2009 ARRL November Sweepstakes (Phone)
11/28/2009 |
WB0TEV
In this article WB0TEV expounds upon:
Stalking Multipliers: 80 Sections in the first 80 QSOs
A look at the statistics of stations worked from North Texas
.....Most frequently worked sections
.....What the distribution of the Check says about the
contesting population
.....Precedence A,B,M,Q,S & U: A breakdown
# of QSOs versus Band
I think I worked my first Sweepstakes contest in the late 1970's from K5JEF, at that time the callsign of the club station at my alma mater, LeTourneau College, (now LeTourneau University) in Longview, Texas. The zenith of my contesting activity was in the early 1980's when I was young and single operating from the WD5GSL club station of my employer here in Greenville, Texas. Back then when I was half the age I am now, I could spend 24 hours in the chair and rack up 1200 QSOs.
Marriage, kids, and career were to become higher priorities in the following years and my participation in Sweepstakes waned. Last year however, prompted by the 75th anniversary of the Sweepstakes contest coupled with memories of having won a clean sweep broom during the 50th anniversary Sweepstakes back in 1983 re-ignited the passion somewhat.
Since the late 90's my radio habit had morphed from that of contester to DX'er and the thrill of working a new one now surpasses that of racking up a 4 digit QSO count.
Thus it was, that after a long hiatus I dove back into the last years Phone Sweepstakes contest with the goal of getting a sweep, a whole sweep, and nothing but a sweep. It was to be an 80 QSO entry, 1 QSO from each of the 80 sections. Like many that year, I thought I'd never find Puerto Rico and Mississippi and went to bed well after midnight with 78 sections. As luck would have it, after church Sunday morning I got back on the radio and by late afternoon I had all 80 and then,..... I went QRT.
Fast forward to 2009. This year I'd do more than just 80 QSOs, but once again, I set my sights on getting a sweep in the first 80 QSOs. Only after getting that last multiplier would I permit myself to work anyone else or attempt a CQ run.
It almost goes without saying that mine would be an Unlimited class entry.
And so it was, that early Saturday afternoon I fired up the computer and radio, and starting checking propagation. The plan that worked for me in 2008 was to start on the highest band open and work stuff out to my west to try and get the PAC, AK and all of the California sections out of the way early.
Last year 15m wasn't particularly productive but in the run up to this years contest 15 was coming alive. With 2 and a half hours to go before the start of the contest and with the antenna pointed out west I heard W5RU in Louisiana. That was way too short for normal 15m propagation. A few swings of the antenna convinced me it was back scatter, but it was pretty darn good. I called W5RU and the op there said he was trying to decide whether or not to start on 15m or begin in the chaos that 20m was sure to be. He was leaning away from a 15m start, while I was acting as a 15m evangelist. After a few joint calls we stirred up a bit of a pre-contest pileup and I think I made a convert, but I digress.
With the amp tuned up on 15m the starting gun went off at 2100 Z and it was off to the races in search and pounce mode only. First Q in the log was W6KC from LAX. SCV, WWA, SF quickly followed and KH7Y supplied the PAC section. Cluster spots led me to swing the beam to the Caribbean and the Puerto Rico section that gave so many fits last year was safely in the log thanks to KP4BD at 2112 followed by KP2M at 2114 for the Virgin Islands section.
The next spot to crawl across the screen really got my attention as I lunged for the rotator control to bring the beam around to the north. VE8EV had been spotted on 15m. Mashing the rotator control with one hand while spinning the VFO knob with the other soon brought John rolling in loud and clear. I became his 12th QSO, while he provided the coveted Northern Territories section on my QSO #9 at 2117. Things were off to a good start and it sure was nice to have 15m back in action after a dry spell that many feared might be the start of another Maunder Minimum.
A knock-off of the old credit card ad came to mind.
Yaesu FT-767 bought new 22 years ago, $1300.
A used Dentron MLA-2500 amp, $300.
A 2nd hand Mosley Pro-67 B six band yagi, $500.
Working the Northern Territories section 17 minutes into the SS phone contest,
PRICELESS!
After a couple more Qs on 15m, packet spots led me to QSY to 20m to pick up VE5ZX in SK and the same station that provided me with Idaho last year, K0TO. The last half of the first hour was spent ping ponging between 15m and 20m mostly chasing packet spots with opportunistic search and pounce multiplier pickups. AL1G supplied Alaska while the CT multiplier came from none other than W1AW.
The first hour ended with North Dakota safely in the log as QSO #21 courtesy of N0GF.
