11/19/2007 | N5LFE I guess I'll chalk this year up as a dry run for next year. My running record of near misses in making a clean sweep is still intact. This year it was SB, QC, MB, and STX that proved elusive. I had good copy for quite a while on both QC and MB stations, but the pileups were so big that my 100 watts was never heard. STX was barely audible in NTX and SB was nowhere to be found. With all the big guns out there and poor conditions, I could never elbow in and get a good run going, so I decided to change strategy and S&P for multipliers instead of maximizing score. I had worked all the usually "difficult" sections, after all, so maybe this was the year for a sweep. The mults that turned out to be difficult this year are usually easy here.

The "bad" this year was an antenna project turning out to be more difficult and time consuming than expected, running well past the start of the contest. My headphone earpads disintegrated onto my ears. I had a wiring problem with the remote control to my newly installed tuner that took some time to troubleshoot and repair. The previously working voice keyer portion of my logging program died for as yet unexplained reasons. The band conditions were poor and my ears are still ringing from all the noise.

The "good" is that I now have a new and better antenna system. Sweeps was a great opportunity to compare antennas in a variety of directions and conditions. I got a lot of exercise, sling-shot practice, and tall ladder practice on the antenna project. Band conditions and my station will almost certainly be better next year. Most important of all however, is that I had lots of fun!!! I'm looking forward to clean sweep '08. See you next year!!! -- N5LFE