2005 ARRL November Sweepstakes (CW)
11/19/2005 |
K1USC
Greetings to all, from one of the new guys. Tony, K1USC here in Alta Loma, CA. Orange Section.
It's nice seeing the comments on the Soapbox. It amazes me how well so many of you do with only a few hours on the contest. I still have a lot of contesting & operating skill to develop before I can run with the big dogs. For example: I saw Charlie Spetnagel, W6KK on the Saturday morning before the contest at the W6IER club meeting. He asked if I was going to work this contest. Standing in the presence of such an experienced radio operator, I casually told him "yes, I'll be on" (trying to sound like it was "just another contest"). The truth being that I was stressing over the difficult exchange waiting for me once the contest began. He was nice & encouraging. Reminding me to learn the sequence, just send at what ever speed I could & that others would QRS. Sure enough, he was right, many op's slowed down.
I asked Charlie if he was going to operate in the contest & he amazingly answered back "yea, I'll probably do some casual operating and just go for a sweep." I was thinking to myself, Wow, this guy is just gonna casually operate & figures to get sweep out of it?!?! Of course this is the same guy who was seen at W6IER's field day sending sonic speed CW and logging his calls with one hand, all the while holding a sandwich with his other hand. And of course, this is the same guy who just came back from K7C!
Well, here we go, I thought, It's all a learning experience & fun for me. Here's my story on how the contest went:
During the contest I operated QRP on 20 & 40. My initial thinking at the time was that this would give me a chance to get some good use out of the Redhot Radio Norcal 20 QRP rig I recently bought from K7QO. I also was thinking about using a recently purchased used Norcal BLT tuner, but I'm not yet familiar enough with it to depend on it under contest conditions. So I used the AT-100Pro auto tuner with my G5RV up 25ft on a push-up pole (which also pulls double duty as my swimming pool sweeping pole) and away I went. The little rig & tuner were hooked up to a 7 amp, 12 volt lead acid battery.
Once I was QRV, the contest was already in full swing. I had to listen a while to learn how the contest exchange sounded. I got the hang of it and the N3FJP logging program's interface made entering the sequence a breeze. I remember listening in last year to this contest and I was quickly scared away from all the high speed information being sent back and forth. At the time, I was a brand new Tech Plus and still plugging away at about 5WPM. What a difference a year makes. A year later and with some experience under my belt, I was ready to jump in and try my hand at it. I'm glad I did.
Yes, it is a tough contest exchange compared to others I have tried, but I saw it as a good learning challenge. My technique was a modified version of S&P: Search, listen & figure out their exchange, and then Pounce. Of course the pouncing part is always a challenge with only 5 watts. The usual response I heard coming from the other end was di-di-dah-dah-di-dit, QRZ, or someone else's call. But once in a while I got through. Enough times to keep me motivated and coming back for more. It was also kind of cool to once in a while be heard & plucked out of the pile ups ahead of the QRO stations. But for the most part, persistence and some really good ears on the other end helped out a lot. A sincere Thanks to all those out there that heard me and were patient enough to get the exchange.
The QRP rig performed well, I really like using it's full break-in keying, smooth & quiet. Hearing the band in-between my own key-clicks helped out a lot and kept me aware of the conditions. On 40M, I switched back to my 857D with the RF output turned down to 5wts and measured by an Oak Hills Research QRP Wattmeter. It's a neat little meter. I made all the contacts using my trusty Bencher paddle at around 20 WPM.
This was my first effort at trying out the ARRL CW Sweepstakes contest. As my contact numbers grew past 100, I thought "cool, now I can order one of those participation pins. It was nice seeing my score progress & the logging program's section map filling in with color. By Sunday afternoon, I was starting to see making all fifty states QRP as a very real possibility. But in the end, I came up short missing just three states when I pulled the plug. I never heard AK, ND & UT. I probably could have kept at it for a couple more hours but, family time was more important. Overall, a fun contest and I came away satisfied that I made a new high number of QSO's in a contest. That's a nice accomplishment for me personally, especially when it was done with only 5 watts. I think I've come a long way from a year ago as a Tech Plus listened in amazement at the sounds of high speed contest exchange and thinking there's no way I'll ever be able to do that! Well, give me another couple years at this and maybe, just maybe, I'll be up there with the "big dogs". Although, I don't know if I'll be able to do it while eating a sandwich with one hand, hi-hi. Best 73 to all & see you on the bands.