Jeff, N8II from WV was next and the relatively rare sections of NE, SD, RI, VT (thanks to K0GND, KD0S, W1XX and WB1GQR) followed in rapid succession. The last 15m QSO of the 80 QSO multiplier hunt was at 2205 (N6BV from EB), while the first 40m QSOs began with QSO#30 at 2227 with K4NO from Alabama. The well recognized call of W4MYA put Virginia in the log as QSO# 33.
A spot for VO1KVT led to a rapid QSY back to 20m and the NL section was bagged at 2237 as QSO#37. 107 minutes into the contest half of the sections had been worked including many of the rarer ones. Things were off to an auspicious start, but memories of the long hunt for MS and PR last year left me wondering what section would prove to be conspicuous by its absence this year.
By the time the start of the 3rd hour rolled around at 2300Z all the Canadian multipliers had been logged with exception of ..VE3?!
Two minutes later W6RFU from SB rounded out the last of the 9 California sections needed.
After working K6LL (#46) in AZ at 2304 the only sections to my west that remained at large were NM, CO, and WY. This Looking West strategy worked well for me last year in that it let me beam primarily east for the rest of the multiplier hunt.
Another strategy that seems to work well for my purposes of early multiplier hunting is to start exploiting 80m to the east coast beginning at my sundown (if not a little before). That way I have propagation into the east for a hour or two that the massing hordes on the west coast do not. This cuts the QRM and the competition down allowing those of us in the central time zone a chance to get a lot of the east coast sections in the log before complete pandemonium ensues.
Due to the population density and thus the target rich environment on the east coast, 80m is a very popular band for SS as soon as propagation will support it and thus many east coast multipliers will be found there early. Such was the case for the one and only Delaware station worked when a spot on the cluster alerted me to K3MQ on 80m and I worked him as my 56th section at 2357.
The last 20m QSO of the evening was a 20 mile long ground wave QSO with W5WW to get my own section of NTX logged at 0022. Aside from that, the last 20m QSO in the multiplier hunt was with N0NI in my home state of Iowa at 2351. The rest of the night would belong to 40m and 80m.
The aforementioned W5WW QSO was #60 so I was of the way to a sweep after just 3 hours and 22 minutes. But as we all know, its the last few mults that take the longest to find. Last year I went to bed lacking but 2. How many would still be missing when I finally conked out sometime after midnight? At this point I didn't quite dare to hope that I could go to bed with a clean sweep secured, but hope springs eternal.
Although I'd heard several Indiana stations on, I held off working them because I wanted to work my old college buddy Jim, WT9U for that section. I found him on 80m at 0028 (QSO #61). In a Facebook posting after the contest Jim indicated that he made roughly half of his almost 1200 SS QSOs on 80m.
As was to be expected, the time between QSOs started to expand as I bounced between 40 and 80m searching and pouncing while keeping one eye on the packet spots crawling up the computer screen. I was still picking off a new one every few minutes or so and by QSO#65 (W5WMU in Louisiana on 40m at 0053) the longest I'd gone between QSOs was 19 minutes which may have encompassed a bathroom break.
Around 0100 the XYL announced that supper was served, so I QSY'ed to the dinner table.
By 0136 I was back in the chair logging WA3SES in WPA for multiplier #66. By this time I'd also worked 2 of the 3 remaining sections to my west, with only Wyoming unaccounted for. I also noticed that what had been the last section I worked last year, Mississippi, was still among those outstanding. Some of the less distant sections like OK, STX, MO and KS were not yet in the log yet either, nor was the last VE section I needed which of all things was Ontario.
I began to wonder which of those final sections would be the ones that would elude me the longest, perhaps for the whole contest. Unlike last year, I was starting to get the itch to find a freq, call CQ and try to get a good run going, but the hunt for multipliers was for me an obsession and I wouldn't allow myself to do anything else until I had #80 in the log. Perhaps I wouldn't give myself a chance to run until sometime Sunday afternoon after church.
Nonetheless, new mults continued to trickle in every 5-10 minutes or so. After working #70 at 0208 (N4OX in NFL on 80m) it was time to take stock of what was left. All the sections in the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 8th and 9th call districts had been worked. I was still missing SNJ, ENY, NLI, WCF, MS, OK, STX, WY, MO and ON.
It looked hopeful. None of those looked extraordinarily rare. The more exotic Canadian mults were all corralled, and surely I could find a VE3. Wyoming would be a challenge, and the haunting specter of the missing Mississippi that wasn't worked until late Sunday afternoon the previous year hung over the shack with all the hope and promise of a zero sunspot number.
