upper bands did NOT dissapoint. 73 and seeya next time Chris N6WM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6XI Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 173,440 Disappointing result, well below my personal best from the days when conditions were...worse! I must be going downhill as the sunspots improve. Sigh. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N6YEU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 83,108 Missed NL Conditions were pretty good here but not as great as some other reports seem to indicate. I was slow out of the blocks but picked speed Sunday afternoon. Last 3 mults were AR,ND,WPA (worked 7 or 8 EPA before WPA!) Still looking for my first Sweep :( (unassisted) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N7IR Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 110,758 This is my second highest CW SS score thanks to the good conditions on 10 and 15 meters. Even at that level of performance I'll be lucky to make the QRP top ten this year. When W7RM (who was that masked man?) gave me #95Q to my #53Q just into the second hour I knew I was in trouble. Thanks for the serving of humble pie Tree. Missed NT again this year but I was hearing VY1EI all over 10 and 15 meters on Sunday. His pileup was not breakable from here but I did hear K4RO do it from TN; nice move Kirk. The high level of operator skill in this contest makes it the highlight of my contesting season. Thanks for the contacts and your patience. 73 Gary, N7IR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N7NM Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 88,960 Expectations weren't high when I went to turn all the equipment on just before the start and the fuse in my amp blew. I looked everywhere but no backups and the xyl had the car so the entry went to low power unlimited at that point. However the vertical seemed a great antenna in this contest and when VY1EI called me an hour into it I thought I had a shot at 'em all. I didn't really need the spots until I got down to NL and VE4. Found VO1HP early Sunday and somehow he heard me thru the pileup but just as he stated sending a W6 started pounding out a CQ in my passband and not positive we got the contact. About an hour later finally found VE4DR for the last one but was still bugged about NL when a few minutes later VO1MP called me to secure it! First Sweep in 11 years trying. At that point it became a casual effort and only worked a few more before football. 15m was the money band in this one. Wierd prop as even the close in ones were loud. 10m was open but no one could hear me, 40 was one huge pileup and 80 was a noise fest. Thanks for the Q's and CU all in the SSB version. Doug - N7NM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N7TR Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 103,648 Needed to work most of the weekend....but put in 9 hours. Nice to see the high bands back! Missed AR.. 73 Rich N7TR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N7VM Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 180,160 Glad I ran low power... at least the amplifiers were spared the carnage.... FT1000 is now overheating, FT847 IF shift has gone berzerk, lost 15m on one Dunestar filter, antenna bandswitch developed a short circuit, and the last snow storm twisted the reflector on the lowest beam. Amazingly, when I slammed my hand on the keyboard in frustration, it didn't break (the keyboard, not my hand) and put me out of my misery, so slugged on through to the end of 24 hours. After 2200Z, if anyone sent their number three different times I gave up asking for fills and took the average. I might use a bug next year for a little payback. We'll see if a similar score to my 2009 effort makes in the top ten box this year. Given the fantastic conditions, I have my doubts. Yes, this is some people's idea of fun. 73 and thanks for the Q's de N7VM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N7WA Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 148,046 CW Sweepstakes was the first full effort following a year-long station move from the spare bedroom to a dedicated location in a remodeled garage. This includes a new operating desk that supports standing more than sitting. I'm happy to say I didn't spend most of the 24 hours sitting in a chair and that operating while standing (SO2R even) is a nice change of pace. That said, my performance on the air did not meet my expectations for this year. I had hoped that this would be the year I finally broke through the 1000 Q barrier but I again crashed on that rocky shore. It was looking good in the first few hours (after a lousy first hour). In fact, just an average of 4 more Q's an hour would have done it. Can't blame anybody but myself as W7WA managed to do it plus find the one elusive section I missed - NL. Hats off to Dan! (I'll be over to cut his coax before next year.) SO2R was a non-issue with exactly 10% of the Q's coming off the old TS940. Probably time to retire that thing, get a newer rig, and move the FT1000MP to second fiddle as the phase noise from the venerable 940 is just getting too irritating. I'm amazed at how terrifying SO2R was I first started and now it's almost second nature. Because of the long exchange, SS is perfect for SO2R. I still manage to screw up - it just doesn't bother me so much. It was fun working you all. Looking forward to CQWW. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N7XU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 169,920 bands were super. Gee it's nice to make almost the same # of Qs on four bands. Mults were not a problem VY1EI called me as did VO1HP. Those are the tuff ones. 80m was quiet but my new monitor with touch controls turns off or goes wacko when I run more than 25W on 80m. Samsung 22" - no amount of decoupling works but shielding lower corner with AL foil helps a bit. Lotsa fun even slept late. Thanks for the fun. 73, Dick ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N8BJQ Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 114,400 First time doing LP in long time. Condx seemed very good. Lots of loud signals on 10. Low bands were pretty quiet as well. Took 699 Q's to catch up to VY1EI for the sweep. Heard him early in the contest and chased him around the bands most of Sunday. Stumbled across him on 10M late in the afternoon and got him for the last one. Missed quite a bit of air time - babysitting for the great grandson all weekend. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N8II Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 89,112 I feel a bit older than I should, having trouble sleeping and more tired with same effort (climbing tower comes to mind). I needed to replace my 30 year old rotator cable and was up the tower to cut and retrieve 7 pin plug Monday. Just too tired to wire it before Saturday despite some easy days at work, so started the job at 1330Z Saturday and didn't finish up until 2030Z with few odd maintenance jobs thrown in. I was feeling tired enough that I knew operating would be pushing it, so took off until around 13Z Sunday. The body was rebelling after the tower/antenna work, so not a real restful night. I kept pretty busy running most of the time I was on the air. Ran on 40 for quick 100 Q's in about an hour, back on after breakfast for 200 more mostly running on 20. I took a long break Sunday afternoon including walking dog and XYL, and clean up of XYL's car. Around 22Z seemed to be the nadir of activity for the day, I couldn't sustain a run on 40,20,or 15, a good time to take time off if you need to! I mostly avoided 15 to avoid throngs of those northern CA contest types, it seemed to be at least partially effective, no offense intended. The sections didn't come easily in the short time I had, so did some quick S&P's which paid off. Years of SS experience is invaluable for mult searching without sacrificing much rate. K0NE in NE called in on 40 for section 79 around 2330Z, so didn't get stupid and troll 20 beaming VO land for NL wasting Q's, but did troll around 40 to no avail as well as calling CQ's in extra band which yielded a decent rate. Sweeps do come harder on CW, no big deal. I spent last moments on 80 which was quiet, but signals were down from years past as well, the new normal I suppose. QRT'ed at 0130Z. Thank you for your support, most ops pretty decent, I was sending fast enough to make it tough for a few, but did slow down a few times. 73, Jeff ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N8TR Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 81,844 N8TR is usually the first stop on my annual SS Single Op Multi Station tour, but due to family scheduling issues this year it was the final stop. As usual, the last was the best. This was my all time best six hour SS score. I missed only VY1. Twenty meters was great - working all over the country, from guys a hundred miles away in Columbus to KL7. Having over half of my QSOs on 20 is not normal for Ohio! For the contest only two sections - EWA and PAC - had single QSOs that had to be found as second radio QSOs. I don't have numbers, but there sure were a lot of my qsos with guys who have been on the air for over 50 years. SOMS remains the very best way to do CW SS! 73 - Jim K8MR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N8XE Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 70,400 Third clean sweep in a row!! I ran more than I s&p. I am getting much better at calling CQ. In fact, I probably enjoy it more. It seemed that I got off to a slow start until I got into the groove. I got my sweep in Sunday afternoon when I finally worked OK. N5XE was calling CQ (nice call IMO). Thanks to WM3O (K3LID) for messaging me on where NT was calling. New this year was the SB1000. That combined with the Hexbeam proved to be a nice combo. Also new this year was the Heil Pro Set Elite that I picked up from Universal Radio on Saturday. What a nice set of headphones. I am looking forward to SSB Sweeps now with it. Murphy arrived twice this year. One thing was that the software I had failed to change bands a few times when I changed bands on the radio. This caused a headache where I had to go back and edit all those contacts. I got it fixed. The other thing was I had the antenna switch on the wrong antenna when I was on 40M. I thought I had it on the dipole but it was still on the beam. I had the amp going. Amps make funny sounds when you have it going into an unmatched load! Bzzzttt! Crackle! Buzzzz!! Luckily, there was no POP! or smoke. The amp is still fine and outputting full power. On 10M, I just called CQ without the amp to see how well I would do (also did this on 15). Turned out pretty good. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N8XX Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 49,728 A Personal Best, at least in recent history. 10 Metres was a boon this year! CAlifornia and the rest of the "left coast" was booming in at the start. Mostly S&P with my mighty 5 watts and a low inverted vee. Tnx to all OPs who dug my signal out of the mud. Only had one fellow who couldn't pull me through and he finally had to say NIL. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N9CO Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 165,440 Very good band conditions. Nice to see the sunspots doing their thing again! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N9NE Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 107,329 Every year is to be my last, but it doesn't work that way. Won the 1958 WI Novice certificate with 102 contacts and have been at it since.... Conditions were very good, except for 80M the second night. But 40M at the time was excellent. I was able to run more than in any other SS I've participated, and this is a PR for me. I heard MB but he was S&P and couldn't get his attention. The pileup on VY1IE was horrid, with many stations repeatedly transmitting their calls right on top of him while he was trying to garner info from the station he was trying to work. Wouff-Hongs and Rettysnitchs might have been appropriate. All's well that ends well. My admiration to those QRP ops who got the clean sweep! 72 Todd ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N9OK Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 20,824 Another fun contest. This was my first CW contest and I found it very interesting. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: N9RV Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 236,800 Got a good start. No huge piles this year with all the bands open, but very steady and fast at the beginning. But the next morning I was really stuck in the mud -- didn't feel loud until well into the day. I am guessing that there were about the same number of guys on? It was never obvious where to be -- there are some real strategy points in these contests as far as off times, CW speed, where to be in the band, etc., that are way beyond me. Thanks for the Q's. - Pat N9RV ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NA0N Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 185,760 This was my best ever SS CW and my first sweep since '97. 73, Pat NA0N Antennas: A3S at 50' Trap dipole at 40' Ground mounted 5BTV with no radials ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NA2U Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 20,096 Suffered NO snow or ice during this contest. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NA4K Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 146,400 Conditions were good, no local noise and the QRN levels were low, which made operating enjoyable . Steve NA4K ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NC7M Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 24,976 Fun - Had to work Sunday so cut off early. Gotta love 10 meters. Some monster qso numbers by some of the callers. Thanks for the QSOs 73 Until next time. Antennas 5 element monoband rotatable @ 100'& 5 element at 60' Fixed ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NE7D Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 96,222 Missed only NL this year (left 2 behind last year) -- was convinced there were no VO1 stations on the air until I started reading these summaries. Need to add a new item to the pre-contest checklist: Make sure there are fresh batteries in the wireless keyboard. I thought N1MM was going wonky as some of my keystrokes weren't making it to the entry box. I fear some of my entries are going to be missing a character here and there so will not look forward to seeing my final score. FT-1000D Mk-V Field, N1MM, SteppIR DB18e, 80M OCF dipole -- and wireless KB. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NF4A Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 51,376 Work got in the way this weekend...only put in a little over 6 hrs. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NF8M Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 48,822 Missed NT. Got MB late. Even had trouble with home state MI. Still, best results in a long time and loads of fun. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NG7Z Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 32,706 Just couldn't find much time this year. Too many other things going on this weekend. A mix of CQ and S&P and didn't really have much motivation to score. Big numbers heard from N9RV, K6LL, N5RZ and others. Looking forward to ARRL CW in a few weeks. 73 and I'll be poking around in SS phone a bit. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NH2T Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 73,470 I wasn't planning on participating at first, but fired up a log for NH2T when I found conditions were really good. Guam is located 3,800 miles farther from North America than Hawaii, yet we count as part of the same ARRL section. For comparison, this is almost 700 miles greater than the driving distance between Boston and Los Angeles. I'm not looking for a change; it's rare that someone as insane as I am decides to get on in Sweepstakes from here. I suppose the ARRL could look into the idea should they want to cut back on the number of Sweep pins they have to ship annually. Since it is pointless to try to be competitive, I figured I'd try to get the sweep. 74 sections, including VY1, came easily. A few more came on 40m following my sunset at 08z. I was left with NL (awesome suffix!) Monday morning my time. VO1 is a 7000 mile path over the pole from here, but it would not be impossible with conditions. I found one early on 10m, but as he started to build, he was spotted and my chances were gone as soon as the NCCC packet horde descended upon him. I spent the 2130-2230z peak CQing on 15m, the band with the best chances, but none called in even though I worked six MAR stations this weekend. Later, I found him on 20m - not ideal propagation - but again he was spotted so I shut off the radio with 79 sections in the log. Very disappointing, but I'm even more appreciative that VY1EI, VO1HP, and others in rare sections continue put up with the chaos that comes with packet to help give many the sweep. Many thanks to the W3LPL-2 robot packet skimmer who tirelessly spotted me and my KH6 counterparts all afternoon Saturday. Apparently the robot took Sunday off to watch his buddies on FOX sports football which may have hurt my chances with working the last mult. Thanks for all who called and pulled me out of the noise - Unless you were in KH6 and maybe KL7, I was your best DX. From that aspect, it was kind of fun being somewhat unique. See you in WWCW! 73, Dave (NOT ns2t) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NI1N Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 85,728 That is 564 QSOs more than I planned on making. I pretty much just sat on 3526 for 8 hours starting from 7pm Saturday. The first two hours were VERY slow; obviously 80m was NOT the place to be for best rate at the time! What a difference from a few years ago. But, there were a fair share of east coast stations to be worked whilst other east coast stations were working W6 on 15m. I didn't have it in me to get on Sunday at search for the 4 mults that didn't call me on 80m Saturday night... missed ND, VI, NL, and NT. