2009 ARRL November Sweepstakes (Phone)
11/23/2009 |
KE7VUX
My second Sweepstakes. My operating time is divided up (and sometimes assisted) by my 3 year old and 10 month old daughters and what they think I should be doing, but I still managed to make double the contacts (158 vs 70) and sections (66 vs 36) compared to last year, but still short of a sweep.
I missed NH on Saturday night because I wasn't motivated enough to work my way through the pileup. I did snag PR and VI.
I did a lot of operating on 15m this year, thanks to sunspots and the addition of a 2015 hex beam to my station to supplement the Hustler 6BTV. 15m was a lot more comfortable than 20m, thanks to the lack of wall-to-wall operators and a little more band.
The other big improvement to the antenna situation was a simple 80m inverted V, that opened up a lot more of the phone band for me to operate in than before. The majority of my multipliers came on 15m, with 80m next in line, including a few late additions on Sunday during the last hour or two. I felt that 80m could've offered a lot on Saturday night if I'd been willing to put in the effort, but with two little ones at home, dawn comes awfully early and you take your shut-eye when you can get it.
I'll admit to being selfish - I spent most of my time S&P for the 80 sections, and passed over many easy QSOs for sections that were already in the log. I tried calling on 15m Sunday afternoon for a while, hoping to pick up some New England stations, which I did (along with Ontario and others up and down the East Coast), but not the ones I needed.
I entered in the low power category, because I didn't want to listen to the amplifier all weekend, nor deal with tuning up. Since I'm short a high-power antenna switch still, it would've also meant changing coax jumpers more often than I wanted to just to switch antennas. As it was, I had to run outside to change between the hexbeam and the dipole, which wasn't as bad as it could've been, since the change largely coincided with the sun. -- KE7VUX
I missed NH on Saturday night because I wasn't motivated enough to work my way through the pileup. I did snag PR and VI.
I did a lot of operating on 15m this year, thanks to sunspots and the addition of a 2015 hex beam to my station to supplement the Hustler 6BTV. 15m was a lot more comfortable than 20m, thanks to the lack of wall-to-wall operators and a little more band.
The other big improvement to the antenna situation was a simple 80m inverted V, that opened up a lot more of the phone band for me to operate in than before. The majority of my multipliers came on 15m, with 80m next in line, including a few late additions on Sunday during the last hour or two. I felt that 80m could've offered a lot on Saturday night if I'd been willing to put in the effort, but with two little ones at home, dawn comes awfully early and you take your shut-eye when you can get it.
I'll admit to being selfish - I spent most of my time S&P for the 80 sections, and passed over many easy QSOs for sections that were already in the log. I tried calling on 15m Sunday afternoon for a while, hoping to pick up some New England stations, which I did (along with Ontario and others up and down the East Coast), but not the ones I needed.
I entered in the low power category, because I didn't want to listen to the amplifier all weekend, nor deal with tuning up. Since I'm short a high-power antenna switch still, it would've also meant changing coax jumpers more often than I wanted to just to switch antennas. As it was, I had to run outside to change between the hexbeam and the dipole, which wasn't as bad as it could've been, since the change largely coincided with the sun. -- KE7VUX
Back
