11/07/2007 | K8BZ The Nov SS/CW is the only contest I ever get serious about. When ever I have the entire weekend available I really try to give it my all. This is the first time I have had an amplifier and I knew I didn't have the endurance to keep up with the 1K QSO crowd but I wanted to use it anyway and enjoy being heard through the din. I only ran 500 to 600 watts but what a difference it made in getting responses to CQ's. I could never keep up a decent QSO rate at 100 watts and would be forced to search through all the dupes for QSO's. So it was fun being able to stay on a frequency and let the QSO's come to me.

80 meters was surprisingly productive for me this year but 40 meters was the top QSO band for me again, as usual. Once the sun goes down there's nowhere you can't work on 40!

It seems like every year there is a different scarce section. One year VI was almost non-existent and kept me from a sweep. Then is was MAR, then NWT (NT), then QC. But this time VI stations were lined up 5 Khz. apart on 20, and VY1JA kept a pile up going on 15. QSB kept his signal on the fringe of being able to QSO but finally got through. Manatoba wound up being the scarce one for me this time but finally got VE4XT on 40 for the sweep.

Now with the pressure off it's fun to just stay on a freq. and call CQ and work all the new stations that just seem to come out of the wood work the last couple hours.

Thanks so much to all the ops that only had time to work a few stations but got in there anyway. Especially in the last few hours. It sure makes the home stretch exciting. And what respect I have for the stations that make 1,000 + QSO's. I don't know how you do it. And the QRP guys! I mean, really! I was getting pretty full of myself until I worked a QRP station half way through the test that had over double my QSO count.

But, thanks to all and remember, space out those LoTW log submission. We don't want to smoke it's hard drive. -- K8BZ