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NI7R Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 95,748 I had two goals in the contest. Make at least 600 contacts and have a clean sweep.I made one goal, but the clean sweep was impossible with my HOA restricted antennas. I couldn't break the VY1EI pile ups. I spent a lot of wasted time calling him. I had 79 sections by 10am this morning, but couldn't get that last one. This was my best SS to date, thanks to Dave K6LL for telling us how to set up the WA7LNW skimmer. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NM2L Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 112,496 Not full time, but managed a few points for the club score. Great fun! The bands were great! VY1 was again frustrating. Heard him twice, but many callers and few listeners scared him away both times. My keyboard stuck one time and had to pull the USB connector out of the PC. WA4PGL was trying to work me. Sorry if I slowed him down, but there was nothing I could do quickly enough. After that, all went well. Modified extended Zepp and a 20 meter loop this time around. Thanks for all the QSOs folks! 73 de Greg NM2L ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NN3RP Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 28,320 Did much better last year (331) in terms of totals but enjoyed Running on this one. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NN4MM Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 71,336 The spirit was willing, the body was weak. Still great fun Tnx to all for QSO's ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NN7SS Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 118,240 Worked a QRP Sweep! Thank you to VO1HP for ruling his pileup and getting me through. I raised my score from last year. This score last year would have been #3, we'll see how much improvement there's been. I was well prepared in advance with the Thursday night NCCC Sprints and the Friday night practice. All the equipment worked fine, but I'm suspicious of a bad audio amp in the right rig - makes signals sound warbly. 10m was not as good as a couple weeks ago. It was GOOD, but still not INCREDIBLE. 10m was good for the first hour, and then for about 3 hrs on Sunday. QRP was easier going on 15m and 20m, as many 10m signals were a tad weak. I operated 11 hrs straight, took 6 hrs off, and operated 13 hrs to the end. I think I missed 6 minutes of operating time :-) As usual, K4RO and a couple others had higher numbers when I worked them, but I play catch-up well on Sunday. THANK YOU to the many polite ops who asked and answered fills, I was trying to make sure I didn't make any errors by guessing, and I know my QRP triggers a few fills for the listener. A tiring run, but I'm pleased to have raised my personal QRP record. Is a QRP Sweep Mug just the size of a shot glass? NN7SS Burt WA (K6UFO op) 10,15,20m: C-31XR at 71ft, C-3 53ft, 3el Steppir 40 ft 40m: Force 12 Delta 240 at 78ft, 40-2CD at 48 ft 80m: Delta loop from 70 ft, Half-sloper from 60ft Two Yaesu FT-1000MPs turned down to 5 watts Writelog software and microHAM micro2r QSO by hour and band. 80 40 20 15 10 Total Cumm 21Z - - - 19 24 43 43 22Z - - 9 19 9 37 80 23Z - - 25 16 - 41 121 00Z --+- ---+- 34 15 ---+- 49 170 01Z - - 35 3 - 38 208 02Z - 14 25 - - 39 247 03Z 2 20 3 - - 25 272 04Z 4 25 - - - 29 301 05Z 7 23 - - - 30 331 06Z 13 13 - - - 26 357 07Z 18 2 - - - 20 377 08Z --+- ---+- ---+- ---+- ---+- 0 377 09Z - - - - - 0 377 10Z - - - - - 0 377 11Z - - - - - 0 377 12Z - - - - - 0 377 13Z 3 1 - - - 4 381 14Z 7 12 7 - - 26 407 15Z - - 13 20 - 33 440 16Z --+- ---+- 25 13 ---+- 38 478 17Z - - 6 17 2 25 503 18Z - - - 2 34 36 539 19Z - - - 10 22 32 571 20Z - - - 7 26 33 604 21Z - - - 8 18 26 630 22Z - - 7 6 9 22 652 23Z - 1 21 6 - 28 680 00Z --+- 3 7 2 ---+- 12 692 01Z - 10 15 - - 25 717 02Z - 9 13 - - 22 739 Total: 54 133 245 163 144 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NO3M Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 172,640 Great conditions; lowbands quiet and 20M open to most anywhere. Personal best and first time over 1K QSOs LP. Called by VY1 on 40M around 0500Z Sunday morning for #79. Didn't get last one, NE, until Sunday afternoon, twice. TU Qs - 73 - Eric NO3M 2x K3 Wire Arrays: 10M: Lazy-H E/W 15M: Lazy-H E/W; lazy-H NE/SW 20M: dipole N/S, 3-el inverted delta loops SW, 5-el inverted delta loops W 40M: dipole N/S, 3-el inverted delta loops SW, 4-el inverted delta loops W 80M: dipole N/S, full size half-square E/W ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NO5W Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 92,872 K3-100, 80-10m wires at 25 ft, CQ/X Missed DE, MB, NL, and NT. Never heard DE and MB and the pileups on the latter two were so intense I decided to pursue them later, which never happened. It sure was nice to have 15m (10m also) in great shape to take some of the load off of 20m and 40m -- during parts of Sunday I was even able to hold a frequency for extended periods on 15 and 20. I can't remember the last time 15m played such an important role in my SS score. The score would have probably been better than my personal best of last year if I had invested the same amount of time but that LSU-Bama game took precedence on Saturday night. Nice to work a number of ops giving out checks in the 90's and 00's and to work many call signs I'd never seen before. Of course it's also fun to run into familiar calls and to exchange a quick "howdy" with old friends. Thanks to all for the Qs. 73/Chuck/NO5W ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NP2X Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 205,760 First time w/SO2R. Only 5% score improvement, but this will increase with time. Thanks to NP2B for use of his FB station! - NP2X (K9VV) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NP4DX Class: Multi-Op LP Total Score = 186,080 Great conditions from this beachfront QTH with portable antennas (dipoles and a Bravo 7) right on or over salt water. With all the KP4 activity a sweep should have been within reach for more people this year! Thanks to Rafael Frank KP4WW, Eladio Acevdeo-Velez, and Angel Vasquez, WP3R. CU in the next one! 73, Ward N0AX and Sean KX9X ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NR5M Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 201,920 Sorry for the late post. In my tired haste Sunday night I brought home the 2009 log instead of mine from the station. Thanks once again to George for asking me to come back and give this another go. He kept the food coming and encouraged me to continue operating. I had originally planned to operate with the University of Houston club call, W5UH, to give W0BH@K0HC a run for his money but decided to get my annual SO2R practice. Next time, Bob! I went up to the station Friday and got all setup and ready. Having had a brutal sinus infection the entire week prior, I swallowed my pride and went to the doctor Thursday knowing I didn't want to feel that badly during the contest. The combination of new medicine and food really did a number on my stomach and ended up making the majority of the weekend a real struggle. Nonetheless, I had a lot of fun this weekend especially at the very beginning and end. I got off to a really good start on 15 and thought I'd easily be able to make the 1350 I had targeted. Thanks to some SO2R tips from a few of the CTDXCC contingent, I was feeling pretty good about being able to efficiently work the second radio. I know I still could have worked it harder at times. No station problems came up except for the operator. I tried really hard to grab second radio Q's while keeping a run frequency and only flubbed up the keystrokes a couple of times. MUCH improved over last year's debacle. I had an interesting moment on Saturday night as I was finishing dinner. My fork fell off the table to my left and when I reached down for it, the table (with 10 rotator controllers and a few StackMatch controllers) tilted backwards and almost everything on the table hit the floor.. It was a really good thing that no one could hear the words that came from my mouth (except George). Luckily, nothing was broken. The Green Heron people have built some sturdy boxes. I spent the first 12 hours on and decided that once a VE4 called for the sweep it was time to quit. I had originally planned on only taking 3 hours off but took some cough medicine that ended up knocking me out. So, I added another hour to the off-time. As usual, things were really slow on Sunday and I tried to work the second radio a whole lot. Perhaps it is laziness or boredom, but I got tired of reaching over to the second radio to spin the VFO lots of times. As a 95% Multi-op guy, I really find making a sweep with no packet spots gratifying. I'd like to apologize to NP4DX who I duped because, in my stupor, I had decided that the call was NP2DX. I think that was my only real screw-up. As N3BB noted, I also had a couple of nice "rare-DX" moments. VU2NXM called me on 15 Sunday morning and was relentless so I just decided to be nice and give him a quick contact. That was pretty cool. Finding Dave, N2NLStrokeKH2, on the second radio was pretty cool, too. Thanks for all the Q's, everyone and for all the local CTDXCC competition. I must admit though, it is a bit strange sending a check of 66. For this 02 check guy, this would mean I was licensed 22 years before I was even born. Talk about time travel. Up next, I'm taking the weekend off and KJ5T will be piloting the NX5M station for the SSB weekend. 73, Colin KU5B ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NS3T Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 13,624 Just no time at all this weekend, but I managed to turn on the radio for several hours to remind my ear what contest CW sounds like so I can pretend to plan for some kind of effort in CQ WW CW in a few weeks. It was nice to get on 20 meters well after sunset and hear strong signals there. Even with the better high band conditions, it was nice to hear 80 meters humming on Saturday night. 73 Jamie NS3T ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NS6T Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 28,700 Last year, I got 116 QSOs and 49 sections, so this year was much better. :-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NW2K Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 42,504 90W, matchbox, 80M loop at 30 feet. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: NY3A Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 202,080 Lots of fun! The folks at RBN have done great work as the stream was 100% solid all weekend. Contest club friends said 40m would be the band this year. The 40m q's just kept coming (very) early Sunday morning. 73; Steve NY3A ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VA2WA Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 172,000 SO1R Puffff... It's over ))) After that contest every CW contest will be just an easy task! Almost the same result for last 3 years in a row: 1058, 1035 and finally 1075 this year. Definitely need SO2R to brake 1100 QSO's barrier. We had at least 5 very active stations giving QC to everyone: VE2AWR, VE2EZD, VE2FK, VE2FXL and me. All are Contest Group du Quebec members. Conditions were amazing! But since that possible to choose a right band to get a QSO with a particular station probably that was not not so important. But one thing there was very important. There were almost the same participants. And that really limits a final result. What about squeezing SS operation time down to 16 hours from 24? Actually there no many stations to work after 12 hours. Second 12 hours everybody just browse bands hoping to catch "fresh meat" participants who recently came from a supermarket and decided to go to SS for a half an hour before a family dinner. Thank you all for every QSO in that contest! CU in the CQ WW CW (as VE2EKA from CQ Zone 2) Victor VA2WA / VA2WDQ http://www.contestgroupduquebec.com/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VA3DF Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 100,620 Missed PR and NT - heard PR on 20 but he was search and pounce - no joy. Never thought I'd see the day when I would break 100K from my home station in this contest.You gotta love it when a plan comes together!! Many thanks to all the fine operators who made my day! As usual, it's a jungle out there when you run qrp! 73, Doug VA3DF ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VA3RKM Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 16,470 K2, 5w, verticals and wires. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VA6AM Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 103,332 Equipment : TS-590 and 5 band (home modified)Hustler vertical. Never heard SC this time and missed it. 73! Paul VA6AM ex UN7LG ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VA7ST Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 144,254 Started Sunday morning needing VT, KY, AR and NL. Had all but AR within an hour or two, but never did find Arkansas. One more time with 79. Had AR five times last year. Advanced my personal best for Qs by a dozen or so, but fell 66 points shy of my best-ever (thanks to a phone call with six minutes to go. I asked my son to take a message, but by then I'd blown a QSO). Expected to do much better than I did. No excuses, except Saturday morning antenna work in the cold completely wore me out -- rushed in for a late start at 2239z. First dozen QSOs were made with frozen hands, and I never did feel like I got into the groove. Well, other than a nice 210-Q run on 15M Saturday afternoon. Figured with 10M and 15M taking a lot of pressure off 20M, there'd be some room to run. But there wasn't much. AC0C filter for the FT-2000 was a pleasure. Didn't get the local powerline noise suppression for 20M and 15M figured out until late Sunday afternoon, and by then it was time to go to 40M where noise wasn't an issue. Once cured, the QRP stations were finally workable. 40M was pretty good Sunday evening, though after 0100z things sure thinned out. 200 Qs is a good improvement over 160 last year. 80M wasn't strong for me on Saturday night. Just 65 Qs there, down from 141 last year. The new full-size 40M 2-element quad for Europe is near the east element of my 80M vertical array, and some detuning may be responsible for the vertical array's downgraded performance to the east. Had a lot of fun. Will get on for some of the SSB leg, but that'll be a more casual effort. Can hardly wait for CQWW CW. Thanks for the contacts and staying in there to get the Qs through. -- Bud VA7ST http://va7st.ca/home.html http://orcadxcc.org Year QSOs Pts Sec Score ------------------------------- 2011 913 1826 79 144,254 <- HP 19 hrs 2010 758 1516 78 118,248 LP 17 hrs 2009 775 1550 78 120,900 LP 20 hrs 2008 902 1804 80 144,320 <- HP 19 hrs 2007 837 1674 78 130,572 <- HP 21 hrs 2006 648 1296 79 102,384 2005 527 1054 73 76,942 2004 580 1160 80 92,800 2003 182 -- 52 18,928 2002 370 740 72 53,280 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE1RGB Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 103,490 Although not by much, this beats my previous best. And I still cannot seem to find NWT when I need them, so The Sweep is still a goal to be achieved. Still, I'm happy. 73, K3 + P3 plus wires plus verticals. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE1RSM Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 58,500 Great to have the bands open, too bad I had other things to do as well. I did hear NT and NL but just too weak and big pile ups. Bob/VE1RSM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE3EY Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 94,168 Missed NL (VO1/VO2) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE3GFN Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 100,014 First time I've ever broken the 100K mark, with my last QSO, in the last 3 minutes of the contest!!! Was NWT active? If not,could we declare a "clean sweep" to be 79 sections, and I can break another all-time record? No point in having a section listed that was not active! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE3RCN Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 73,470 Missed Manitoba. Heard VE4EAR, but he was S&P. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE3RZ Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 160,000 SO1R Rig: ICOM 756Pro AMP: AL80B (600w) Ant: KT34 @50ft 2x1/4w verticals 40m 1/4w vertical 80m Best SS score ever. conditions were good - unfortunately, I was not good at the beginning of the contest... I spent too much time S&Ping in the first hour and subsequently had a very low rate. I had set a goal of more than 40Qs per hour, figuring I could get to about 850-900 qs. Had a goal of the sweep of sections. By the time I got too tired at 0800Z Sunday morning, I had 530 Qs in the bag and all sections but NE. I had chased spots for the mults I knew from previous years had been an issue, but this year, multiple stations were on from PAC, AK, DE, SD, ND, MB. I only worked one NT - Many thanks to VY1EI who I heard with the unruly pileup on Saturday afternoon and left him to it, only to be called by him when I was CQing.. On Sunday, I was running on 40m and saw the mult window in N1MM showed a mult on 20m, when I went to 20, there was W0KT... thanks for the sweep. Worked multiple stations in all other sections. IL came out the winner with 42 stations and then OH with 35. Thanks for all the Qs, the patience with my fills and my occasional left foot syndrome! God help you when I try SO2R!! CU in the CW leg Tony ve3rz ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE3XAT Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 53,878 Where was NE? