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My 30th consecutive year in SS CW with over 1000 QSOs.
Love to see all the new calls. Sorry to miss more and more of the real OT traffic handlers.
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Picture was taken from the front porch at WP2Z the morning after SS.
WA6IQZ w/understanding girlfriend Regina and hopeful ham Audrey |
Brad, AL4T, with four-year-old Helena. I have a Multi-Op in my future! |
354Q’s 80 Mults 56,640 claimed score
Jay up north wasn’t my toughest mult, though – DE was, with a dedicated QRP’er giving me the sweep.
FT-1000MP Mk V Field SB-1000 Amp (about 700 watts) Explorer-14 with 40M add-on kit on 45 feet of Rohn 25G. You can just see the tower through the window. It works great for me, but would be even better if I had it 20 feet higher so it didn’t get caught in the Hickory tree in the back yard and I could rotate it more than 120 degrees. I guess I *could* cut the offending branches off… For 80 & 160 meters, I use what I call a Fan Half-Sloper fed through an old Dentron tuner. That’s a half-wavelength of wire, folded in half, the two ends joined at the feed point, and held apart by 4-ft pieces of PVC pipe. It is fed against the tower & its ground system. Think about half of a “cage dipole” from the ARRL Wire Antenna Classics book. It works MUCH better than any other 80M antenna I’ve put up on my suburban lot, although I have a full-size vertical base in the ground, almost finished. Still.
73, and see you in ARRL DX CW (If I’m not deployed again)
Brad
This was my second year to operate in the multi-operator category. The team this year was VE7ZO, NX1T and K4TD. We had a great time both on and off the radio, as expected. Being a CW traffic handler, I have always enjoyed the CW Sweepstakes, and this year was no exception.
It seemed to me like there was quite a bit more activity this year than last, especially from the West Coast on 15M. Some of those guys were S9+40dB here at times.
We experimented with real-time score reporting using N1MM logger and found it to be very interesting. We seemed to be the only Multi-OP station reporting on the site we were watching. However, we noticed Randy, K5ZD, was reporting on that site so we kept an eye on his updates. Even though Randy whacked us (especially on 40M), it was fun being able to make the comparisons in near real-time. I think I will make real-time score reporting SOP from K4TD in future contests.
The main tower is 195 feet high and the home for the 2-el 80M yagi (@180'), a 4-el 40M yagi (@140') and the stack of tribanders for 20/15/10 (@125'/85'/45'). The multiplier tower is 70 feet high and is the home of the 40/20/15/10 yagi (@75'). Not shown are the inverted-V antennas for 80 and 40 and a 1/4-wave vertical for 160. I am happy with the performance of the station on 80, 40 and 15. We didn't ever really check 10 or 160. The only disappointment for me was the number of Q's on 20M. We used every possible combination of antennas on 20, but, try as we might, we could never get a really good run going on 20.
Maybe it was just better antennas at the station this year, but it seemed like there were more QRP callers than ever before. We had some nasty QRN towards the end of the contest, so I apologize to those QRP guys that called us, especially on 80M, and didn’t get through.
Finally, we wanted to thank to all those operators who undertook the effort to get on from the rare sections making all the sweeps possible. We managed at least two contacts from every section/multiplier.
I, for one, am already looking forward to the 2007 CW SS...
Main Tower (195') |
Multiplier Tower (70') |
CQ SS DE K4TD... VE7ZO (Left), K4TD (Right) and NX1T (Behind the camera) |
My fancy new rig died Friday afternoon of CWSS weekend so back to my trusty 27 year old TR7 - missed the sweep by WYO from AZ - incredible - had 8 hours to find a WYO but nary a one found !!!!
Attacked PHSS with a replacement new rig and same outcome - another 79 sections with 4 hours to find a VE2 AAARRRGGGHHH.
Can I get a 2006 cup for 80 sections counting ph and cw ???
Bummer - Hank K7HP
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Absolutely one of the most enjoyable contests of the year and a great way to get ready for the cold winter months to come.
I still have not gotten all 80 sections (where oh where is that darn NT?} but I worked 79 this year as opposed to the usual 77-78 the previous years. Working with the Elecraft K2 at 5 watts I was happy with the 451 Q's and 79 sections all search and pounce.
80 meters stayed open and pretty active when 20 meters shut down so the load was spread fairly evenly from 80-20 meters with 80 being the most effective for the most Q's.
With this much fun the top band contest may prove to be great chance to flex that K2 5 watt muscle a bit.
Hey! Here's a coincidence.
The football team of my Alma Mater, The Ohio State University, finished the 2006 regular season 12-0. And this alumnus of that esteemed institution finished the 2006 CW Sweepstakes 12-0. That is 12 years of participation and 0 Sweeps.
But the coincidence does not stop there, oh no! In fact, 12-0 is a theme.
The are 12 inches in a foot, but I had 0 contacts with ND.
I wear size 12 shoes, but I've had 0 contacts with YT over all those years.
There are 12 months until the next CW SS, and I had 0 contacts with PAC this year.
Eggs are sold in lots of 12, and I ended up with a goose egg for the number of contacts with NE I logged this year.
In fact, if you divide 12 by the number of hands I have, it yields the whole number of Sections I missed this year.
Yet, CW SS remains 12 times as much fun as anything else I do throughout the year. I'll be back in 2007. To all I logged,
thanks for a great event!
I need a cw reading computer program so I can copy the 25+wpm message exchanges ! : (
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