Meanwhile, back on 40m K5RQ in WCF was found and worked at 0216. Twenty-one minutes would drag by until the next one fell, K0OU in Missouri. It would be another 24 minutes, but SNJ was next in the log thanks to N2MM. WY7SS in Wyoming became section #74 on 40m at 0319 and then a spot on the cluster sent me scurrying back down to 80m. The Magnolia state was QRV! N4OGW in Mississippi was making himself very popular indeed. After battling the pileup a bit, MS was finally in the WB0TEV log! 75 down, 5 more to go and it was only 0328Z.
One of those still outstanding was just one section to my north, Oklahoma. KB0HH had been spotted earlier on 40m. I could hear him and called repeatedly in between going off to work other needed mults but I was just too close and most of my signal was skipping past him. Meanwhile, he was cranking out contacts at quite a clip to those further away who had better propagation to him. So close, and yet so far. I just hoped he'd go to 80m sometime before he went QRT for the night, or before I did!
Fortunately, another OK station was spotted on 80m and I was able to work NX5O at 0339 for #76.
It had been less than 7 hours and there were only 4 more to go: ENY, NLI, STX and VE3. I'd seen an NLI station spotted on 80m but could just barely hear him even during the all too rare and brief lulls in the cacophony of QRM that engulfed him.
Two of those remaining four fell quickly as a trip back up to 40m put K5TR from STX in the log at 0348 followed 1 minute later by VA3BD for the last of the Canadian sections.
It was now down to just two from the Empire State. Where, oh where, was Eastern New York and New York Long Island? As it turned out I didn't have long to wait for ENY. Ten minutes later a spot led me back to 80m where KM2O became section #79 at 0359.
And so the mystery of what the last section would be was answered. #80 was to be NLI. How long would it be until I found one that I could work? Where were they all? The one that I had seen spotted on 80m was still way too weak to even attempt to work. I either needed for propagation to change, all the QRM to disappear (fat chance of that happening!) or I needed another NLI station to make an appearance. I toyed with temptation to abandon the quest and go call CQ, but I needed that new one!
The minutes and hours had ticked by, but it was still fairly early. The previous year I'd gone to bed at 0608 lacking 2, but it was now 2 hours earlier and I lacked but one. I spun the VFO knob with ears glued to the headphones, with eyes fixated on the cluster spots scrolling across the screen.
But I didnt have to wait long. Suddenly at 0401 there it was. A spot for KS2G in NLI on 80m. Would I able to even hear him, much less work him? I punched the spot frequency into the VFO. Yes! He was copyable! I retweaked the antenna tuner for his frequency (a must for the wide bandwidth of the 80m phone band given my single inverted Vee) and joined the pileup. It took a while (seemed like an eternity) but my call finally was answered at 0420. WB0TEV you're number 179 Alpha, KS2G, Check 77, New York Long Island , to which I was barely able to choke out something along the lines of :KS2G your number 80 Uniform, WB0TEV, check 76, North Texas, Thanks for the sweep!
I'd made it. I didn't have the greatest score at that point, but I'd worked them all in 7 hours and 20 minutes. I sat back in the chair and just savored the moment. I wonder, I thought to myself, could it be possible that I'm the first (or one of the first) in the contest to work all 80 sections this year?
My delusions of ham radio grandeur were quickly dispelled however, as I glanced up at the spots coming across the packet cluster. Someone had just put out an announcement claiming a sweep. How much delay had there been between his logging of an 80th section and the announcement on the cluster? Had he beaten me by just a couple of minutes? Or vice versa? Had someone else made it to 80 before either one of us? Maybe the ARRL will scan the logs and post the earliest 10 to get all 80 sections (hint, hint). Inquiring minds would like to know. (30 Nov Update : I read a comment from N6XI on contesting.com that he completed a sweep at 0313Z.)
After basking in the glow for about 10 minutes it was time to get busy helping to put points in other peoples logs and my own. I found a hole on 80m called CQ and got a run going. After 1 hour I QSY'ed to 40m where I figured the two 40m elements on my beam would do me more good that my inverted Vee on 80 and was rewarded with a 3 hour run ending at 0830 that put another 181 QSOs in the log.
It was then time for WB0TEV to assume horizontal polarization so that I wouldn't be nodding off in church later that morning.
After I got up the next morning I worked a station on 10m (K4PDM in KY at 1455) to try and fulfill a secondary goal of making sweepstakes QSOs on all permissible bands. Alas, I never made a QSO on 160m and never heard anyone there either. I made one more 10m QSO when I first got back on the radio Sunday afternoon with KE7SAK at 1921 before going up to 15m and starting another run that lasted almost 2 hours and put another 120 QSOs in the log.