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE4EAR Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 45,892 Very limited time available for this one. Missed most of the prime 10/15m time. Ended up missing NWT, NNY and NL. I did hear VO1HP several times on 10m but his pileup was too deep and signals were weak. CW is still a struggle for me and I am comfortable S&Ping but the pileups are just too deep during CW SS. It sounds like a constant tone with everyone zero beat. It is just too slow and frustrating for me and I am sure everyone on the other side of the pileup. Whats with the ops that hear you trying to work the pileup at 16-18 wpm and figure they can throw their call in at 25+ wpm? If I didn't work you, hopefully one of the other VE4's DR, MG or YU made it into your log. Not sure what is happening between VE5MX and myself. The last several contests he has been very loud in Winnipeg on 10m. A rather short path for E or F skip so it must be strong back scatter. Looking forward to a full time effort in SSB-SS in two weeks. 73 Ed ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE5UF Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 23,548 Just the initial 2 3/4 hrs on 10M ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE6EX Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 196,160 ********************ALBERTA CLIPPERS************************** Hi All: THe bands were jumping and CW was the only thing you heard!!! What a great event. ***As an aside we all thought the power of Ham radio making the computer mouse light flash, "CQ SS" was impresssssive!!! YeSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!*** VE6EX was:: At my/our mountain ski lodge near Banff AB running: Kenwood 850sat into an upgraded (probably called HB) Collins 30S1, single 4cx1000a at mostly over 1kw out. What it could normally do. TH6dxx on a roof mount (couple of chunkes of Golden nugget tower from the Radio Shack; all beefed up of course)on the roof. Dipoles hung off the tall pines for 40 and 80, all hidden in the trees...All on the slopes of MT Charles Stewart near Banff. Cheers, Ski'Ya at the "Shine", Dan VE6EX.. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE6TL Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 145,600 What a finish! This was my first clean sweep ever, although I never thought I'd get it. With 8 hours left I was still missing 7 sections, 4 of which were in Canada. I then worked my one and only Arkansas station with about 4 hours to go. Soon after, I worked my first VE5 and ended up working a couple more. With about 2 hours left, I worked my first VE7 mult (Bud, VA7ST). I was about 4 QSOs ahead of him at the time and we usually duke it out one way or the other. I had tried working VE7CC earlier on 20m, but really think he was wiped out by multipath, as every time he began transmitting there was a carrier of exact same frequency over top of him, with a phase delay making it impossible to pick him out. I ended up working him later when condx calmed down. With only 20 minutes left, I was still needing Manitoba and NWT. While calling CQ on 40m, suddenly Ed, VE4EAR, called and I was down to one. And with 8 minutes to spare, I got a call from VE8EV to complete the sweep! And to think I had considered quitting with a couple hours to go as my head was spinning from all those long exchanges. Just goes to show that you should never give up! So this was, by far, my best effort (22 hours) in the sweepstakes and I'm sure the score will take a big hit from mistakes (lots of QRM everywhere). Still, it was a lot of fun and good CW practice. I must say my CW skills are much better now and should be in good form for the CQWW CW contest at the end of the month. I also enjoyed the Low Power (150W) and not having to use the amp. Having had my FT-5000MP for over a year now I can honestly say that I got the most out of the filtering and it made a significant difference in my score. Its taken me a while to get comfortable with all the settings and the 300 Hz roofing filter really helped too. There is a tendency to set the filters too tight and then miss some calls, so you have to remember to open things up a bit while running. 73 and CU in the next one Jerry VE6TL Rig: FT-5000MP Ant: TH6-DXX (10-15-20), BigIR Vertical (40-80) Software: N1MM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE7CC Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 211,360 Nice to see 15 and 10 open so well. The skip got really short on these bands. Always nice to say hello to old friends I have worked over the years. SO2R 2x K3 + Alpha 86 N1MM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE7WO Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 34,716 Thanks for all the Q's!! 73 Brian VE7WO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE7YU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 109,044 Got off to a really good start and had expectations of making 1K and maybe a clean sweep.Seemed to run out of gas Sunday afternoon and probably spent too much time searching for NL and NT. Managed to find them a few times before they were Spotted but no luck. My favourite contest. Only 51 more weeks... K3 100W 80 meter dipole open wire fed on all bands 10 meter Bi-Square on 10/15 M GORD ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE9AA Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 12,800 Going into this I knew I could not devote an entire weekend as I had car repairs (deer meets car) to do myself and winter tires to swap over on another car. Getting calling into work immediately before the contest didn't help either ! Soooo, I got the bright idea, I would use the cluster/packet for once and work 80 sections and make 80 QSO's...how easy I thought this would be ! (Wrong!) I had visions of going to bed before midnight with all 80 Q's tucked neatly into bed and then I would sleep like a log, having Sunday totally to myself. (um, no) Oh brother...this is actually a LOT tougher than it sounds. First of all, I found that the spots rolling by actually to be an annoyance and distracting, rather than helpful. (I guess that's why I never use it)..secondly, after all the dust settled,I probably only got 2 or 3 useful spots out of how many thousands that rolled on by my eyes (never again). Thirdly, it goes against everything "contester" in me not to either : A) Call CQ or B) work everyone I hear calling CQ as I tune by. I wanted to make EXACTLY 80 Q's only, so I had to be sure when I called a station they were in a needed section. This can sometimes be downright painful as I listen to them CQ CQ CQ CQ sometimes for a long while, til they work someone, so I could get their section. I finally tired out around 2am or so and I grabbed a few hours sleep in the middle of the night, wondering how in heck I would work NLI after daylight. I got up before sunrise, turned the rig on (barefoot), and there, lo and behold was NLI calling CQ where I had left the rig some hours earlier. YEEHA ! It wasn't until after I realized I had worked him on my RX antenna (a very very low dipole...not that my transmit antenna is much better) GRabbed KY soon after and MO for the sweep an hour after that. By mid morning I was done. Went back outside to work on cars, etc. My hat is off to anyone who's done this before. I won't be trying this again anytime soon unless a bunch of MCC'ers want to have a challenge of some kind. 73 de Mike VE9AA 750w, IC-746, CW-160 OCF dipole @ 20' (TX) & ZS6BKW antenna @ 10' (RX) N1MM logging...works super ! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE9DX Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 128,000 QRV again just in time after a summertime lightning strike. Conditions sure have improved. Who would have thought a sweep in just under 6 hours - kinda cool. Thanks all. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VE9HF Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 82,056 Lots of MCCers worked: VE9DX, VA1MM, VY2ZM, VE1OP and VE9AA. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VO1HP Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 103,896 Missing MB,NWT. Never did hear VY1EI. Called VE4DR, VE4EAR both with good signals on 10 15 20 ...maybe next year. Never heard any SS on 160M. Tried to stay on as long as possible to provide NL. ARRL SS CW - 2011-11-05 2100Z to 2011-11-07 0300Z VO1HP Max Rates: 2011-11-06 1323Z - 3.0 per minute (1 minute(s)), 180 per hour by VO1HP 2011-11-06 1342Z - 1.7 per minute (10 minute(s)), 102 per hour by VO1HP 2011-11-06 1342Z - 1.4 per minute (60 minute(s)), 82 per hour by VO1HP ARRL SS CW - 2011-11-05 2100Z to 2011-11-07 0300Z - 671 QSOs VO1HP Runs >10 QSOs: 2011-11-06 0414 - 0505Z, 3552 kHz, 45 Qs, 53.2/hr VO1HP 2011-11-06 1051 - 1147Z, 7024 kHz, 40 Qs, 42.7/hr VO1HP 2011-11-06 1236 - 1410Z, 14036 kHz, 108 Qs, 68.4/hr VO1HP 2011-11-06 1423 - 1442Z, 14062 kHz, 28 Qs, 88.7/hr VO1HP 2011-11-06 1502 - 1601Z, 14060 kHz, 49 Qs, 49.9/hr VO1HP 2011-11-06 1607 - 1826Z, 21043 kHz, 163 Qs, 70.0/hr VO1HP 2011-11-06 1903 - 1926Z, 28050 kHz, 23 Qs, 59.4/hr VO1HP 2011-11-06 2009 - 2033Z, 28059 kHz, 24 Qs, 59.0/hr VO1HP 2011-11-06 2038 - 2124Z, 28059 kHz, 54 Qs, 70.6/hr VO1HP 2011-11-06 2313 - 0008Z, 14015 kHz, 63 Qs, 68.9/hr VO1HP ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VO1MP Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 400 Strictly S & P ... actually started out to do 80/80 and stopped that nonsense at 74 /74 elected then to do band sweeps and just work anybody I had not already logged .......strangely enough last two sections were VE3 and then NLI ... worked two NLI's back to back on 20 go figure Was a small part of one of the VY1 pileups and quickly remembered why I elected not to CQ .... in his defence I really do not know how he is expected to copy when the people in line keep calling over the other station's exchange. I did read a few comments from some Hard Core Sweeps vets ... pissing and moaning about his methods .... I thought he handled himself quite well when you consider his check was 2006 hardly a seasoned veteran ..... Kudos to him for having the courage to face the onslaught !! Baptism by fire ... been there done that .. stumbled across him CQin on 10 later on with a 20 over sig so was easy at that point !! Also came across Frank VO1HP who provided me with MY VO he actually was doing the pileup by numbers at one point a la dxpedition style. Also heard VO1BQ Joe and Wayne VO1TA in search and pounce mode ... so there were a few of us on . Hope to get on for the SSB portion and then the CQWWCW before I go warm my bones somewhere warmer. Station set up : K3 driving Alpha 87a Home Brewed monobanders for 10/15/20 wires for 40/40 N1MM logging K3 and the selection of filters I have in it really play well in CW and heavy QRM Hope to C'Y'all Next one GLWCDR 73 Gus VO1MP ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VO1TA Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 7,290 Not much of an effort, Had a lot of other things on the go and was not able to be at my main station. I used my 706 (no filters) and a 20 meter dipole @20 feet. Not a whole lot of luck trying to clear a spot to run with 80 or 90 watts. Cheers Wayne ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VY1EI Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 93,288 Now the two biggest contests for me of the year are over. A week ago in CQ WW DX SSB I got 2050 contacts on 15 meters. Really floored me. Band conditions have been incredible. This contest has some of the biggest challenges and I'm glad I got to 600 QSO mark. With 1.5 KW behind me and great band conditions, I could have done a little better. Despite the fact I practice my CW every day, at times I feel like a newbie in this contest. I tell myself I love HF contesting, I love CW, and I love sweepstakes. Just keep rifling down the cokes and stay glued to the radio. I've got a ARRL Sweepstakes plaque on the wall and maybe one year I'll get another one. The words of encourage I get from many operators is appreciated. If I was totally into just having fun, I would just S&P. But if I did that my score would have been 400 QSOs, not 600. Lots of ops were running unlimited. Lots. That category has acceptance now. One really funny moment was when I QSYed to move away from one of the big sunday afternoon pileups onto VY1. In moving up the band, I decided to get a QSO with W8ID (or a similar callsign) who was running on 10 meters. Well darned if I didn't bring the pileup right onto him. He really must have been wondering what the hell was going on. Instant chaos on his running frequency. I said sorry for bring the pile onto him and moved on. Next two contests, ARRL Sweeps SSB and CQ WW DX contest CW, are pure fun. Let's hope 10 meters continues to stay open this month! Thanks for the Qs everyone. Eric VY1EI ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VY1JA Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 3,876 No score will be claimed due to my errors. submitted as checklog only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VY2SS Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 51,792 I missed VE4 and VE8 but I heard VE4YU a couple of times but couldn't attract his attention. I guess I took too many rest breaks. I have no antennas for 80 and 160. This was my first contest on QRP and I learned a lot. I may try it again. Thanks for pulling me in guys. -Robby ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: VY2ZM Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 223,600 Had a reasonable start but totally lost it in the 3rd and 4th hours of this contest. After that, for the next 5 hours, 40M really made it all look worthwhile again with something like 100 q's per hour It's all but impossible to come all the way back against great ops like N9RV, N2IC, N0NI and N5RZ - but in the end I would have to say I was pleased to have at least made this look respectable. I never tuned so hard for "anything that moved" to keep the rate up all day long on Sunday but it was painful and frustrating work to do for 13 hours straight. After the morning break, it looked like 1500 qso's might just have been possible but I needed to average something like 45 qso's per hour all day long in order to do that and I only managed something like 42 or so. Congrats to the boys who really know how to do this contest - I haven't a clue really what to do in the SS - but it is fun trying to "run" with the BIG DOGS from so far away up here. 73 JEFF VY2ZM K1ZM@aol.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0DLE Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 193,280 We had a good time here, but I think band conditions were not as good as last year. Barry, W2UP, came up and ran the pileups the first day, while I got to gather the flotsam and jetsam on Sunday. 10 and 15 were marginal at best. Barry had a great strategy for the first day; Park on 14.020 and run stations all day. This way he avoided all the pain of 10 and 15. I don't think we even went to those 2 bands the first day. Dave, WB0GAZ, was under the weather this weekend and could not make it up to help out. We worked a number of GMCCers but South Park is ringed by mountains and it is real difficult for me to hear some CO stations off the back and sides of the yagis, So we have to hook up on 80 or 160. 73, Chuck ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0ERP Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 36,792 Had fun, getting better at CW ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0MHS Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 121,760 Thanks for all the Q's .. sigs were really great this year ... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0MU Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 26,860 This was a good tune up for J6M in CQ WW CW! I was not cw contest ready that is for certain at the start. Ugggg. 20/15/10 all open but I could never get a decent run going anywhere. Wow the RBN is amazing. Too bad they don't spot the sections too. 80 was decent both night but not too many players. Finally had some fun runs on 20 and 15, 10 was open but not many takers from CO. Montana is becoming commonplace. ND was tougher. Poor VY1EI! I bet he wishes the RBN could be dismantled! Great to work old friends as always ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0NA Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 71,136 Missed Nebraska (!) and NWT. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0PAN Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 1,250 It was a struggle but hit all bands except 160. Bring on the phone SS!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0PC Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 3,000 Could only run a short time Sunday afternoon. Great to see the higher bands work'n. See you on the next one. 73, Rick ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0PR Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 75,300 Great fun as always. Nice to have 10 and 15 open this year, been a while. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0PV Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 66,834 No tower, no beam, running the new low power U class I mainly wanted to try to make a "clean sweep". Just missed it by one section. Was relived to hunt down MB and NWT only to be stymied by of all places NEBRASKA! Nice to have better HF propagarion and see activity scattered across more bands though. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0TOL Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 26,860 Fresh blood for Sunday. Missed RI for a Sweep! We were 12 short with an hour to go. Never thought we would get within one...Oh well. Great rate with a fresh call. Too bad the entire contest can't be like that! People had a terrible time with our check. 0 anything seemed to throw people even a couple of other stations that had the same check as we did! Just copy what is sent and quit thinking! HI! I noticed a couple fairly prominent participants failing to send their call in the exchange. Broncos beat Oakland at home and contesting. What more can one ask for. