11/06/2007 | W8SH Fellow radio aficionados,
The Scores are in. As most of you know, this weekend was the annual ARRL CW Sweepstakes. I would like to thank the hams who came out to help put us on the contest map. Despite having to deal with the adversities of having the MSU vs Uof M game spoiling our start time, those that came out to help, really had a good time.Special thanks to Matt Palmer KD8DAO, David Vigne KD8BXT, and Phil Perrault W8EKR, for an outstanding job working the sweeps. Together , hopefully we did better than the football team did to defend our honor against that "other" school over in Ann Arbor. Matt es I started it out on Saterday evening at about 9 pm local time, es work em until a bit after 1am on Sunday morning. I got messed up with the "time change" es got hear about 9am on Sunday morning es was joined shortly after by David es Phil. We put em in the log until about 4pm Sunday , which time we decided to pull the plug. We didn't set any new world records, but we sure had alot of fun. Dr. Shanblatt even came by to help our "moral support" by offering pizza fer the trenchermen. Heres the break down.
Score: 14,904 QSO's 138 Sections 54 Power 95 watts 10 hours
Some general observations on SS are as follows.
Either I'm getting older or "they" are getting faster. Seemed like the guys on the air were all speed demons. My brain started out the contest at 20 WPM es everything seemed like a "blurr". Slowly we became accustomed to the rapid pace, and got in the "groove". I think my code speed hopped up about 10 WPM by the time it was over. The camaraderie with the guys was great ! Lots of stories to tell, and lots of good tips n tales to hear. Even learned a few tricks to try fer the next contest. On Saterday night, Matt es I could NOT find any Canadian stations. We knew they were out there somewhere, but the elusive "Canucks" must have been watching "Hockey Night In Canada", cuz we didn't hear nary a one. We did catch a few the next morning however, so there must not have been any hockey games on the telly just then. Hi Hi Dave , Phil ,es I had a grand time talking about the latest "scuttlebutt", es even though we didn't set any records,we sure had fun just talking es joking around. We finally decided to shut down late in the afternoon when we realized we were doing more "lying" and less "logging". All n all a truly good time had by everyone.
Please consider joining us for more fun in a couple weeks when we do the Phone Sweeps, won't you. Try it, you'll like it. 73's Gregg WB8LZG -- WB8LZG