Later I went to 20m from 2130-2219 (45 QSOs), took a break from 2219 to 2335, then spent 20 minutes on 80m (7 Qs) followed by a return to 20m until 0008 (6 QSOs), when I again signed off to go back to church for the evening service. I was able to get back on for the last 45 minutes of the contest getting on 20m first and then spending the last half hour on 40m. I made the last QSO #499 at 0258. I could have made one or two more but the note at the bottom of the log sheet (I did a paper log) said that Dupe/Check sheets must be included with every entry of 500 or more QSOs. Lazy me, I'd decided early on not to aim beyond 499 QSOs just so that if I wanted to just send in a copy of my paper logs with no further effort, I could!
As it turns out, I undertook an effort to convert my paper log into a Cabrillo file anyway, using a few tricks with an Excel spreadsheet (or its OpenOffice equivalent) and Notepad rather than using the on-line program. If I was going to create a Cabrillo log it would be over Thanksgiving while visiting relatives with no internet connection, which is also where I find myself composing most of this ponderous tome. Back at home now I found that my home made Cabrillo file was accepted by the robot. I was going to write up some instructions on how to make a Cabrillo compliant file with Excel and Notepad, but this article is too long already. (Hint: Set the cell formats to Text to keep Excel from screwing up your date and time entries, export it to a .csv file, then open it with Notepad and do a search a replace to change all the commas and any quote marks to spaces.)
QSO Statistics
And now, that third form of prevarication, known as statistics.
SECTIONS:
The bar graph shown below (assuming I can successfully load it) shows the breakdown of sections worked from here in North Texas.
Santa Clara Valley in California was the section was the most frequently worked (21 Q's) followed by Oregon (20), then Sacramento Valley and Maryland/DC with 19 each. Illinois, Ohio and Virginia followed with 18 each, while Michigan, Arizona and Minnesota rounded out the top 10 with 17, 16 and 16 respectively. Just over half of the QSOs came from the top 16 sections which were rounded out by NC, CO, EMA, GA, EB and SF. The common threads here seem to be distance (one ionospheric hop away) and population. It would be interesting and informative to see similar breakdowns from stations in other sections.
CHECKS:
Statistics drawn from the check numbers received can give some insight into the approximate age distribution of the SS contesting population and possibly even into licensing rates in past years. The statistics can get skewed somewhat by the checks issued by club stations, such as W1YK's check of 16, W6YX's check of 24, W6RFU with 40, and the venerable W1AW's check of 38. Guest ops and multi-op stations will also add some distortion to the data to some unknown degree.
Nevertheless, of the 496 un-duplicated stations worked by WB0TEV, half had a check of 1974 or earlier, with an average of 1976.27. Since I was first licensed in 1976 I find that I'm squarely in the middle of the pack with my peers. If the 4 club stations with low checks are excluded the median check remains at 1974 while the average check rises to slightly to 1976.65.
Aside from the 4 club stations mentioned the lowest check copied was 48 from K7PKT,
K7XE, VE7NA, and KL7AIR (although in turns out those last 2 are also club stations).
Nine stations were copied with a precedence of 09. 65, or about 1 in 8 were copied with checks corresponding to the year 2000 or later. A scatter plot of the checks received shows some interesting peaks. Could these correspond to peaks in the sunspot cycle where good HF propagation drove people into the hobby, or is the peak in the late 50's better explained by the post war baby boom? How much was the 2nd peak in the mid 70's perhaps a side effect of the CB craze of that era?
PRECEDENCE:
The breakdown by class was as follows:
A: 38%
B: 24%
U:21%
Q:3%
S: 1 %
I was frankly surprised by the number of QRP stations worked (14). Four School stations were worked, W6RFU, W4UAL, W1YK and K0VVY. The Stanford Club call of W6YX was also worked but I copied their precedence as B.
BAND:
Due to my eccentric SS operating style with its fixation on getting a sweep before pursuing other QSOs, and the less than fanatic dedication to staying in the chair for a total of 24 hours, these statistics may prove to be more entertaining than insightful. As I mentioned earlier, my friend WT9U in Indiana made roughly half of his almost 1200 QSOs on 80m while I found the band to be much less productive. I'm sure those in the densely populated regions of the east and west coasts found 80m to be more of a money band than those in the more sparse regions, often referred to as fly-over country.
The band stats from here 50 miles northeast of Dallas were:
160m: None. 0%
80m: 46 9%
40m: 231 47%
20m: 83 17%
15m: 134 27%
10m: 2 0.4%
Had I been on the air Sunday morning, the 20m and 15m numbers would have been noticeably higher.
Overall I had a blast. It was fun doing this write-up too, hope you enjoyed it, assuming you managed to read it all the way to the end! 73 and hope to work you in SS 2010.