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0TVD Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 24,244 The first of two operations from different states! This from my home in MN with a little 40 meter vertical and W0TVD's call. The next from my lake station in WI using my own call. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0UCE Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 126,400 Hoped for sweep as I had 79 sections by 10:00 Local Saturday evening but no VE4 when SS was over. Thanks for the Qs. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0UO Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 133,352 First SS in many years. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0ZA Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 187,520 I just could not get any runs going on 10 meters, even thou the band seemed to be wide open. Maybe not there at the right time. 40 meters was down this year from previous years. Thanks for all the GMCC members who worked me and looks like we did a nice showing this year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W0ZQ Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 85,624 Many thanks to all the guys who are not hard-core CW op's but who braved the waters and got on and played, especially those in rare sections - thanks! 73, Jon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W1AJT Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 50,912 K3 to 43' vertical. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W1BYH Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 49,770 Tough contest for me - had all antennas damaged in early Nor'easter. Trees down all over my yard and lost all wire antennas. Tri-bander twisted like spaghetti ! Ran entirely S&P on low power, hoping to make a sweep - almost ! Never did hear any NE station but did spend some time chasing VY1EI on 10 meters. He QSY'd after about every four contacts, which made it possible to work him with little competition when I found him up the band.Hope to be back in some shape for the SSB SS. Norm W1BYH ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W1EBI Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 111,072 No repeat sweep this year without MB and NWT. George W1EBI ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W1ECH Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 72,000 I thought there would be no sweep this time before finding VY1EI pounding in here on 10 Sunday. I heard him and VY1JA earlier on 20, briefly, but signals down there were weak at that point. Thank to both of them for hanging in there as much as they do. Station: IC-746, 80M all band wire, 2-el wire beam fixed west on 40M. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W1NN Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 163,360 It's nice to have the high bands open, but since 80 meters is my most competitive band, the improvement in high band conditions is not really a plus for me. My 80 meter QSO total this year dropped by 158 contacts. Overall, I was 45 contacts short of my 2010 total. The contest started off pretty well for me and after 3 hours I was ahead of my 2010 pace, but activity on 80 was slow to build and the hourly rates for the next 5 hours were about 10 contacts per hour below 2010. I have created a table with my hourly Q totals from the past five years and as each hour passes, I enter my current rate and cumulative total in the columns for this year so I can monitor my performance. I have found that this is a very helpful tool, although it can be depressing if you see that you are falling behind. Conditions on 80 were actually very good and the west coast was quite loud late at night, so after midnight I had a couple of decent hours. When I took my first break in the 0800 hour, I was only 15 contacts behind my 2010 total at that time. Sunday was the real problem for me. Rates on 40 in the morning were just not there and it became extremely difficult to sustain any kind of rate the whole day. I fell about 50 contacts behind my 2010 total on Sunday morning and never did recover. Sunday afternoon was more painful than I can ever remember. I went over 800 contacts around noon but it took the next 10 hours (minus 3 hours of breaks) to make the next 200 contacts. On the positive side, nothing broke and I managed to make my first sweep in quite a few years. I think I worked at least two stations in every section except VE4 (thanks VE4EAR) and NT (thanks VY1EI). With people spread out, it was easy to find a CQ frequency (but not enough callers!). It seems that the Unlimited category has become very popular, especially among ops who are not operating for a full 24 hours. And there seems to be a slight increase in the number of post 2000 checks, but exactly 25% of my contacts were with ops licensed in 1959 or earlier. I guess if I'm ever to become really competitive, I'll need some aluminum. Last year K8AZ loaned me his old A3S tribander and I temporarily mounted it on a fiberglass mast at around 40 feet. It wasn't much better than my dipole on 20 but I thought it would help me on 10 and 15 this year so I put it up again. Unfortuntely, something is wrong with at least one of the traps because it won't load on 15 and 20, so I took off the outer traps and put it up at 36 feet to use on 10 meters. It seemed to work well but I just couldn't get any sustained runs going on that band. For the other bands, the antennas are all dipoles. Another SS in the books! Many thanks to all for the contacts and the cameraderie. It's always fun to hear and say hello to many friends from over 50 years of radio contesting. 73, Hal W1NN Check 57 Medina, Ohio ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W1TO Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 26,228 I spent most of my time looking for the sweep. I heard VE4 but never found one calling CQ and didn't attract any when I did call CQ. I thought sure I had one when one answered the station just below me calling CQ on 40, but no joy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W1UJ Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 191,360 Band QSOs Pts Sec 3.5 92 184 1 7 747 1494 41 14 231 462 11 21 73 146 16 28 53 106 11 Total 1196 2392 80 Score: 191,360 The 40m Moxon Works! What a Week! My goal since getting into this radio hobby was to have a tower and beam of my own. Thanks to patience and the phenominal Barnstormer team, It finaly happened. The week prior was filled with Home Depot runs, hardware orders and late nights for the preperation. Thursday; N1WK Stopped by to prepare the Tram and discuss the plan Friday; Ke1LI Climbed established the tram and did some prep work Then there was Saturday......... I went out to start prepping rotor wires and feedline at 7a and never stopped until running out of SS time Sunday night and crashing in bed, HARD! This project would never be off of the ground if not for N1WK as the project manager. KE1LI Spent nearly 6 hours on my tower, I cannot thank him enough. The Saturday team; N1WK, KE1LI, NR1X, Friend Brian, NR1X Brother Mark, NR1X Harmonic Connor, W1UJ XYL Shana. -Dragged up the 2 Element W6NL/K1KP/W1UJ 40m Moxon @ 90' -Dragged up the 4el Steppir @ 75' -Went for a great lunch -Downed 2 cups of coffee and hit the bands --------------- Within the last few week I received my first 'Major Award' for contesting in the form of a SS CW 2010 Plaque for #1 New England Unlimited, which was also a New England record. I was going to try and defend it, but did speak with K5ZD at the YCCC Contest U about going into the B class where the competition is different and give up the spotting. The spots are distracting! I had a blast tuning around finding guys to work... I dont think Im going back. 40m was my money band with the Moxon, I mean it would just not quit. Was hearing the whole continent West-to East coast constantly, the layers of stations while tuning around was phenominal. I am scared to turn it to EU! A couple EU stations called just to give me favorable reports during the SS. Off of the back.... For the high bands, the 4el Steppir was similarly awesome, but I had blown up 2 stepper motor driver chips on the controller, the driven element and the 2nd director would not turn (on the ground) so I had to use A 3 el controller, so it was a 3el during the SS. Again similarly had EU call to give me favorable reports off of the back, then the VU2 Called ON 15M(I didnt log you sorry! N1MM ctrl-alt-Enter didnt work) The QSO was something like this= me = VE2? VU2XXX me = VA2? VU2XXX... ? RRRRRR VU2XXX 57N RR TU! That was cool The problem with this antenna besides the blown controller, is that I dont know where it is pointing with the Tic ring. (Another story) Had to look at it to aim it the best I could, which was tough at night. The other problem was using the Steppir's 'quick connect' box had us sending the Steppir control wire up and down 4 times with broken wires. Getscores was fantastic! All of it worked well. It was really motivating to be in the competitive ranks of K5ZD, AA3B and W1VE during the horse race all weekend. I was on top once! I should have grabbed a screeenshot, because it did not last... Congrats to the winners! # QSOs = 1213 # band changes = 314 I didnt beat on the 2nd radio during the first third of SS, and really hit it hard during the rest. Worked all of the Thursday night NS guys and lots of YCCC guys. 2010 Unlimited Score Summary: http://goo.gl/ALY9r 80: 457 40: 264 20: 333 15: 92 10: 0 ------------ Total: 1146 Sections = 80 Total Score = 183,360 Jay W1UJ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W1VE Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 185,760 My SS operations started the year after I was licensed, in 1976, and although I've not made every one, I sure enjoy making as many as I can. This was my first outing using the YCCC SO2R box we set up at K2LE/1. My goal was to break 1200 QSOs, and I ended up a bit short. Murphy raised his ugly head before the start of the contest -- the 20m Stack was non-functional (it died during CQWW SSB). I could not seem to get any production on 20 and 15, and it shows. In addition, about 10 hours into the contest, one of the amplifiers started having a relay problem -- so I ended up doing S&P on the 2nd radio low power. It took at while to get used to the SO2R box using N1MM -- but once I got the hang of it it was great. As always, 40M was the production band, and Andy's 3-ele @ 100' smoked as usual. I had a great time horse-racing with W1UJ on Getscores.org -- Awesome job, Jay, and congrats on getting the station together! Lots of east-coasters on getscores -- let's get EVERYBODY posting. It's great motivation to keep your butt in the chair. At one point, when I was 10 or so QSOs ahead of W1UJ, I took a 10-min break to eat some dinner. Oops -- Jay took off and never looked back. My last sections were VT(!), RI and NL. VY1EI called in early. I had the sweep by 9:30 am Sunday morning (a little later than usual). Still a bunch of confusion between Dennis, W1UE and myself, W1VE. Had to stop many stations and correct the call. It will be interesting to see how many logs get dinged. It's funny how you work people in SS and it brings back memories -- I worked, in very close time, Pip, WB4FDT, Chris, N4YE, and Bud, W4YE -- all great friends from many years ago when I lived in VA and Did VN/4RN/EAN traffic handling. Thanks a bunch to Andy, K2LE for the use of his station! See you in a couple of weeks in SS SSB from W1VE operating as W2PV (from K1TTT. WMA, not VT -- that's why the different call). 73. Gerry, W1VE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W1WBB Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 105,600 Along with the great solar conditions the new Hex beam up on the tower with its top up at 35 ft certainly helped me on the high bands for this US/VE event. Achieved the 'sweep' finding VE4YU on 10M (who was quite loud) for section #80 and calling him, after he had called another stn while S & P'ing and had gotten no answer! Many thanks OM for a fun moment here!! Still had over 7.5 hours left in the contest. With so few VE4's around I had not been optimistic about working that last section. Was called by VE4EAR 3 hours later on 10M while I was running for MB #2...thanks Ed! Just as exciting was working VY1EI, 1.5 hours earlier on 10M with a booming signal from NT, finding him mostly alone after he had apparently just gotten out from under another spotting pile-up. **Great job** by Eric doing his best to work the masses of stations calling him and being apparently the one primary active NT mult for this SS-CW...his post shows he put in close to the maximum 24 hour effort -- much appreciated by so many of us, Eric! Last 5 sections worked were OK, DE, UT, NT and finally MB. Only got 1 DE and 1 NT; only 2 LA, NE, MB and PR. Thanks as well to the ops activitating KP4. I struggled a few times with my N1MM logger in ESM mode when dealing with the SS exchange window...had to give the '.-...' a few times during periods of operator error. Sorry for the QLF moments. Great to hear the many FB sigs (and excellent ops) on the upper bands via the new beam...should make for a fun contest season here. A few of us CTRI Contest Group mbrs did our best to make the 'Ocean State' mult a little less rare again this year. 73, Bill W1WBB ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W1XX Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 112,476 Never heard NE (can't believe it!) or NT. TNX VO1MP for calling me late in the contest. 40 meters as usual did the heavy lifting (M2 2-element at 100 ft). Last few hours were painful. Don't think I want to try this again. Probably back to B power on phone. 73! -- John, W1XX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W1ZT Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 105,920 Great to have 10m back again. Never heard KL7 so loud for so many hours on all bands. Always nice to hear the VE4 guys "stop by" on Sunday but they were sure loud this time. Always nice to have a sweep but signals were so good the whole weekend made up for the weather problems last weekend. Thanks for all the activity and good CW... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W2CS Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 66,560 Done on a time available basis. Thanks to K1GQ and W2RU for putting up an antenna for me to use! 160 mtr doublet, OWL-fed, Palstar tuner. K3+P3. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W2EG Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 143,200 Got the sweep and beat last year's score. What could be bad? Thanks for the Q's. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W2GD Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 4,788 Rig: Vintage/Rusty TS930S Antenna: 80M Diople with 450 line @ 65', Dentron Tuner Couldn't resist getting on for just an hour....to work those who were serious and so many old old friends! 73, John W2GD/3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W2GPS Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 50,880 This was my best score in this contest and the first clean sweep on CW. I thought I had worked all the hard sections early so I could concentrate on the score but at the end I struggled to get MB to complete the sweep. I learned a great deal from other operators comments after the contest so I want to do it again but better. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W2JU Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 113,920 Thanks for all the Qs! Alec W2JU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W2LC Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 16,740 I was doing my usual trip to Potsdam NY for the Clarkson University hockey game. So I took the radio (the small one) and decided to operate from NNY. My thanks to NY State and the many wildlife areas to park in. I operated from a couple of rest areas off Rt81 and Rt11 on the way up and also in two parks on the east end of Lake Ontario on Sunday. A couple really nice views. It was very warm here Sunday, unusual for NNY. The scenic areas made it a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon. I was using an FT-817 running about 4 watts and 40 and 20 meter hamsticks. It's bad enough operating QRP but mobile QRP makes it much more of a challange. 73 Scott W2LC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W2NO Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 35,500 Missed VE4 for the sweep. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W2VJN Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 177,280 k3, 91B, AL 1200, W-T, X9@108, 40-2CD @117 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W3CQ Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 72,708 OPERATING TIME WAS SEVERELY LIMITED THIS YEAR. ONLY ABOUT 15 Q'S BY S&P AND THE BALANCE RUNNING. 80 METERS WAS PARTICULARLY DISAPPOINTING THIS YEAR FOR ACTIVITY SEEMED TO BE LOW THERE COMPARED TO PREVIOUS YEARS. THANKS TO ALL WHO CALLED. 73, BILL, KC4D / W3CQ CWops#419 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W3UL Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 100,330 Enjoyed working on 40 the most. