After 15 years of attempting to get a QRP CW Sweep, I DID IT! My philosophy has been to S&P all day Saturday and Run on Sunday when possible. Then assess what is needed by noon and turn the VFO till my fingers are raw looking for the missing sections. By Sunday lunchtime I needed QC, NE, PR, DE, EWA and LAX. After lunch and some brush cutting, it was 3 PM local and back on the radio.

OK, my tuning finger is not exactly raw, but lots of VFO twisting got the job done. At 7:51 PM local I worked QC to bag my first ever sweep.

As usual a few things came together at the last minute. One was finding a computer interface for the TS-690SAT that I bought last month. It became clear that my K2/10 was not going to get fixed in time for SS, so I bought a PIEXX interface at the last minute. It arrived on Thursday and I was up and running with full radio control in 10 minutes. I'd been looking for a Kenwood IC-232 for a while and am glad I got the PIEXX instead. It is really slick. Kudos to Chris at PIEXX in NH. Great job!

Everyone knows that it you want a sweep and go unassisted that your rate will have to suffer along with your score. I fully accepted this as my goal going in was a sweep.

Rants:

1. Poor CW- There were many stations running 25-30 WPM whos numbers were nearly impossible to copy. Some combinations of 2, 3 and 4 sounded the same to me. Really short dits were the issue I think. Sometimes I listened to 4 or 5 exchanges after mine so I could catch the numbers turn over a bit so I could backtrack and understand what I was sent. Maybe this is why skimmer and Unlimited are so popular?
2. One station on my "needed" list was hard to copy. Poor CW (see 1) and QRM along with QSB required me to ask for a number fill at least 3 times. On the last try, I got a NIL and the station CQ'ed. When condx got better, I called again and they would not answer me! I finally got them 2 hours later. Maybe the "grumpy" operator was replaced.

Next year? Unlimited and skimmer seem like a good idea for something new.