Victor Paul WB0TEV
Greenville, Texas
vmpaul@iname.com -- WB0TEV
Stalking Multipliers: 80 Sections in the first 80 QSOs
A look at the statistics of stations worked from North Texas
.....Most frequently worked sections
.....What the distribution of the Check says about the
contesting population
.....Precedence A,B,M,Q,S & U: A breakdown
# of QSOs versus Band
I think I worked my first Sweepstakes contest in the late 1970's from K5JEF, at that time the callsign of the club station at my alma mater, LeTourneau College, (now LeTourneau University) in Longview, Texas. The zenith of my contesting activity was in the early 1980's when I was young and single operating from the WD5GSL club station of my employer here in Greenville, Texas. Back then when I was half the age I am now, I could spend 24 hours in the chair and rack up 1200 QSOs.
Marriage, kids, and career were to become higher priorities in the following years and my participation in Sweepstakes waned. Last year however, prompted by the 75th anniversary of the Sweepstakes contest coupled with memories of having won a clean sweep broom during the 50th anniversary Sweepstakes back in 1983 re-ignited the passion somewhat.
Since the late 90's my radio habit had morphed from that of contester to DX'er and the thrill of working a new one now surpasses that of racking up a 4 digit QSO count.
Thus it was, that after a long hiatus I dove back into the last years Phone Sweepstakes contest with the goal of getting a sweep, a whole sweep, and nothing but a sweep. It was to be an 80 QSO entry, 1 QSO from each of the 80 sections. Like many that year, I thought I'd never find Puerto Rico and Mississippi and went to bed well after midnight with 78 sections. As luck would have it, after church Sunday morning I got back on the radio and by late afternoon I had all 80 and then,..... I went QRT.
Fast forward to 2009. This year I'd do more than just 80 QSOs, but once again, I set my sights on getting a sweep in the first 80 QSOs. Only after getting that last multiplier would I permit myself to work anyone else or attempt a CQ run.
It almost goes without saying that mine would be an Unlimited class entry.
And so it was, that early Saturday afternoon I fired up the computer and radio, and starting checking propagation. The plan that worked for me in 2008 was to start on the highest band open and work stuff out to my west to try and get the PAC, AK and all of the California sections out of the way early.
Last year 15m wasn't particularly productive but in the run up to this years contest 15 was coming alive. With 2 and a half hours to go before the start of the contest and with the antenna pointed out west I heard W5RU in Louisiana. That was way too short for normal 15m propagation. A few swings of the antenna convinced me it was back scatter, but it was pretty darn good. I called W5RU and the op there said he was trying to decide whether or not to start on 15m or begin in the chaos that 20m was sure to be. He was leaning away from a 15m start, while I was acting as a 15m evangelist. After a few joint calls we stirred up a bit of a pre-contest pileup and I think I made a convert, but I digress.
With the amp tuned up on 15m the starting gun went off at 2100 Z and it was off to the races in search and pounce mode only. First Q in the log was W6KC from LAX. SCV, WWA, SF quickly followed and KH7Y supplied the PAC section. Cluster spots led me to swing the beam to the Caribbean and the Puerto Rico section that gave so many fits last year was safely in the log thanks to KP4BD at 2112 followed by KP2M at 2114 for the Virgin Islands section.
The next spot to crawl across the screen really got my attention as I lunged for the rotator control to bring the beam around to the north. VE8EV had been spotted on 15m. Mashing the rotator control with one hand while spinning the VFO knob with the other soon brought John rolling in loud and clear. I became his 12th QSO, while he provided the coveted Northern Territories section on my QSO #9 at 2117. Things were off to a good start and it sure was nice to have 15m back in action after a dry spell that many feared might be the start of another Maunder Minimum.
A knock-off of the old credit card ad came to mind.
Yaesu FT-767 bought new 22 years ago, $1300.
A used Dentron MLA-2500 amp, $300.
A 2nd hand Mosley Pro-67 B six band yagi, $500.
Working the Northern Territories section 17 minutes into the SS phone contest,
PRICELESS!
After a couple more Qs on 15m, packet spots led me to QSY to 20m to pick up VE5ZX in SK and the same station that provided me with Idaho last year, K0TO. The last half of the first hour was spent ping ponging between 15m and 20m mostly chasing packet spots with opportunistic search and pounce multiplier pickups. AL1G supplied Alaska while the CT multiplier came from none other than W1AW.
The first hour ended with North Dakota safely in the log as QSO #21 courtesy of N0GF.