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W4AU Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 155,360 I had hoped to put in a full 24 hours this year, but really needed to get out Sunday afternoon and take a hike on a wonderful Fall day! Also, my butt, ears (brain...), and back needed some exercise and some relief from the chair and CW. It was a pleasure to get an unassisted sweep again this year. As the experts say, "If you call CQ, they will come to you!". This was indeed the case for all the rare ones like NT, PAC, VE4, and VO1 (worked 4 NL's this year!). Got called by VE4 on 10 for my last section Sunday afternoon, and then was called by another VE4 on 40 Sunday evening. The ever-elusive VY1 called me on 40 Saturday night; it is always a great relief to get that one out of the way. One of my ICE BP filters began acting up early on, which made SO2R difficult on certain band combinations. Despite this problem, I had more second radio contacts than ever before in SS, without toooo many blunders... The Thursday night NS practice has certainly helped my SO2R abilities. I would have liked to have finished up on 80 Sunday evening, but for some reason I did not feel very loud there and opted for 40 where the rate was better. I have to check into my 80 dipole and coax because 80 is usually my strongest band. I was aiming for 1000 Q's, but am very satisfied with my score, and, of course, it gives me something to shoot for next year from my little pistol station! Thanks to all for the Q's and especially for those hard-to-find mults. 73 - John, W4AU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W4BQF Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 102,858 Part time effort, but a lot of fun. Operators seemed to be first rate this year! Thanks for the Q's! Tom - W4BQF K3/Aplha 9500/Optibeam OB16-3/Optibeam OB40-2/Ancient operator ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W4EE Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 61,200 TS-440S G5RV N1MM logger Tnx for the Q's 73, Jim ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W4KAZ Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 51,150 Only half the time I planned, but Saturday turned out to be a no-show as far as the contest. Sunday B.I.C. time suffered from multiple interruptions. Lots of Q's left on the table. Before bailing, spent time punching spots looking in vain for EB and MS. Prop from here seemed to favor OR rather than CA, could hear the 7's better on 10m/15m/20m on the dipoles. Band conditions seemed quite good. Lots of short skip on 20m. Missed: MS SB PAC NL NT 73 de w4kaz ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W4MPS Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 81,600 This was a personal best for me, so I was very pleased. Many thanks for the great operating advice from the "vets" at PVRCNC; that really helped. I'm proud to be part of that fantastic group. I ran low power, FT-950 into wire (W5GI at abt 60 feet favoring E-W). I also shot an old G5RV into the trees favoring N-S, figuring it would help pick up more east coast stations on 80 and 40. But almost invariably, the E-W W5GI performed better on the N-S stations. Interesting. Hoping to have an 80 mtr horizontal loop up for next year's Sweeps. Chased VY1EI (NWT) for quite a while for #80 but finally got him. I also thought it was interesting that I wound up with more Q's on 15 than I did on 20. 10 was fun also. I thought that band would be more crowded than it was, but exciting to hear it coming back to life. 73 Marc, W4MPS Clayton, NC (FM05tp) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W4MR Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 210,720 Actually did some preparation for this one. Antennas were all working and I got on for the Friday night practice. The practice went well, but after the 30 minute session, N1MMlogger crashed. I spent a frantic 3 hours getting everything back in shape. Good conditions here in NC. Looking for some new records to be set... Always nice to work all the familiar calls. 73, Will AA4NC / W4MR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W4MYA Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 163,200 Thanks for the QSO's! Good to see old friends again. Take care ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W4PA Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 51,600 Thanks Pat W4PV for loaning me his station for a few hours - I was on from 1530 to 2030 UTC Sunday. 29th CW SS in a row ... 73 Scott W4PA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W4PK Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 97,120 Thanks to all who put up with this CW-challenged operator! I am comfortable up to about 25 wpm but anything above that I started having problems with 7's, 8's or 9's. Also if the operator sent the precedence without a space following the serial number I was likely to type a '6' when it was a 'B'. I spent until late Sunday afteroon just S&Ping. I tried to work some of the super-fast stations but I had to ask for too many repeats. I felt like I was slowing their rate down so I soon gave up on that idea. I did get brave enough to try running late Sunday afternoon. I ran at 24 WPM and to my surprise I didn't have much of a problem at all. Most stations answered me at my speed but I was successful even with those who had answered at up to about 30 WPM. I had my best rates the last couple of hours of this contest. This included a temporary QSY to 160M to work TU2T for a new band country. This year I did manage to work all 80 sections, a first for me. I came across a gentleman who was running stations at a brisk pace and he gave me a check of 39, the year that I was born! I checked QRZ.COM and it turns out that he is 90 years young! 73, Sam W4PK ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W4RM Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 178,720 While from an east coast prospective the band conditions took a turn for the worst. The high bands being open till late kept everyone busy with little east coast activity going to 40 & 80M till very late. Then on Saturday night 40M went long early which reduced the short skip and the east coast QSOs which I have come to rely on. Overall our 80M score was cut in half from last years 600 plus qsos. The overall score and qsos were also down as I the team was unable to replace the east coast low band 40/80M qso's with west coast high band qsos. So, overall we are down about 200 qso and 20K points. As with every CW SS it's a great time with a very skill operators and alwasy FUN. We'll return next year with a new plan as I'm sure the bands will act similar to this contest. 73 Bill W4RM and the contest team W4NF, K5VG & K8EI ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W5DQ Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 33,004 TS940S and Force 12 C3S @ 40 ft. Had a great time as this was my first SS CW. Band folded before I could get the last 6 sections. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W5KFT Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 110,136 I had some technical issues and wasn't feeling that well, so I decided to pack it in at 0700. Nice high band conditions. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W5MX Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 188,640 Great contest, really enjoyed it. Higher bands being open caused stations to really be spread out, especially during the daytime as several others have mentioned. Really can make things difficult from the "middle" of the country. My QTH not good (in a hole)for groundwave on 10/15 so limits things a bit. My main band this year was 40, last year it was 80, which reflects the higher sunspot numbers I believe. Sunday was tough to get any run rates at all so was mostly S&P for me, some tough hours. See you all in SSB! 73's Bryan W5MX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W5RU Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 204,640 Amen! It's over. Like last year, K!DW started us off calling CQ on 20, figuring that would be best for us for all-over USA coverage and I would take the mult radio for those hard to get mults, either on 15 or 10, whichever looked best at the time. What was hard to believe was that it took 4 minutes before we got the first answer to a CQ on 20. I think it foretold of what eventually appeared to be the case and commented on by many so far as I have read the soapbox - that this year the contest appeared to be not as well subscribed compared to last year - although we made a few more QSOs than last year. Even with all the increased 10 activity of late (and to some extent on 15) propagation for us to the general USA is not optimal. We're better off on 20 & lower and our score reflects that for the most part. I tried to chase VY1EI, as did many others, early in the going when he was spotted. That must have been painful for him. He was 20-25 over on 10 where I first found him. After a few minutes of uncontrolled mayhem, he QSY'ed evetually to 15, where he was only a few dB weaker, but none-the-less, the same messy pileup was upon him. After about a minute or so of when I found him, he dissapeared again. HA! Sure wish we had pileups like those - past memories of when LA was a tough section to get - but thanks to the LCC and other factors, that has become the stuff of history. Anyway, I was just resigned to the fact that the only way for us to get a clean sweep was to have the NWT find us. That they did.. By 11:28pm Friday night, VE8EV found us on 40 and about 30 minutes later, VY1EI chimmed @ 12:04am, also on 40. Thanks guys for the sweep! Just hope the only NL (VO1HP) holds up to log checking - he was QSO #3, very early on. Thanks to all for the Qs. For the SS Phone, we will be joined by Steve, KG5VK, Scott, W5WZ and Mark, K5ER, in what we hope will be the beginning of an annual LCC rotation at member stations. Here's hoping the WX and conditions are good. Thanks for all the Qs. 73, Ted KN5O For Team W5RU: K1DW (Dallas), N5HZ (Jim) and KN5O ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W6FA Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 29,240 I hadn't planned to get in SS this year, but 10 meters was so good, I just had to stick my toe in the water. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W6KC Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 112,000 This was my first SS using my recently acquired K3 and also my first time using N1MM in SS. I finally found some time to figure out how to use N1MM with a call sign database and custom function keys. I kept saying “wow” to myself as the combination of the K3, N1MM and the great condx made this an incredibly fun SS weekend. For the first time ever, I finished my sweep on Saturday evening...usually I still need a bunch of sections going into Sunday. And it is true that you do sleep better after getting the sweep on Saturday. 73, Jim, W6KC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W6NF Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 85,600 Great to have decent antennas and power! 10 meters provided 31 of my mults, including all the hard ones (NL and NWT, in particular). Most fun in a CW SS ever! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W6ONV Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 64,116 Looking over my log and comparing it to last year two things are evident. First, I improved my overall score by 12.3% over 2010 in about 30 fewer minutes. I had a realistically set 20 hours as my goal, unfortunately the SteppIR BigIR did not seem to work at all. I could received fairly well, but I could not be heard, even in the local area. Leads me to believe I have issues between the shack and antenna. Just adding in about 90 QSOs (based on last year's numbers) I would have achieved my goal of 500 QSOs. Unfortunately without 40M and 80M I was left scratching my head Saturday night. I missed out on achieving the sweep as I never heard SC or VE4 calling CQ. I heard each once during the contest, K4HR and VE4YU and tried to follow them on bands in hopes they would run a frequency but that never did happen. No real problems with any of the others sections unlike the past few years. I ran only 100w, unassisted again this year. Figured it would allow me more time to go up and down the bands in S&P than chase needed sections if I were using packet. All contacts were S&P. Guess I should learn how to run a freq to be more effective and add to my score. Steve W6ONV ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W6PH Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 184,320 SO1R: IC-7410 AL-1200 Field Day antennas. CT-DOS. Murphy arrived after the fifth contact and he hung around all weekend. I quit with an hour to go. No one would answer my CQs and all the CQers were worked already. The good news is that a sweep was easy. 73, Kurt, W6PH (Orange Section) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W6SC Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 88,000 Never a dull moment. People still don't know the difference between prec, check, and sec. Makes for some humorous moments. Fat fingers cause me to make stupid mistakes as well as others with "large" fingers. Cut us all some slack. Thought it was all over Sunday afternoon when a I heard a large "POP" and the amplifier died. Unbelievably, I had a fuse in my junk box that was an exact replacement of the "tired" fuse in the amp. It all came back to normal as I was looking for that last section for the sweep. Looking forward to next year! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W6SX Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 127,040 K3, ACOM 2000A, wire antenna at 46 feet with Matchboxes, N1MM. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W6YI Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 231,520 Thanks to the two vy1's and everyone for the qsos, we really appreciate working you. Our team of several years welcomed Dave, n6an for joining our group. All the operators did an outstanding job. The bands were great, although it seemed from here that overall participation was down a little. It might have have been all those football games that were on. The crew enjoyed our customary steak dinner and had shared some tales of the contest. Hope to see everyone in the phone weekend, 73’s Jim, w6yi. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W6YX Class: School Club HP Total Score = 221,600 Mike, N7MH, set up a multioperator station that kept two main HF stations operating with alternating CQs, along with a third station to pick up cluster spots. Two recently arrived operators from our East Coast rivals contributed to this year’s effort. Clayton, NF1R, who’d previously operated from the Harvard Wireless Club (W1AF), joined the Stanford faculty this fall. Rebecca, KB0VVT, who just finished her undergraduate and master's degrees at MIT (W1MX), started her Ph.D. program in electrical engineering. They joined W6YX regulars Mike and Nick, KZ2V. We also benefited from the moral support of Rebecca's parents, KG0US and KG0UT, who followed the action the whole weekend and were very kind to pick up a few pies at the local pizzeria. The current record in the school club category is 203,200 points, set by Mike from W6YX last year, and we're hopeful that we’ll exceed that score after log checking. One way we tried to improve our accuracy was to allow operators at all three rigs to share audio through multiple audio splitters. With this flexible “3 operator, 3 radio” system, during slow operating periods we were able to check one another’s copy. Thanks to everyone for the QSOs. 73, Clayton NF1R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W6ZL Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 70,784 Decided to play old school - LP unassisted. Spent last 3 hours looking for NE, but not be found. Heard 1 on 20M S&P. /73 Dave ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W7IY Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 106,704 Thanks to W4NF for inviting me to use his station. His antennas gave me the ability to run on any band, which is an important part of the mix of operating styles for QRP ops. John's wife provided some contest friendly food, which allowed me to keep operating without visiting the microwave oven. ;) It was difficult to choose a band and it seemed like people spread out over the higher bands. Operators were very friendly and didn't mind requests for resending info. Given the strict analysis, people understand how important it is to get it right. Of course, holding a frequency as a QRP op is tough. hi hi 10, 15 and 20 were open much longer than last year. Originally, I planned to only work 20, with checks to 15/10. However, I ended up spending a significant amount of time on the higher bands. On Sunday, it was a good idea for me to hit 40M earlier than normal to catch the other guys coming down from the higher bands. I would also like to thank W4RM for operating advice. I tried to stay up until 4:00 AM, but don't think I made it. ;) 73's and thanks for another fun contest. Stu2 W7IY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W7QN Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 59,714 Used Hustler mobile whips all bands.Good contest, see you all in SSB. Joe w7qn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W7RM Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 150,240 Decided to do something different and operate a home - with the K3s set at 5.0 watts. This was a bit tougher than doing it from W5WMU - but it could have been worse. Pretty much lost most of my momentum when 20 closed a bit earlier than I had hoped. Nice to finally get the VO1 multiplier after missing it the past few years. 524 QSOs answered my CQ - the other 417 were mostly second radio QSOs. Did some two radio work on the same band I was CQing on using a tribander about 125 feet away from the monobander (off to the side). Can't do that with a KW for sure. Thanks for all the QSOs. I'll leave this category to those who are crazier than me next time. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W7RN Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 213,280 2 x K3 5 x Emtron Amp Microham u2R and WinTest 80M - Dipole at 120', 2 x DXE 4SQ RX 40M - 4el@ 70', 2el @120' 20 - 6/6 on 140' tower 15 - 2 x 6el @35' 10 - 2 x 6el @30' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W7WA Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 173,280 With the resurgence of sunspots and thoughts of less crowded bands I decided this was a SS not to be missed. Its been ten years or so since I last put in more than an hour in the CW SS. Band conditions did not disappoint. 