Tony Ruiz, K1USC
dit dit & Fight On Trojans! -- K1USC
It's nice seeing the comments on the Soapbox. It amazes me how well so many of you do with only a few hours on the contest. I still have a lot of contesting & operating skill to develop before I can run with the big dogs. For example: I saw Charlie Spetnagel, W6KK on the Saturday morning before the contest at the W6IER club meeting. He asked if I was going to work this contest. Standing in the presence of such an experienced radio operator, I casually told him "yes, I'll be on" (trying to sound like it was "just another contest"). The truth being that I was stressing over the difficult exchange waiting for me once the contest began. He was nice & encouraging. Reminding me to learn the sequence, just send at what ever speed I could & that others would QRS. Sure enough, he was right, many op's slowed down.
I asked Charlie if he was going to operate in the contest & he amazingly answered back "yea, I'll probably do some casual operating and just go for a sweep." I was thinking to myself, Wow, this guy is just gonna casually operate & figures to get sweep out of it?!?! Of course this is the same guy who was seen at W6IER's field day sending sonic speed CW and logging his calls with one hand, all the while holding a sandwich with his other hand. And of course, this is the same guy who just came back from K7C!
Well, here we go, I thought, It's all a learning experience & fun for me. Here's my story on how the contest went:
During the contest I operated QRP on 20 & 40. My initial thinking at the time was that this would give me a chance to get some good use out of the Redhot Radio Norcal 20 QRP rig I recently bought from K7QO. I also was thinking about using a recently purchased used Norcal BLT tuner, but I'm not yet familiar enough with it to depend on it under contest conditions. So I used the AT-100Pro auto tuner with my G5RV up 25ft on a push-up pole (which also pulls double duty as my swimming pool sweeping pole) and away I went. The little rig & tuner were hooked up to a 7 amp, 12 volt lead acid battery.
Once I was QRV, the contest was already in full swing. I had to listen a while to learn how the contest exchange sounded. I got the hang of it and the N3FJP logging program's interface made entering the sequence a breeze. I remember listening in last year to this contest and I was quickly scared away from all the high speed information being sent back and forth. At the time, I was a brand new Tech Plus and still plugging away at about 5WPM. What a difference a year makes. A year later and with some experience under my belt, I was ready to jump in and try my hand at it. I'm glad I did.
Yes, it is a tough contest exchange compared to others I have tried, but I saw it as a good learning challenge. My technique was a modified version of S&P: Search, listen & figure out their exchange, and then Pounce. Of course the pouncing part is always a challenge with only 5 watts. The usual response I heard coming from the other end was di-di-dah-dah-di-dit, QRZ, or someone else's call. But once in a while I got through. Enough times to keep me motivated and coming back for more. It was also kind of cool to once in a while be heard & plucked out of the pile ups ahead of the QRO stations. But for the most part, persistence and some really good ears on the other end helped out a lot. A sincere Thanks to all those out there that heard me and were patient enough to get the exchange.
The QRP rig performed well, I really like using it's full break-in keying, smooth & quiet. Hearing the band in-between my own key-clicks helped out a lot and kept me aware of the conditions. On 40M, I switched back to my 857D with the RF output turned down to 5wts and measured by an Oak Hills Research QRP Wattmeter. It's a neat little meter. I made all the contacts using my trusty Bencher paddle at around 20 WPM.
This was my first effort at trying out the ARRL CW Sweepstakes contest. As my contact numbers grew past 100, I thought "cool, now I can order one of those participation pins. It was nice seeing my score progress & the logging program's section map filling in with color. By Sunday afternoon, I was starting to see making all fifty states QRP as a very real possibility. But in the end, I came up short missing just three states when I pulled the plug. I never heard AK, ND & UT. I probably could have kept at it for a couple more hours but, family time was more important. Overall, a fun contest and I came away satisfied that I made a new high number of QSO's in a contest. That's a nice accomplishment for me personally, especially when it was done with only 5 watts. I think I've come a long way from a year ago as a Tech Plus listened in amazement at the sounds of high speed contest exchange and thinking there's no way I'll ever be able to do that! Well, give me another couple years at this and maybe, just maybe, I'll be up there with the "big dogs". Although, I don't know if I'll be able to do it while eating a sandwich with one hand, hi-hi. Best 73 to all & see you on the bands.
Tony Ruiz, K1USC
dit dit & Fight On Trojans! -- K1USC
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