Jeff, N8II from WV was next and the relatively rare sections of NE, SD, RI, VT (thanks to K0GND, KD0S, W1XX and WB1GQR) followed in rapid succession. The last 15m QSO of the 80 QSO multiplier hunt was at 2205 (N6BV from EB), while the first 40m QSOs began with QSO#30 at 2227 with K4NO from Alabama. The well recognized call of W4MYA put Virginia in the log as QSO# 33.
A spot for VO1KVT led to a rapid QSY back to 20m and the NL section was bagged at 2237 as QSO#37. 107 minutes into the contest half of the sections had been worked including many of the rarer ones. Things were off to an auspicious start, but memories of the long hunt for MS and PR last year left me wondering what section would prove to be conspicuous by its absence this year.
By the time the start of the 3rd hour rolled around at 2300Z all the Canadian multipliers had been logged with exception of ..VE3?!
Two minutes later W6RFU from SB rounded out the last of the 9 California sections needed.
After working K6LL (#46) in AZ at 2304 the only sections to my west that remained at large were NM, CO, and WY. This Looking West strategy worked well for me last year in that it let me beam primarily east for the rest of the multiplier hunt.
Another strategy that seems to work well for my purposes of early multiplier hunting is to start exploiting 80m to the east coast beginning at my sundown (if not a little before). That way I have propagation into the east for a hour or two that the massing hordes on the west coast do not. This cuts the QRM and the competition down allowing those of us in the central time zone a chance to get a lot of the east coast sections in the log before complete pandemonium ensues.
Due to the population density and thus the target rich environment on the east coast, 80m is a very popular band for SS as soon as propagation will support it and thus many east coast multipliers will be found there early. Such was the case for the one and only Delaware station worked when a spot on the cluster alerted me to K3MQ on 80m and I worked him as my 56th section at 2357.
The last 20m QSO of the evening was a 20 mile long ground wave QSO with W5WW to get my own section of NTX logged at 0022. Aside from that, the last 20m QSO in the multiplier hunt was with N0NI in my home state of Iowa at 2351. The rest of the night would belong to 40m and 80m.
The aforementioned W5WW QSO was #60 so I was of the way to a sweep after just 3 hours and 22 minutes. But as we all know, its the last few mults that take the longest to find. Last year I went to bed lacking but 2. How many would still be missing when I finally conked out sometime after midnight? At this point I didn't quite dare to hope that I could go to bed with a clean sweep secured, but hope springs eternal.
Although I'd heard several Indiana stations on, I held off working them because I wanted to work my old college buddy Jim, WT9U for that section. I found him on 80m at 0028 (QSO #61). In a Facebook posting after the contest Jim indicated that he made roughly half of his almost 1200 SS QSOs on 80m.
As was to be expected, the time between QSOs started to expand as I bounced between 40 and 80m searching and pouncing while keeping one eye on the packet spots crawling up the computer screen. I was still picking off a new one every few minutes or so and by QSO#65 (W5WMU in Louisiana on 40m at 0053) the longest I'd gone between QSOs was 19 minutes which may have encompassed a bathroom break.
Around 0100 the XYL announced that supper was served, so I QSY'ed to the dinner table.
By 0136 I was back in the chair logging WA3SES in WPA for multiplier #66. By this time I'd also worked 2 of the 3 remaining sections to my west, with only Wyoming unaccounted for. I also noticed that what had been the last section I worked last year, Mississippi, was still among those outstanding. Some of the less distant sections like OK, STX, MO and KS were not yet in the log yet either, nor was the last VE section I needed which of all things was Ontario.
I began to wonder which of those final sections would be the ones that would elude me the longest, perhaps for the whole contest. Unlike last year, I was starting to get the itch to find a freq, call CQ and try to get a good run going, but the hunt for multipliers was for me an obsession and I wouldn't allow myself to do anything else until I had #80 in the log. Perhaps I wouldn't give myself a chance to run until sometime Sunday afternoon after church.
Nonetheless, new mults continued to trickle in every 5-10 minutes or so. After working #70 at 0208 (N4OX in NFL on 80m) it was time to take stock of what was left. All the sections in the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 8th and 9th call districts had been worked. I was still missing SNJ, ENY, NLI, WCF, MS, OK, STX, WY, MO and ON.
It looked hopeful. None of those looked extraordinarily rare. The more exotic Canadian mults were all corralled, and surely I could find a VE3. Wyoming would be a challenge, and the haunting specter of the missing Mississippi that wasn't worked until late Sunday afternoon the previous year hung over the shack with all the hope and promise of a zero sunspot number.