73 de Dan ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W7WHY Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 66,834 Fun while it lasted! Just couldn't bust the pileup on 15 for the VY1 with my dipole antenna. Close but no banana. Fun to see 10 and 15 open again. 73 and thanks for the Q's Tom W7WHY Radio 1 TS-450SAT + SB-200 ~400 watts Radio 2 TS-450SAT 80 meter dipole, 40 meter vertical, 20 meter HB 2-2el monobander, 15 meter dipole, 10 meter HB 2-el monobander. N1MM Logger ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W7YAQ Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 109,120 Managed to eek out a PR by a few Qs and get the sweep thanks to call-ins by VO1MP and VY1EI. I was expecting more out of 10 meters, but the real net was to have elbow room on 15 and 20. Condx on all bands were excellent. And with lots of Q ops, it is always fun to have Q-to-Q QSOs. Also nice to work other members of the CK 54 class! Rig: K3 at 5.0 watts Ants: 80M inv v at 65 feet, 3-el Steppir with 40M trombone dipole at 70 feet 73, Bob W7YAQ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W7ZR Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 104,000 No 80m antenna. Had to work PAC on just coax. Last section was NL. Surprising fun for LP with some good runs. Tnx fer the Qs. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W7ZRC Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 150,660 Had to work around other schedules, so a part time effort. Lots of fun and good sigs on all bands. Having 10 and 15 work so well sure takes the load off 20. Had several good runs and was surprised by the total number of Canadian "MAR" sections on. I have never heard and worked so many in all my years operating SS. Equipment: Ten Tec Orion II (SO1R) microHam interface and keyer with Win XP and N1MM Logger Antennas: CC A3S KLM Rotary 40m dipole HyTowers (2) phased on 80 Thanks for all the Q's ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W8EDU Class: Multi-Op HP Total Score = 152,960 The Case Amateur Radio Club station W8EDU was active from the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH for SS CW. Although we did not meet our goal of 1000 QSOs, the station and antennas worked very well. We set the shack up with two complete stations, allowing us to hunt for QSOs simultaneously on two bands. N1MM logging software provides the lockout function preventing both stations from transmitting at the same time. All bands were accessible from either station. We started on 20 m and maintained rate for Saturday evening and into night, switching bands regularly. Multipliers were easy this year, especially with VY1EI active with a great signal. The last multiplier, SC, was worked at 0339Z for the sweep. Rate dropped precipitously in the 0800Z hour, with the final QSO of the starting run at 0833Z. We did not manage our off times optimally, which definitely hurt our total. Furthermore, we followed the PVRC suggestion that the best band strategy from the eastern USA was to ignore 15 and 10 m, always pressing toward the lowest running band. That strategy turned out to be a bad one for us, as we surely missed opportunities for rates as many stations flocked to the higher bands. We enjoyed our ability as a multi-op to utilize the Reverse Beacon Network to help find stations to work on Sunday. After SS with RBN, it is difficult to imagine going back to SO without the help. Rates for the final hours were disappointing. While there were periods of useful CQ rates on 40 and 20 m, we never got the traction that we expected on 80 m during Sunday evening. Although we seemed on a trajectory to meet our 1000 QSO goal, the Sunday evening was insufficiently productive. We ended the contest 44 QSOs short. Many thanks are due to K8DTS, KI8JV, KD8OXT, and the student and faculty members of the Case Amateur Radio Club for maintaining the station and allowing us the opportunity to operate. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W8FN Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 155,946 Everything worked right this year, with the exception of something heating up in the SG-235 tuner that feeds the wire inverted L on 80 meters. I invested a lot of time and effort in debugging the station before contest season this year and it paid off in good performance, at least on the equipment side. I'm stuck with the bad antenna situation here on a 0.2 acre city lot. I've fooled around with SO2R for many years, but never could master the technique well enough to make it really worthwhile. This year I decided to seriously wrap my head around the challenge. The result was quite gratifying, over 100 more QSOs than last year. The N1MM software and the microHAM MK2R+ made it pretty simple and once I got to where I could keep the audio streams in the two ears separated I was off. It sure was good to have 10 meters back. I started there and had a couple of hours of 70+ rate. I couldn't quite manage a sweep this year -- missed the NT as usual. Radios: K3 with KPA500 amp (set for exactly 150W on each band), FT-1000D. Antennas: 3 element SteppIR at 30'; 40 meter inverted vee @ 45'; 120' long inverted L strung between trees, about 25' high; S9V 43 foot vertical with 3 radials. 73... Randy, W8FN ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W9RE Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 214,240 Last 10 were KY, LAX, MB, NE, NT, PAC, SB, SDG, UT and VI. Last 5 LAX, MB, NT, SB and SDG! Missed VY1EI twice, he was on 20 answering stations and I tried CQ'ing there but no luck. Heard him on 15 Sunday with a good signal but he said QSY! Never heard him again. VY1JA answered me on 40 Saturday night luckily. First time to have the sweep before I went to bed. Lowest score of the past few years even with great short skip conditions on 20 for me. Thanks for the Q's and congrats to the top guys! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W9SZ Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 19,234 Had a crazy weekend here, I was so busy my head was spinning most of the time. Lots of other obligations that took priority over ham radio. I managed not quite four hours in the contest. What I got to do was fun. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: W9ZRX Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 56,684 K3 + 135-ft Doublet at 140-ft. All Q's S&P. 1st SS since the 1960's ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WA2BCK Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 101,920 I couldn't use 40 meters at all as my 40 meter antenna is not working properly. This contest was my highest rate per hour ever averaging 58 QSOs per hour for the time I was in the contest. Also, my first CLEAN SWEEP! All 80 sections called me except for PAC which I searched for on 15. My last section was VT! My goal was to operate enough time to contribute my 100K points to PVRC. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WA3A Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 99,060 Missed NL and VE4. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WA3MKC Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 9,000 My first attempt at SSCW... Decided to go QRP IC 703 - the other radios are vintage boat anchors HIHI Work and family obigations limited op time, hope to have better equipment and strategy next year. Had a lot of fun, CUAGN next year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WA4EUL Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 48,840 Experienced a "numbering" problem in the middle of the contest; auto-numbers sent were off by one digit from numbers logged; fixed it before submission but probably have a dozen or so "busted" QSO's . . . sorry--lesson learned! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WA4PGM Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 80,800 Didn't plan on operating long but got hooked on using my new K3. The sweep was completed with VE4, I found 2 of them one on 20 the other on 10 so I switched between the two VFOs until I worked one. Most of the harder mults called me, thanks VY1, KL7, NE, ND!! First effort in SS for awhile I installed a 80/40/20 dipole @25 feet on Thursday before the contest. Took the main tower down in July so I'm missing the directional antennas. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WA4YG Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 4,480 Fairly proud of what I was able to do this time. I was unable to contest on Saturday due to family obligation, so I only got 3 or 4 hours in on Sunday, and put a very casual effort in (I made contacts in between various stages of cleaning up my shack.) All the same, a QSO-section ration of 56 to 40 isn't bad, and certainly makes the score look a whole lot better! Don't know how well my copy was, for some reason today I was having immense trouble distinguishing between 7's and 8's... I guess we all have to have those days sometimes. Looking forward to the next SSCW... I always really enjoy this contest. chris / wa4yg ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WA5RML Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 12,320 Yaesu FT-857D @5 wts to a Cushcraft MA5V vertical. Conditions on 10m and 15m were so good I spent all of my 6 hrs operating on those bands - mostly 10m! This is one of my favorite contests and it didn't let me down! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WA6O Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 152,320 Many thanks to Walt, N6XG, for allowing me to use his wonderful station. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WA7LNW Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 81,212 Had fun bringing my CW skills back up to speed after long summer dry spell. This was the contest to do it on. Operated from home QTH using TS-480 @ 100 watts and homebrew 23 ft. fiberglass vertical on back fence. Had a hard time sitting in operator chair for longer than 17 hours. Need to work on my endurance before CQWW CW and ARRL 160 weekends. Nice to see improved band conditions again! 73's de Jack, WA7LNW ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WA7PRC Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 43,878 As expected, the higher bands were where the gold was. However, I didn't expect to be glued to my chair (and frequency) for an extended period on 15m. Total op time: 11 hours ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WB6JJJ Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 26,250 Dang, I missed five this year... This contest was a bit of a struggle to get through. I'm still on some good drugs after a bit of knee surgery a couple of days ago and just couldn't concentrate for any length of time. And, having a straight leg meant sitting sideways, now I have a sore neck. Still, it was fun and conditions were much better than last year. Thanks for all of the Qs and KBs, Bill WB6JJJ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WB8JUI Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 77,000 Had to cut things short due to an out of town business trip Sunday afternoon. 500 Qs seemed like a good stopping point. 80 was relatively quiet. Can't say the same about 40 though. Lots of QSB on all bands. After bagging KH6, KL7, KP2, and KP4 in the first few minutes on 10 meters, I had visions of a sweep. I ended up missing MB, NL, and NWT. 73 - Rick WB8JUI ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WB8YYY Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 32,620 Small effort this year as it was a nice weekend for some bicycling and chores. Decided to go QRP given limited time. No issues reaching the far multipliers, but I missed many close easier ones this year. K2/5 watts, 2 element yagi and vertical. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WC7Q Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 63,960 My best ever, got all states but missed 2 Canadians. Where was SK and NWT? Quit early because of family barbecue this afternoon. Thanks to all who gave me contacts. 10 and 15 were outstanding, Great time running those bands. Sam WC7Q ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WC7S Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 52,560 Wonderful conditions, hearing all my friends, and meeting new friends. WOW!! A K2, with 3 - 360 ft EDZs seemed to work pretty well. Thank you everyone. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WD0T Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 219,360 Thanks all for the Q's and great fun.. Worked MANY of the Thursday NS gang, always a treat to work the crew!! Saturday was great fun, 15-80 in great shape, 10m not runnable from here, mostly S/P Q's on that band. Sunday was a slog, really got slow around noon and through the rest of the day, even more so than last year.. seemed activity was down somewhat. Congrats to big numbers, N9RV, KH7X, N5RZ and others, 73 God Bless and CU on SSB SS! 73 Todd WD0T ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WD5IYT Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 65,056 A casual effort working around my daughter's birthday party and sleepover. I had one really good run, but mostly a few contacts here and there when I could slip away to the shack for a few minutes! Jim WD5IYT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WE9V Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 36,680 Due to being in a new apartment complex and not at my station, I threw up an indoor 10/15/20M dipole in the bedroom and fired up the K3. I didn't want to set off any fire alarms or screw up too many TVs, so I only ran 50 watts. I was surprised by how many Qs I was able to make on 40M (and even 80M) on this short, non-resonant, indoor dipole. That said, I still miss the aluminum at home, and missed the sweep for the first time in 6 years. Oh well, it was still good to get on. Chad WE9V http://www.we9v.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WF7T Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 114,880 I met my goals: 100K and a sweep. Hit the 100K mark well before I had the last section. Nebraska was found late on my last 40M sweep before I camped out on 80M. Finding NT and NL were not too tricky this year but a real treat in any case. It was very great to hear so many familiar calls. Hey y'all! I had dismal 15 and 10M antenna choices but 20M wasn't bad for a change. I put up an EDZ for the west coast last weekend and it played pretty well on 20M. Wished many times for a rotatable gain antenna...maybe, someday. The bands sounded pretty good albeit slightly noisy. I liked how short 20M was especially on Sunday afternoon. I was bothered by intermittent wide-band noise on 80 and 40M. My special thanks to operators who patiently waited at my request so we could finish the Q (and be glad you didn't hear the string of profanity while I waited for the noise to subside.) In fact, thanks to all who could pull my puny signal out of the noise and for your patience with my stumbles. 73 Brad WF7T Nashville, TN --- IC-7600 @ 100W 20M EDZ @ 25' (toward the West) G5RV @ 40' (lotsa lobes on 15 and 10, none really pointing where I want them) 10M EDZ @ 35' (toward NE and next to worthless for the west coast!) N1MM v11.11.0, YCCC SO2R+ (but no functioning second radio :( --- Is there a Q-signal for a string of profanity? If not there should be. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WG4M Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 5,624 Nice time, although limited. 73, Paul, WG4M ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WI9WI Class: Single Op QRP Total Score = 87,164 I got off to a bit of a slow start, and that plus a couple of other minor issues sapped my motivation to put in a full 24 hours. I probably should have anyway, my score would have been comparable to those in the recent past. By the 24 hour mark I had used up all my off time. I decided to watch the Packers on TV instead of sitting at the radio Sunday afternoon. Missed mults: VE4, VY1, NL. I heard several VE4s S&Ping, but couldn't trap any of them. Heard VY1EI several times, including a couple of times where he was very loud, but no way I was going to crack the pileups with 5 watts, so I decided not to waste more time. Never heard a NL. 73 Jim ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WL7BDO Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 7,084 First time on SS CW! Really enjoyed the effort. Was part time and learning the ropes but will be back. