Sweepstakes 2014 at the NK7J ranch turned into the best year we have had so far. The XYL and I started SS back on the 75th Anniversary of Sweepstakes and since then have managed to get a clean sweep every year except last year we missed Utah of all places.

Also every year we get a bit more competitive with it except for  last year when we only made a halfhearted effort with 2 month old twins in the house. We ran just 100 watts last year and I think were only around 500 contacts.

This year just a couple weeks before SS an envelope arrived from the ARRL and what do you know, we won first place in Oregon LP Multi. Then about a week later I get a notice in the mailbox I have a package waiting at the post office from the ARRL. That was on Friday afternoon and we live 20 miles from town so I decided to wait until Monday to go fetch it. Well for the next couple days I scratch my head trying to remember what I had ordered from the ARRL, I know I am losing it sometimes with both teenagers and 1 year olds running around in the same house, but surely I would have remembered ordering a new handbook. So during lunch on Monday I run down and have the friendly USPS lady grab my box for me and sure enough it’s about the right size for a new ARRL handbook, I really think I am losing it now. I pick it from the counter and well it’s not quite heavy enough for the handbook, so what the heck did I order.. Out in the rig (out here if it has at least 4 wheels and you drive it, it’s a rig) I open it up and here is this nice 1st place plaque for the Northwest Division. I have been a ham since 1998 and have never been awarded a plaque for anything so WAAHHOOOOOO! Now granted I am not sure there were any other entries in the LP Multi category but still did not squelch my WAAHOOOOO.

So took it home to the XYL and she was more like OH HE** YEAH! She gets a tad more excited about things than me.  I once had a boss tell me he needed to bring a mirror to work to hold up to my face to see if it fogged up to make sure I was still breathing.

With the new plaque staring at us we had a little more zeal about the SS coming up. Though I had made the decision no way, no how was I going to go through SS at 100 watts again, not with a AL-1500 sitting on the desk. I really take my hats off to folks operating LP and QRP, you folks must be formed from the most pure dust of Saints. Last year with 100 watts I was going nuts waiting on those LONG SLOW Exchanges and then throwing out my call and having the other station not hear me time after time. Just thinking about it now gives me a deep chill down my spine all over again.

With a new 40M 4 square array installed over the summer, a new 80 meter vertical (first element of the 80M 4 square) ready to go, new K7MI shacklan antenna switching system, new hardlines and the shiny new plaque on the wall we were ready to rumble.

Well just a few days out from the contest we had a storm roll through and dump freezing rain on everything. I walk out to go to work and notice the 80 meter vertical had an issue (see pic). Being the cheapskate that I am a lot of my projects are made from left overs from something else, the 80 meter vertical being no exception. The first 40 feet is some salvaged rohn 25 with a tilt base and the top 25ish feet is an old Sinclair 150mhz rattail antenna with guts stripped out and replaced with copper clad steel wire and with part of an old vhf-lowband folded dipole for the last few feet. See pic for how it is supposed to look. Well that created a mad dash to lower it back down and replace the old fiberglass antenna that came apart. I had another one in much better condition laying around I replaced it with and within an hour I had it back up, which surprised the heck out of me.

So how did it go?  Well you must remember we are a husband and wife team with twin 13 month old twins (boy and girl in case you are wondering) running around so sleep is of high importance to us! So we spent about 16 hours total on the contest and 10 meters was treating us really well. The XYL came in off and on and gave me some breaks while the kids were napping and I must say really excited to sit in the chair! By the time I turned in at 10PM local time Saturday night we were down to only needing 3 sections, ONN, NIL and NNY. Well Sunday morning I finally got motivated enough to hit the radio about 8:30 and right off the bat got a run on 15 meters and got NIL and NNY. Toni came in a little later and finished running 15 then she spotted ONN on the screen and jumped over there, within a couple calls she had him in the log and the sweep was complete.

Our goal was to do better than we had before. Our best was 846 QSO’s about 2 years ago, so I was shooting for 1000. Well when the clean sweep occurred we were sitting around 600ish. So I plugged on the rest of the day and right about 6Pm local time we hit 950, with an hour to go and a nice headache I trudged on. Got a run going on 40 for a while and hit the magic 1000, then decided to see how far I could get in the last little bit. I pulled the plug about 20 minutes before the contest ended with 1046 in the logbook, which included 3 dupes, so really 1043.

The new antennas played really well compared to the dipoles we had before, and the 4 square on 40M was REALLY nice. Can’t wait to finish the 80M one.

Looking at the 8380 scores I can see there will be no plaque for us for the Northwest with K7IR in the same category this year. But hey, we had fun!

Looking forward to next year, the goal? 1400 +!