Meanwhile, back on 40m K5RQ in WCF was found and worked at 0216. Twenty-one minutes would drag by until the next one fell, K0OU in Missouri. It would be another 24 minutes, but SNJ was next in the log thanks to N2MM. WY7SS in Wyoming became section #74 on 40m at 0319 and then a spot on the cluster sent me scurrying back down to 80m. The Magnolia state was QRV! N4OGW in Mississippi was making himself very popular indeed. After battling the pileup a bit, MS was finally in the WB0TEV log! 75 down, 5 more to go and it was only 0328Z.
One of those still outstanding was just one section to my north, Oklahoma. KB0HH had been spotted earlier on 40m. I could hear him and called repeatedly in between going off to work other needed mults but I was just too close and most of my signal was skipping past him. Meanwhile, he was cranking out contacts at quite a clip to those further away who had better propagation to him. So close, and yet so far. I just hoped he'd go to 80m sometime before he went QRT for the night, or before I did!
Fortunately, another OK station was spotted on 80m and I was able to work NX5O at 0339 for #76.
It had been less than 7 hours and there were only 4 more to go: ENY, NLI, STX and VE3. I'd seen an NLI station spotted on 80m but could just barely hear him even during the all too rare and brief lulls in the cacophony of QRM that engulfed him.
Two of those remaining four fell quickly as a trip back up to 40m put K5TR from STX in the log at 0348 followed 1 minute later by VA3BD for the last of the Canadian sections.
It was now down to just two from the Empire State. Where, oh where, was Eastern New York and New York Long Island? As it turned out I didn't have long to wait for ENY. Ten minutes later a spot led me back to 80m where KM2O became section #79 at 0359.
And so the mystery of what the last section would be was answered. #80 was to be NLI. How long would it be until I found one that I could work? Where were they all? The one that I had seen spotted on 80m was still way too weak to even attempt to work. I either needed for propagation to change, all the QRM to disappear (fat chance of that happening!) or I needed another NLI station to make an appearance. I toyed with temptation to abandon the quest and go call CQ, but I needed that new one!
The minutes and hours had ticked by, but it was still fairly early. The previous year I'd gone to bed at 0608 lacking 2, but it was now 2 hours earlier and I lacked but one. I spun the VFO knob with ears glued to the headphones, with eyes fixated on the cluster spots scrolling across the screen.
But I didnt have to wait long. Suddenly at 0401 there it was. A spot for KS2G in NLI on 80m. Would I able to even hear him, much less work him? I punched the spot frequency into the VFO. Yes! He was copyable! I retweaked the antenna tuner for his frequency (a must for the wide bandwidth of the 80m phone band given my single inverted Vee) and joined the pileup. It took a while (seemed like an eternity) but my call finally was answered at 0420. WB0TEV you're number 179 Alpha, KS2G, Check 77, New York Long Island , to which I was barely able to choke out something along the lines of :KS2G your number 80 Uniform, WB0TEV, check 76, North Texas, Thanks for the sweep!
I'd made it. I didn't have the greatest score at that point, but I'd worked them all in 7 hours and 20 minutes. I sat back in the chair and just savored the moment. I wonder, I thought to myself, could it be possible that I'm the first (or one of the first) in the contest to work all 80 sections this year?
My delusions of ham radio grandeur were quickly dispelled however, as I glanced up at the spots coming across the packet cluster. Someone had just put out an announcement claiming a sweep. How much delay had there been between his logging of an 80th section and the announcement on the cluster? Had he beaten me by just a couple of minutes? Or vice versa? Had someone else made it to 80 before either one of us? Maybe the ARRL will scan the logs and post the earliest 10 to get all 80 sections (hint, hint). Inquiring minds would like to know. (30 Nov Update : I read a comment from N6XI on contesting.com that he completed a sweep at 0313Z.)
After basking in the glow for about 10 minutes it was time to get busy helping to put points in other peoples logs and my own. I found a hole on 80m called CQ and got a run going. After 1 hour I QSY'ed to 40m where I figured the two 40m elements on my beam would do me more good that my inverted Vee on 80 and was rewarded with a 3 hour run ending at 0830 that put another 181 QSOs in the log.
It was then time for WB0TEV to assume horizontal polarization so that I wouldn't be nodding off in church later that morning.
After I got up the next morning I worked a station on 10m (K4PDM in KY at 1455) to try and fulfill a secondary goal of making sweepstakes QSOs on all permissible bands. Alas, I never made a QSO on 160m and never heard anyone there either. I made one more 10m QSO when I first got back on the radio Sunday afternoon with KE7SAK at 1921 before going up to 15m and starting another run that lasted almost 2 hours and put another 120 QSOs in the log.