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WN6K Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 94,224 While I had good intentions for an attempt at a sweep, I still missed NT and NL. I went looking a few times but obviously was looking in the wrong places. Most of the KL7s I worked were not very strong here so I was doubtful that any NTs would knock my receiver over. I had a bit of rain here and as soon as it presented itself, I was pointing blind as my rotator seems to fail indicating so there were a number of dashing out the garage door with a flashlight beam in the night to assure I was pointed where I thought I was... I had SIX micro KEYER II lockups (a lot) but I now have the reset process down to a science and can get back in seconds. One time it locked when a huge signal came up (might have been coincidental)and I turned the soundcard levels down a bunch and no more lockups for the duration. Last state to find was MS and he 'found' me on 10m. Weak but stuck with him as he was a K7 and I was not sure at first he was actually what I was copying. Lots of WY and ND stations this time so you never know who will be the 'rare' one. Station is still: FT1000MP MARK-V Field OCF = 80m Rotating wire DP @67ft. = 40m TH7DXX @55ft = 20-10m Errant Rotating Device = Yaesu G-1000SDX ========================================== Project in the hopper - (in Elmer's garage) DB18 @55ft 40-6m new Yaesu G-1000 DXA so I've got to have fair weather, time and less contesting and get er done. WN6K, Paul ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WO1N Class: SO Unlimited LP Total Score = 31,980 Station: FT1000D, Alpha Delta DX-LB @ 35', C3-SS@20', R7, N1MM Soapbox : Spent the preceding week nights under the stars/spotlights/headlamp rebuilding my trusty DX-LB dipole. All new wire. Had it ready to go and very early Saturday morning got it up in the trees with a little assist from N1HTS who had stopped by. The rest of the day was consumed with some normal and some abnormal fall activities. About an hour before sunset cabled it up and the damn thing had an intermittent. I mean how difficult can a dipole be? Hauled it up and down three or four times, replaced the coax and trimmed it a bit. That did the trick for 40M. Ran out of light to tweak it for 80/160, but figured that would have to do. It played well until the close of the contest when it went intermittent again! Grrrr.... Next order of business dig out and then put the shack back together having pretty much de-cabled the entire thing for Field day and then a portable operation from VT for NAQP. Soldered up a few cables around midnight and was finally able to get on the air. I've really got to buld that YCCC SO2R box so I can retire some of these cables that I've been using since I first got my license.... Good conditions all around. N1MM says I put in 7 hours. That sounds about right. Although I took the time to read the rules, missed the point that my precedence should have been "U", sent "A" the entire contest. First half dozen Q's also did not have my call sign in the exchange. CU in the next one, Ken WO1N ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WQ5L Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 139,360 So nice to have 10 and 15 useful in SS again. I had most of the longer-distance mults knocked out in the first three hours. Went to sleep still missing LAX, NE, ND, AR, and NL. The first two of those came in early on Sunday. Later while running on 20, ND called in followed by AR one minute later. I wasn't able to draw any interest from NL by CQing, so went looking, and somehow stumbled upon VO1HP without much of a pileup. That completed my sweep at 1801Z, just in time for the afternoon football break. Hopefully will be QRV for a little while during phone SS... 73, -- Ray WQ5L ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WW9DX Class: Single Op LP Total Score = 43,680 A few hours in the chair from home at the end of the contest. 73, Mike K9NW/WW9DX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WW9R Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 67,360 Wow, what a great weekend for a contest. The bands were wide open and the signals were loud. I've never heard/worked so many QRP stations in a contest. Lets hope the SSB weekend is just as much fun. 73, Pat WW9R Big Bend, WI ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WX0B Class: Single Op HP Total Score = 213,280 The rebuilding of WX0B was not complete but wanted to operate just the same. We got the operating position back in place and operational in the new shack last weekend but needed to wire in the band decoders / filters Saturday morning. The new 15 meter antennas were ready to install on the tower but too windy Thursday and Friday. My only antennna on 15 was a small 3-el tribander at 40 ft. I wore out the rotator going NE to NW over and over trying to get some rate. Saturday morning about 10am the NW 20 meter yagi went intermittent then dead. Unfortunately it was too windy to attempt a fix on the tower. So that left me with only the NE antenna for the contest. This was only my 2nd time to use N1MM and seems I did worse this time than the first. I have to get some practice time in...sorry guys for all the screw-ups. It really hurt me when finding someone on the 2nd radio. When it came to sending my call, the program did nothing but start the alternate CQ on the run radio....very frustrating in the heat of the moment. Then the number sequence would get out of whack...ARGH My style of operating which once allowed me to win and place in the high top 10 is no longer working...wish I could figure it out but maybe age has caught up with me. I keep thinking how to fix it but no answers have hit my mind yet. Thanks again to Jay and Sharon for allowing me to invade their home, and many thanks to AD5Q and K5RT for their help in getting me on the air for SS. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WX3B Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 182,560 Thanks to Frank and Phyllis for being such great hosts, and Frank for leadership, time management, cheerleading and SUPERB technical support. Thanks to Mark KD4D for getting our double skimmer feeds to two networks going. Thanks to Barry WR3Z for the great company. Sweepstakes is not a contest of whoever has the biggest signals wins; otherwise Barry and I would have done much better. The Skimmer really does add a dimension of real time performance comparisons and allows you to make mid-course corrections if someone is paying attention. For example, Skimmer pointed out that N3OC was smart enough to split his stack on 20 (is this true?) and he was booming up in new England. We caught on; right after Frank pointed this out. Frank's station really does play, and it sure is a joy to have such overkill in sweepstakes. Great to hear so many good friends on the radio (PVRC and NCCC), a great surprise filled my years when I heard the one word "DUDE" as a caller - by far my best surprise and favorite contact. Was it me, or were there an awful lot of stations from the northern California area on the radio this past weekend??? Now we take a weekend break ... and then Sweepstakes SSB is next. 73, Jim WX3B ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: WX9U Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 18,760 Murphy weekend: 1. had to work 2. rig VFO problem 3. primary antenna problem 4. operator overload Index of Calls Call: AA3B Class: Single Op HP Call: AA4FU Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: AA4GA Class: Single Op QRP Call: AA4XX Class: Single Op QRP Call: AA5VU Class: Single Op LP Call: AA6PW Class: Single Op LP Call: AA6XV Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: AA6YX Class: Single Op HP Call: AA7V Class: Single Op LP Call: AA8IA Class: Single Op LP Call: AB1OD Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: AB2E Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: AB3CX Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: AB3IC Class: Single Op LP Call: AB7R Class: Single Op HP Call: AC0DS Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: AC0E Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: AC8E Class: Single Op HP Call: AD0DX Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: AD4EB Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: AD4L Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: AD4Z Class: Multi-Op HP Call: AE1T Class: Single Op HP Call: AE4EC Class: Single Op HP Call: AE4O Class: Single Op LP Call: AE4Y Class: Single Op LP Call: AE6Y Class: Single Op HP Call: AI4MI Class: Single Op LP Call: AI9T Class: Single Op LP Call: AJ1E Class: Single Op LP Call: AJ6V Class: Single Op HP Call: AJ9C Class: Single Op LP Call: AL1G Class: Single Op HP Call: AL9A Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K0AD Class: Single Op LP Call: K0AV Class: Single Op QRP Call: K0BEE Class: Single Op LP Call: K0BJ Class: Multi-Op HP Call: K0CN Class: Single Op HP Call: K0EJ Class: Single Op HP Call: K0EU Class: Single Op LP Call: K0HB Class: Multi-Op HP Call: K0HC Class: School Club HP Call: K0IO Class: Single Op HP Call: K0KX Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K0LUZ Class: Single Op LP Call: K0PC Class: Single Op QRP Call: K0PY Class: Single Op LP Call: K0TG Class: Single Op LP Call: K0TI Class: Single Op LP Call: K0TO Class: Single Op HP Call: K0UK Class: Multi-Op LP Call: K0VBU Class: Single Op LP Call: K0ZR Class: Single Op HP Call: K1BV Class: Single Op LP Call: K1BX Class: Single Op LP Call: K1GU Class: Single Op LP Call: K1JB Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K1KD Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K1LT Class: Single Op HP Call: K1PQS Class: Single Op LP Call: K1RM Class: Single Op HP Call: K1RX Class: Single Op HP Call: K1TN Class: Single Op HP Call: K1TO Class: Single Op LP Call: K1TR Class: Single Op LP Call: K1XM Class: Single Op LP Call: K1YR Class: Single Op LP Call: K1ZZI Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K2AV Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K2NNY Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K2PLF Class: Single Op HP Call: K2PO Class: Single Op LP Call: K2PS Class: Single Op LP Call: K2QMF Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K2SX Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K2YR Class: Single Op LP Call: K2ZJ Class: Single Op HP Call: K2ZR Class: Single Op QRP Call: K3AJ Class: Single Op LP Call: K3AN Class: Single Op QRP Call: K3AU Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K3IE Class: Single Op LP Call: K3IU Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K3KU Class: Single Op LP Call: K3LID Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K3MM Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K3RMB Class: Single Op LP Call: K3STX Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K3SV Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K3TN Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K3WI Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K3WW Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K3YDX Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K4ALE Class: Single Op LP Call: K4BAI Class: Single Op HP Call: K4CX Class: Single Op LP Call: K4EDI Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K4EU Class: Single Op HP Call: K4FT Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K4FTO Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K4FXN Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K4GMH Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K4HAL Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K4QPL Class: Single Op QRP Call: K4RO Class: Single Op QRP Call: K4XD Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K4ZGB Class: Single Op LP Call: K5AF Class: Single Op LP Call: K5DU Class: Single Op LP Call: K5IID Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K5KG Class: Single Op LP Call: K5NA Class: Single Op HP Call: K5ND Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K5NZ Class: Single Op QRP Call: K5TR Class: Single Op HP Call: K5WA Class: Single Op HP Call: K5WO Class: Single Op QRP Call: K5XA Class: Single Op HP Call: K5ZD Class: Single Op HP Call: K6BL Class: Single Op HP Call: K6CSL Class: Single Op LP Call: K6CTA Class: Single Op HP Call: K6III Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K6JEB Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K6LA Class: Single Op HP Call: K6LL Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K6LRN Class: Single Op LP Call: K6MM Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K6NA Class: Single Op HP Call: K6NV Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K6OK Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K6RB Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K6SRZ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K6ST Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K6WSC Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K6XN Class: Single Op HP Call: K6XX Class: Single Op HP Call: K6YT Class: Single Op HP Call: K7ABV Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K7BG Class: Single Op LP Call: K7EG Class: Single Op HP Call: K7FA Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K7GK Class: Single Op LP Call: K7HBN Class: Single Op LP Call: K7HP Class: Single Op LP Call: K7IA Class: Single Op LP Call: K7JQ Class: Single Op HP Call: K7NV Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K7RF Class: Single Op QRP Call: K7RL Class: Single Op HP Call: K7RSM Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K7SS Class: Single Op QRP Call: K7SV Class: Single Op LP Call: K7VT/M Class: Single Op LP Call: K7VU Class: Single Op LP Call: K7WA Class: Single Op LP Call: K7XC Class: Single Op HP Call: K8BL Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: K8GT Class: Single Op LP Call: K8GU Class: Single Op LP Call: K8IA Class: Single Op HP Call: K8MFO Class: Single Op LP Call: K8MM Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K8MR Class: Single Op HP Call: K8NY Class: Single Op HP Call: K8PO Class: Single Op HP Call: K9AY Class: Single Op QRP Call: K9BGL Class: Single Op HP Call: K9CT Class: Single Op HP Call: K9DU Class: Single Op HP Call: K9ES Class: Single Op LP Call: K9FY Class: Single Op LP Call: K9GS Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K9MMS Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K9MU Class: Single Op LP Call: K9NR Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K9NW Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: K9QC Class: Single Op LP Call: K9YC Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: KA1IOR Class: Single Op HP Call: KA2D Class: Single Op LP Call: KA4OTB Class: Multi-Op HP Call: KB1EFS Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: KB3LIX Class: Single Op LP Call: KB7Q Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: KB9S Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: KB9UWU Class: Single Op LP Call: KC4HW Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: KC7V Class: Single Op HP Call: KC9ECI Class: Single Op QRP Call: KD4D Class: Single Op HP Call: KD7MSC Class: Single Op LP Call: KD8GOX Class: Single Op QRP Call: KE0G Class: Single Op QRP Call: KE2VB Class: Single Op HP Call: KE3X Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: KE7X Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: KF6T Class: Single Op LP Call: KG0Z Class: Single Op LP Call: KH6LC Class: Single Op QRP Call: KH7X Class: Single Op HP Call: KH7Y Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: KI0F Class: Single Op LP Call: KI7Y Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: KJ4FDV Class: Single Op LP Call: KJ6MBW Class: Single Op LP Call: KJ6RA Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: KK7S Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: KK9DX Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: KL7RA Class: Single Op HP Call: KM4JA Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: KM6I Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: KM7W Class: Single Op LP Call: KM9M Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: KN3A Class: Single Op LP Call: KN4QD Class: Single Op LP Call: KN4Y Class: Single Op LP Call: KO7AA Class: Single Op HP Call: KO7X Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: KP2M Class: Multi-Op HP Call: KP2MM Class: Single Op LP Call: KQ6ES Class: Single Op HP Call: KR2Q Class: Single Op QRP Call: KR7C Class: Single Op LP Call: KT0R Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: KT4LST Class: Single Op LP Call: KT4Q Class: Single Op LP Call: KT8K Class: Single Op QRP Call: KU7Y Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: KU8E Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: KV8Q Class: Single Op LP Call: KX7L Class: Single Op QRP Call: KY7M Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N0AT Class: Single Op LP Call: N0BUI Class: Single Op HP Call: N0IJ Class: Single Op HP Call: N0IJ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N0KE Class: Single Op QRP Call: N0MA Class: Multi-Op HP Call: N0NI Class: Single Op HP Call: N0SXX Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: N0TA Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N0XR Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N1CC Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: N1LN Class: Single Op HP Call: N1SNB Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N1SZ Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: N1WR Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N2AW Class: Multi-Op LP Call: N2BJ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N2CU Class: Single Op LP Call: N2GA Class: Single Op LP Call: N2IC Class: Single Op HP Call: N2MM Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: N2NS Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N2NT Class: Single Op HP Call: N2QT Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N2SQW Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N2WN Class: Single Op LP Call: N2YO Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N3AM Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N3BB Class: Single Op HP Call: N3BM Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N3CW Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N3JT Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N3KN Class: Single Op HP Call: N3KS Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N3LL Class: Single Op QRP Call: N3ME Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N3MK Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N3QE Class: Single Op LP Call: N3RC Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N3RR Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N3SD Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: N3UA Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N3UM Class: Single Op HP Call: N3ZZ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N4AF Class: Single Op HP Call: N4CW Class: Single Op LP Call: N4DJ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N4DU Class: Single Op HP Call: N4DW Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: N4EEB/KP4 Class: Single Op LP Call: N4FX Class: Multi-Op HP Call: N4GG Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N4GI Class: Single Op LP Call: N4GU Class: Single Op LP Call: N4JF Class: Single Op QRP Call: N4LF Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: N4MM Class: Single Op LP Call: N4NW Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: N4PN Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: N4PSE Class: Single Op QRP Call: N4UA Class: Single Op LP Call: N4UU Class: Single Op HP Call: N4YDU Class: Single Op LP Call: N4ZR Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N4ZZ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N5DO Class: Single Op LP Call: N5EE Class: Single Op QRP Call: N5NA Class: Single Op QRP Call: N5QQ Class: Single Op HP Call: N5RZ Class: Single Op HP Call: N5TM Class: Single Op HP Call: N5UM Class: Single Op LP Call: N5XE Class: Single Op LP Call: N5XZ Class: Single Op HP Call: N5ZO/6 Class: Single Op HP Call: N6AJS Class: Single Op LP Call: N6AR Class: Single Op HP Call: N6BV Class: Single Op HP Call: N6DA Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N6DE Class: Single Op LP Call: N6DW Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N6EE Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N6ER Class: Single Op HP Call: N6HC Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N6HE Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N6KI Class: Multi-Op LP Call: N6KJ Class: Single Op HP Call: N6MU Class: Single Op LP Call: N6PN Class: Single Op HP Call: N6RO Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N6VR Class: Single Op LP Call: N6WIN Class: Multi-Op HP Call: N6WM Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N6XI Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N6YEU Class: Single Op LP Call: N7IR Class: Single Op QRP Call: N7MAL Class: Single Op LP Call: N7NM Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: N7TR Class: Single Op HP Call: N7VM Class: Single Op LP Call: N7WA Class: Single Op LP Call: N7XU Class: Single Op LP Call: N8AA Class: Single Op HP Call: N8BJQ Class: Single Op LP Call: N8EA Class: Single Op LP Call: N8II Class: Single Op HP Call: N8OO Class: Single Op LP Call: N8TR Class: Single Op HP Call: N8UM Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N8XE Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N8XX Class: Single Op QRP Call: N9AUG Class: Single Op LP Call: N9CK Class: Single Op LP Call: N9CO Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: N9NA Class: Single Op LP Call: N9NE Class: Single Op QRP Call: N9OK Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: N9RV Class: Single Op HP Call: NA0N Class: Single Op LP Call: NA2U Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: NA4K Class: Single Op LP Call: NB4M Class: Single Op LP Call: NC7M Class: Single Op LP Call: ND3D Class: Single Op QRP Call: NE6I Class: Single Op HP Call: NE7D Class: Single Op LP Call: NE9U Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: NF4A Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: NF8M Class: Single Op LP Call: NG7Z Class: Single Op LP Call: NH2T Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: NI1N Class: Single Op HP Call: NI7R Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: NJ8J Class: Single Op LP Call: NM2L Class: Single Op LP Call: NM6E/5 Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: NN3RP Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: NN3W Class: Single Op HP Call: NN4MM Class: Single Op HP Call: NN7SS Class: Single Op QRP Call: NO3M Class: Single Op LP Call: NO5W Class: Single Op LP Call: NP2X Class: Single Op HP Call: NP4DX Class: Multi-Op LP Call: NR5M Class: Single Op HP Call: NS3T Class: Single Op LP Call: NS6T Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: NU6T Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: NV4B Class: Single Op LP Call: NW2K Class: Single Op LP Call: NY3A Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: VA2WA Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: VA3DF Class: Single Op QRP Call: VA3EC Class: Single Op LP Call: VA3RKM Class: Single Op QRP Call: VA6AM Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: VA7RN Class: Single Op LP Call: VA7ST Class: Single Op HP Call: VE1OP Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: VE1RGB Class: Single Op LP Call: VE1RSM Class: Single Op LP Call: VE3CX Class: Single Op LP Call: VE3EY Class: Single Op LP Call: VE3GFN Class: Single Op LP Call: VE3KI Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: VE3OI Class: Single Op LP Call: VE3RCN Class: Single Op LP Call: VE3RZ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: VE3TW Class: Single Op LP Call: VE3XAT Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: VE3ZT Class: Single Op LP Call: VE4DR Class: Multi-Op LP Call: VE4EAR Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: VE5UF Class: Single Op HP Call: VE6EX Class: Multi-Op HP Call: VE6TL Class: Single Op LP Call: VE7CC Class: Single Op HP Call: VE7WO Class: Single Op HP Call: VE7YU Class: Single Op LP Call: VE9AA Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: VE9DX Class: Single Op LP Call: VE9HF Class: Single Op HP Call: VO1HP Class: Single Op LP Call: VO1MP Class: Single Op HP Call: VO1TA Class: Single Op LP Call: VY1EI Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: VY1JA Class: Single Op LP Call: VY2SS Class: Single Op QRP Call: VY2ZM Class: Single Op HP Call: W0DLE Class: Multi-Op HP Call: W0ERP Class: Single Op LP Call: W0ETT Class: Single Op LP Call: W0MHS Class: Single Op QRP Call: W0MU Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W0NA Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W0PAN Class: Single Op LP Call: W0PC Class: Single Op LP Call: W0PR Class: Single Op HP Call: W0PV Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: W0TOL Class: Multi-Op HP Call: W0TVD Class: Single Op LP Call: W0UCE Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W0UO Class: Single Op LP Call: W0ZA Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W0ZQ Class: Single Op LP Call: W1AJT Class: Single Op HP Call: W1BYH Class: Single Op LP Call: W1EBI Class: Single Op HP Call: W1ECH Class: Single Op LP Call: W1MAW Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W1NN Class: Single Op LP Call: W1RH Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W1SRD Class: Single Op LP Call: W1TO Class: Single Op LP Call: W1UJ Class: Single Op HP Call: W1VE Class: Single Op HP Call: W1WBB Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: W1XX Class: Single Op QRP Call: W1ZT Class: Single Op HP Call: W2CDO Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W2CS Class: Single Op LP Call: W2DZO Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: W2EG Class: Single Op LP Call: W2FU Class: Multi-Op HP Call: W2GD Class: Single Op LP Call: W2GPS Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W2JU Class: Single Op LP Call: W2LC Class: Single Op QRP Call: W2NO Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W2TX Class: Single Op LP Call: W2VJN Class: Single Op HP Call: W2YC Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W3APL Class: Single Op HP Call: W3CQ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W3DYA Class: Single Op LP Call: W3KL Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W3LJ Class: Multi-Op HP Call: W3UL Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W3UR Class: Single Op LP Call: W3WC Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W4AQP Class: Single Op LP Call: W4AU Class: Single Op HP Call: W4BCG Class: Single Op LP Call: W4BK Class: Single Op LP Call: W4BQF Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W4EE Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: W4GDG Class: Single Op LP Call: W4JAM Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W4KAZ Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: W4MPS Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: W4MR Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W4MYA Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W4NZ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W4PA Class: Single Op HP Call: W4PK Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W4RM Class: Multi-Op HP Call: W4UT Class: Single Op LP Call: W4ZYT Class: Multi-Op HP Call: W5ASP Class: Single Op HP Call: W5DQ Class: Single Op LP Call: W5JBO Class: Single Op LP Call: W5KFT Class: Single Op HP Call: W5MX Class: Single Op HP Call: W5RU Class: Multi-Op HP Call: W6FA Class: Single Op HP Call: W6FB Class: Single Op LP Call: W6KC Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W6NF Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W6NL Class: Single Op HP Call: W6OAT Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W6ONV Class: Single Op LP Call: W6PH Class: Single Op HP Call: W6SC Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W6SX Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W6TK Class: Multi-Op HP Call: W6YI Class: Multi-Op HP Call: W6YX Class: School Club HP Call: W6ZL Class: Single Op LP Call: W7GKF Class: Single Op HP Call: W7IJ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W7IY Class: Single Op QRP Call: W7POE Class: Single Op LP Call: W7QN Class: Single Op LP Call: W7RM Class: Single Op QRP Call: W7RN Class: Single Op HP Call: W7WA Class: Single Op LP Call: W7WHY Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W7WW Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W7YAQ Class: Single Op QRP Call: W7YS Class: Single Op LP Call: W7ZR Class: Single Op LP Call: W7ZRC Class: Single Op LP Call: W8CAR Class: Single Op LP Call: W8EDU Class: Multi-Op HP Call: W8FJ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W8FN Class: Single Op LP Call: W9CF Class: Single Op LP Call: W9RE Class: Single Op HP Call: W9SN Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: W9SZ Class: Single Op LP Call: W9ZRX Class: Single Op LP Call: WA0MHJ Class: Single Op HP Call: WA2BCK Class: Single Op HP Call: WA2JQK Class: Single Op LP Call: WA3A Class: Single Op HP Call: WA3MKC Class: Single Op QRP Call: WA4EUL Class: Single Op LP Call: WA4PGM Class: Single Op LP Call: WA4YG Class: Single Op QRP Call: WA5RML Class: Single Op QRP Call: WA6O Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: WA7LNW Class: Single Op LP Call: WA7PRC Class: Single Op HP Call: WB4MSG Class: Single Op QRP Call: WB6JJJ Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: WB8JUI Class: Single Op LP Call: WB8YYY Class: Single Op QRP Call: WC6H Class: Single Op HP Call: WC7Q Class: Single Op HP Call: WC7S Class: Single Op QRP Call: WD0T Class: Single Op HP Call: WD4AHZ Class: Single Op LP Call: WD5IYT Class: Single Op LP Call: WD8RYC Class: Single Op HP Call: WE6Z Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: WE9V Class: Single Op LP Call: WF7T Class: Single Op LP Call: WG4M Class: Single Op LP Call: WI9WI Class: Single Op QRP Call: WL7BDO Class: Single Op LP Call: WL7E Class: Single Op LP Call: WM3T Class: Single Op LP Call: WN6K Class: Single Op LP Call: WO1N Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: WQ5L Class: Single Op LP Call: WR3Z Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: WS7V Class: Single Op LP Call: WT6K Class: Single Op LP Call: WT9Q Class: Multi-Op HP Call: WT9U Class: Single Op HP Call: WU9B Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: WW9DX Class: Single Op LP Call: WW9R Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: WX0B Class: Single Op HP Call: WX3B Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: WX9U Class: SO Unlimited HP Index of Calls organized by Class Class: Multi-Op HP Call: AD4Z Call: K0BJ Call: K0HB Call: KA4OTB Call: KP2M Call: N0MA Call: N4FX Call: N6WIN Call: VE6EX Call: W0DLE Call: W0TOL Call: W2FU Call: W3LJ Call: W4RM Call: W4ZYT Call: W5RU Call: W6TK Call: W6YI Call: W8EDU Call: WT9Q Class: Multi-Op LP Call: K0UK Call: N2AW Call: N6KI Call: NP4DX Call: VE4DR Class: School Club HP Call: K0HC Call: W6YX Class: Single Op HP Call: AA3B Call: AA6YX Call: AB7R Call: AC8E Call: AE1T Call: AE4EC Call: AE6Y Call: AJ6V Call: AL1G Call: K0CN Call: K0EJ Call: K0IO Call: K0TO Call: K0ZR Call: K1LT Call: K1RM Call: K1RX Call: K1TN Call: K2PLF Call: K2ZJ Call: K4BAI Call: K4EU Call: K5NA Call: K5TR Call: K5WA Call: K5XA Call: K5ZD Call: K6BL Call: K6CTA Call: K6LA Call: K6NA Call: K6XN Call: K6XX Call: K6YT Call: K7EG Call: K7JQ Call: K7RL Call: K7XC Call: K8IA Call: K8MR Call: K8NY Call: K8PO Call: K9BGL Call: K9CT Call: K9DU Call: KA1IOR Call: KC7V Call: KD4D Call: KE2VB Call: KH7X Call: KL7RA Call: KO7AA Call: KQ6ES Call: N0BUI Call: N0IJ Call: N0NI Call: N1LN Call: N2IC Call: N2NT Call: N3BB Call: N3KN Call: N3UM Call: N4AF Call: N4DU Call: N4UU Call: N5QQ Call: N5RZ Call: N5TM Call: N5XZ Call: N5ZO/6 Call: N6AR Call: N6BV Call: N6ER Call: N6KJ Call: N6PN Call: N7TR Call: N8AA Call: N8II Call: N8TR Call: N9RV Call: NE6I Call: NI1N Call: NN3W Call: NN4MM Call: NP2X Call: NR5M Call: VA7ST Call: VE5UF Call: VE7CC Call: VE7WO Call: VE9HF Call: VO1MP Call: VY2ZM Call: W0PR Call: W1AJT Call: W1EBI Call: W1UJ Call: W1VE Call: W1ZT Call: W2VJN Call: W3APL Call: W4AU Call: W4PA Call: W5ASP Call: W5KFT Call: W5MX Call: W6FA Call: W6NL Call: W6PH Call: W7GKF Call: W7RN Call: W9RE Call: WA0MHJ Call: WA2BCK Call: WA3A Call: WA7PRC Call: WC6H Call: WC7Q Call: WD0T Call: WD8RYC Call: WT9U Call: WX0B Class: Single Op LP Call: AA5VU Call: AA6PW Call: AA7V Call: AA8IA Call: AB3IC Call: AE4O Call: AE4Y Call: AI4MI Call: AI9T Call: AJ1E Call: AJ9C Call: K0AD Call: K0BEE Call: K0EU Call: K0LUZ Call: K0PY Call: K0TG Call: K0TI Call: K0VBU Call: K1BV Call: K1BX Call: K1GU Call: K1PQS Call: K1TO Call: K1TR Call: K1XM Call: K1YR Call: K2PO Call: K2PS Call: K2YR Call: K3AJ Call: K3IE Call: K3KU Call: K3RMB Call: K4ALE Call: K4CX Call: K4ZGB Call: K5AF Call: K5DU Call: K5KG Call: K6CSL Call: K6LRN Call: K7BG Call: K7GK Call: K7HBN Call: K7HP Call: K7IA Call: K7SV Call: K7VT/M Call: K7VU Call: K7WA Call: K8GT Call: K8GU Call: K8MFO Call: K9ES Call: K9FY Call: K9MU Call: K9QC Call: KA2D Call: KB3LIX Call: KB9UWU Call: KD7MSC Call: KF6T Call: KG0Z Call: KI0F Call: KJ4FDV Call: KJ6MBW Call: KM7W Call: KN3A Call: KN4QD Call: KN4Y Call: KP2MM Call: KR7C Call: KT4LST Call: KT4Q Call: KV8Q Call: N0AT Call: N2CU Call: N2GA Call: N2WN Call: N3QE Call: N4CW Call: N4EEB/KP4 Call: N4GI Call: N4GU Call: N4MM Call: N4UA Call: N4YDU Call: N5DO Call: N5UM Call: N5XE Call: N6AJS Call: N6DE Call: N6MU Call: N6VR Call: N6YEU Call: N7MAL Call: N7VM Call: N7WA Call: N7XU Call: N8BJQ Call: N8EA Call: N8OO Call: N9AUG Call: N9CK Call: N9NA Call: NA0N Call: NA4K Call: NB4M Call: NC7M Call: NE7D Call: NF8M Call: NG7Z Call: NJ8J Call: NM2L Call: NO3M Call: NO5W Call: NS3T Call: NV4B Call: NW2K Call: VA3EC Call: VA7RN Call: VE1RGB Call: VE1RSM Call: VE3CX Call: VE3EY Call: VE3GFN Call: VE3OI Call: VE3RCN Call: VE3TW Call: VE3ZT Call: VE6TL Call: VE7YU Call: VE9DX Call: VO1HP Call: VO1TA Call: VY1JA Call: W0ERP Call: W0ETT Call: W0PAN Call: W0PC Call: W0TVD Call: W0UO Call: W0ZQ Call: W1BYH Call: W1ECH Call: W1NN Call: W1SRD Call: W1TO Call: W2CS Call: W2EG Call: W2GD Call: W2JU Call: W2TX Call: W3DYA Call: W3UR Call: W4AQP Call: W4BCG Call: W4BK Call: W4GDG Call: W4UT Call: W5DQ Call: W5JBO Call: W6FB Call: W6ONV Call: W6ZL Call: W7POE Call: W7QN Call: W7WA Call: W7YS Call: W7ZR Call: W7ZRC Call: W8CAR Call: W8FN Call: W9CF Call: W9SZ Call: W9ZRX Call: WA2JQK Call: WA4EUL Call: WA4PGM Call: WA7LNW Call: WB8JUI Call: WD4AHZ Call: WD5IYT Call: WE9V Call: WF7T Call: WG4M Call: WL7BDO Call: WL7E Call: WM3T Call: WN6K Call: WQ5L Call: WS7V Call: WT6K Call: WW9DX Class: Single Op QRP Call: AA4GA Call: AA4XX Call: K0AV Call: K0PC Call: K2ZR Call: K3AN Call: K4QPL Call: K4RO Call: K5NZ Call: K5WO Call: K7RF Call: K7SS Call: K9AY Call: KC9ECI Call: KD8GOX Call: KE0G Call: KH6LC Call: KR2Q Call: KT8K Call: KX7L Call: N0KE Call: N3LL Call: N4JF Call: N4PSE Call: N5EE Call: N5NA Call: N7IR Call: N8XX Call: N9NE Call: ND3D Call: NN7SS Call: VA3DF Call: VA3RKM Call: VY2SS Call: W0MHS Call: W1XX Call: W2LC Call: W7IY Call: W7RM Call: W7YAQ Call: WA3MKC Call: WA4YG Call: WA5RML Call: WB4MSG Call: WB8YYY Call: WC7S Call: WI9WI Class: SO Unlimited HP Call: AA6XV Call: AB2E Call: AB3CX Call: AD0DX Call: AD4EB Call: AL9A Call: K0KX Call: K1JB Call: K1KD Call: K1ZZI Call: K2AV Call: K2QMF Call: K2SX Call: K3IU Call: K3MM Call: K3STX Call: K3SV Call: K3TN Call: K3WI Call: K3WW Call: K4FT Call: K4GMH Call: K4HAL Call: K6III Call: K6JEB Call: K6LL Call: K6MM Call: K6NV Call: K6RB Call: K6SRZ Call: K7ABV Call: K7NV Call: K7RSM Call: K8MM Call: K9GS Call: K9MMS Call: K9NR Call: K9NW Call: K9YC Call: KB1EFS Call: KB7Q Call: KE3X Call: KH7Y Call: KI7Y Call: KM6I Call: KM9M Call: KO7X Call: KT0R Call: KY7M Call: N0IJ Call: N0TA Call: N0XR Call: N1SNB Call: N1WR Call: N2BJ Call: N2NS Call: N2QT Call: N2SQW Call: N2YO Call: N3AM Call: N3BM Call: N3CW Call: N3JT Call: N3KS Call: N3ME Call: N3MK Call: N3RC Call: N3RR Call: N3UA Call: N3ZZ Call: N4DJ Call: N4GG Call: N4ZR Call: N4ZZ Call: N6DA Call: N6DW Call: N6EE Call: N6HC Call: N6HE Call: N6RO Call: N6WM Call: N6XI Call: N8UM Call: N8XE Call: N9OK Call: NA2U Call: NE9U Call: NF4A Call: NH2T Call: NI7R Call: NM6E/5 Call: NN3RP Call: NU6T Call: NY3A Call: VE1OP Call: VE3KI Call: VE3RZ Call: VE3XAT Call: VE4EAR Call: VE9AA Call: VY1EI Call: W0MU Call: W0NA Call: W0UCE Call: W0ZA Call: W1MAW Call: W1RH Call: W2CDO Call: W2GPS Call: W2NO Call: W2YC Call: W3CQ Call: W3KL Call: W3UL Call: W3WC Call: W4BQF Call: W4JAM Call: W4MR Call: W4MYA Call: W4NZ Call: W4PK Call: W6KC Call: W6NF Call: W6OAT Call: W6SC Call: W6SX Call: W7IJ Call: W7WHY Call: W7WW Call: W8FJ Call: W9SN Call: WA6O Call: WB6JJJ Call: WE6Z Call: WR3Z Call: WW9R Call: WX3B Call: WX9U Class: SO Unlimited LP Call: AA4FU Call: AB1OD Call: AC0DS Call: AC0E Call: AD4L Call: K2NNY Call: K3AU Call: K3LID Call: K3YDX Call: K4EDI Call: K4FTO Call: K4FXN Call: K4XD Call: K5IID Call: K5ND Call: K6OK Call: K6ST Call: K6WSC Call: K7FA Call: K8BL Call: KB9S Call: KC4HW Call: KE7X Call: KJ6RA Call: KK7S Call: KK9DX Call: KM4JA Call: KU7Y Call: KU8E Call: N0SXX Call: N1CC Call: N1SZ Call: N2MM Call: N3SD Call: N4DW Call: N4LF Call: N4NW Call: N4PN Call: N7NM Call: N9CO Call: NS6T Call: VA2WA Call: VA6AM Call: W0PV Call: W1WBB Call: W2DZO Call: W4EE Call: W4KAZ Call: W4MPS Call: WO1N Call: WU9B