Later I went to 20m from 2130-2219 (45 QSOs), took a break from 2219 to 2335, then spent 20 minutes on 80m (7 Qs) followed by a return to 20m until 0008 (6 QSOs), when I again signed off to go back to church for the evening service. I was able to get back on for the last 45 minutes of the contest getting on 20m first and then spending the last half hour on 40m. I made the last QSO #499 at 0258. I could have made one or two more but the note at the bottom of the log sheet (I did a paper log) said that Dupe/Check sheets must be included with every entry of 500 or more QSOs. Lazy me, I'd decided early on not to aim beyond 499 QSOs just so that if I wanted to just send in a copy of my paper logs with no further effort, I could!
As it turns out, I undertook an effort to convert my paper log into a Cabrillo file anyway, using a few tricks with an Excel spreadsheet (or its OpenOffice equivalent) and Notepad rather than using the on-line program. If I was going to create a Cabrillo log it would be over Thanksgiving while visiting relatives with no internet connection, which is also where I find myself composing most of this ponderous tome. Back at home now I found that my home made Cabrillo file was accepted by the robot. I was going to write up some instructions on how to make a Cabrillo compliant file with Excel and Notepad, but this article is too long already. (Hint: Set the cell formats to Text to keep Excel from screwing up your date and time entries, export it to a .csv file, then open it with Notepad and do a search a replace to change all the commas and any quote marks to spaces.)
QSO Statistics
And now, that third form of prevarication, known as statistics.
SECTIONS:
The bar graph shown below (assuming I can successfully load it) shows the breakdown of sections worked from here in North Texas.
Santa Clara Valley in California was the section was the most frequently worked (21 Q's) followed by Oregon (20), then Sacramento Valley and Maryland/DC with 19 each. Illinois, Ohio and Virginia followed with 18 each, while Michigan, Arizona and Minnesota rounded out the top 10 with 17, 16 and 16 respectively. Just over half of the QSOs came from the top 16 sections which were rounded out by NC, CO, EMA, GA, EB and SF. The common threads here seem to be distance (one ionospheric hop away) and population. It would be interesting and informative to see similar breakdowns from stations in other sections.
CHECKS:
Statistics drawn from the check numbers received can give some insight into the approximate age distribution of the SS contesting population and possibly even into licensing rates in past years. The statistics can get skewed somewhat by the checks issued by club stations, such as W1YK's check of 16, W6YX's check of 24, W6RFU with 40, and the venerable W1AW's check of 38. Guest ops and multi-op stations will also add some distortion to the data to some unknown degree.
Nevertheless, of the 496 un-duplicated stations worked by WB0TEV, half had a check of 1974 or earlier, with an average of 1976.27. Since I was first licensed in 1976 I find that I'm squarely in the middle of the pack with my peers. If the 4 club stations with low checks are excluded the median check remains at 1974 while the average check rises to slightly to 1976.65.
Aside from the 4 club stations mentioned the lowest check copied was 48 from K7PKT,
K7XE, VE7NA, and KL7AIR (although in turns out those last 2 are also club stations).
Nine stations were copied with a precedence of 09. 65, or about 1 in 8 were copied with checks corresponding to the year 2000 or later. A scatter plot of the checks received shows some interesting peaks. Could these correspond to peaks in the sunspot cycle where good HF propagation drove people into the hobby, or is the peak in the late 50's better explained by the post war baby boom? How much was the 2nd peak in the mid 70's perhaps a side effect of the CB craze of that era?
PRECEDENCE:
The breakdown by class was as follows:
A: 38%
B: 24%
U:21%
Q:3%
S: 1 %
I was frankly surprised by the number of QRP stations worked (14). Four School stations were worked, W6RFU, W4UAL, W1YK and K0VVY. The Stanford Club call of W6YX was also worked but I copied their precedence as B.
BAND:
Due to my eccentric SS operating style with its fixation on getting a sweep before pursuing other QSOs, and the less than fanatic dedication to staying in the chair for a total of 24 hours, these statistics may prove to be more entertaining than insightful. As I mentioned earlier, my friend WT9U in Indiana made roughly half of his almost 1200 QSOs on 80m while I found the band to be much less productive. I'm sure those in the densely populated regions of the east and west coasts found 80m to be more of a money band than those in the more sparse regions, often referred to as fly-over country.
The band stats from here 50 miles northeast of Dallas were:
160m: None. 0%
80m: 46 9%
40m: 231 47%
20m: 83 17%
15m: 134 27%
10m: 2 0.4%
Had I been on the air Sunday morning, the 20m and 15m numbers would have been noticeably higher.
Overall I had a blast. It was fun doing this write-up too, hope you enjoyed it, assuming you managed to read it all the way to the end! 73 and hope to work you in SS 2010.
Victor Paul WB0TEV
Greenville, Texas
vmpaul@iname.com -- WB0TEV
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