SS CW 96 - N5RZ SO High Power
from
Ralph Bowen, N5RZ
on
July 1, 2000
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ARRL Sweepstakes CW 1996
N5RZ, Single Op, High Power
Ralph Bowen, N5RZ
[email protected]
Summary Sheet
ARRL SWEEPSTAKES -- 1996
Call: N5RZ Section: West Texas
Mode: CW Category: Single Operator High Power
BAND QSO QSO PTS SECTIONS
80 344 688 3
40 334 668 5
20 748 1496 70
15 5 10 0
__________________________________________________
Totals 1431 2862 78 = 223,236 points
Station
Equipment: FT1000D + AL1200, TS430S + L4B
Antennas:
80M: 4 Sloper System
40M: Cushcraft D40 Dipole Fixed E/W @85'
20M: TH6DXX @ 105' fixed NW, 204BA @ 65' Fixed NE, Power Divided
KT34XA @ 75' Fixed East used for a very few QSOs on 2nd Radio
Comments
This is one of my favorite contests and one very favorable to my geographic location.
Due to a number of events which happened this year, radio has taken a back seat:
1) Consulting since May 1 & hired Oct 1 as full time employee of a fast growing
start up independent oil & gas company not much free time.
2) Lightning hit last May wiped out 40M Yagi and all rotators on the 3 HF towers (along
with a host of household appliances).
3) Acute case of bursitis in my hip has kept me off the tower.
4) My XYL & I made the decision to put the house on the market after SS, so it
wasn't worth the effort to try to fix the antennas only to have the towers come down the
weekend after phone SS!
5) etc, etc.
However, I almost went crazy watching K5GA operate from here last year and missing it
to make 11 QSOs off the moon!! Tree's decision to return to W5WMU got me thinking what
this crippled station could do. I really didn't get too fired up until about a week before
the contest. Decided to start putting the station together Wednesday evening and spent
about 8 hours total Wed, Thur, and Friday nights getting the station rebuilt while packing
away lots of gear for storage.
I knew I'd have to work Saturday morning, but hopefully would be able to get out by
noon (3 hrs before the SS) - Wrong!!! Finally got out of a meeting at 2:30 saying I have
plans!!
Get home about 15 minutes before the contest starts with several cables left to hook up
and having to configure the N6TR logging program. Made the decision at 2055Z to start on
20m after hearing N5JJ and a cupla other 5's with huge "pre-contest" pileups. I
find a spot & lay out a few CQs. Hmmmm only one or two answers and no pile up. 15m
sounds crappy, so at 2100Z it's off to the races. No pile up & only have 17 QSOs in
the first 15 minutes and only 42 QSOs in the first half hour. Looks pretty paltry compared
to K5GA's 113-121-112 first 3 hours in 1995!!! Things start picking up & end up with
97 the first hour and 310 by 0000Z.
The first 2nd radio QSO was made on 40m at 0003Z; 20m was still good, but activity was
going to the lowbands quickly - lots of 6's & 7's already staking out their holes on
40M. I stayed on 20M until 0049Z after getting VY1JA & KH8/N5OLS in the log. Forty
meters was gangbusters for a while, but about 0150Z, skip started going loooooooooooong
& only the west coast was there. Made the first 80M QSO at 0203Z & tried to figure
out what I needed to do.
Only the FT1000 was keyed by the computer and since I was only planning on using 80M as
a 2nd radio band, I didn't have the 80M array available to the FT1000. Knowing I couldn't
effectively run 80M on the TS430S, I ended up killing 10 minutes from 0220-0230Z to find
the cables & make the switch. If anyone told me before the contest I'd make more QSOs
on 80 than 40 I'd have told them they were crazy - but look at the results. 80M was
tremendous & I ran there for the next 5 hours, averaging about 8-10 second radio Q's
on 40 each hour.
I had 76 sections worked at 0303Z, needing only KP2 & WY. I found K8HVT on the
second radio & staked him out for the next "clear shot" to dump my call in.
It was almost 10 minutes before the timing was right, and only when I worked Hal did I
realize he was /KP2 - what a surprise!!! Got NA7R on 80M (pipeline path from here) at
0610Z for the sweep, my earliest ever on CW. Thanks gentlemen!!
The rest of the contest was quite fun only having to concentrate on rate. The off times
really make it interesting to determine how you compare to the pack. I quit at 0925Z about
40 behind WMU, but when I heard him mid Sunday morning, I was up on him by 70 QSOs. Rates
were generally good Sunday with several full hours over 50. Tried 15M several times, but
15M blocked out the second radio completely so stayed to CQ CQ CQ CQ on 20M (the money
band) all day & tuning 40M for hard fought QSOs - just a bit too far west & had
many East Coast stations CQ in my face.
20M activity cratered about 2330Z on Sunday & I was looking fwd to running on 40M
& picking some of the last hour wonders on 80M. When I switched on 80M I was greeted
by 30 over 9 line noise which persisted the rest of the evening - ugh! Since 20M was dead,
the last two hours seemed like an eternity being stuck on 40M with no second radio!!
Many, many Q power stations really made things challenging. Many had good signals, but
insisted on calling slightly off frequency falling into the passband of my 40 over 9
neighbors. Another pet peeve was repeating sent information several times. Send it once!
QSB was quite bad all weekend on both 40 & 20M & I turned away several QSOs
because the guys just faded out.
The two biggest irritants:
1) Getting fills was a tremendous amount of work. Guys obviously cannot copy the code -
in fact I had to throw out a number of QSOs where I never got a fill.
2) Frequency stealing. Part 1: A CQ'er plops down on the frequency, sometimes
nanoseconds after I let up the key - No QRL or anything!!
Part 2: The QRLer who ignores my dits or quick "R" when I'm trying to dig out
an exchange & lays out a nice long CQ. C'mon guys if you hear a loud 2 or 3 dits in
response to ur QRL?, go away. I shouldn't have to send a dissertation like "Yes OM,
the frequency is in use; thanks for asking, 73"
Here are my rates & section distribution, probably quite different from the other
top scores. Congrats to W0SD & N6TR; Thanks KR0Y for not turning on the amp. And to
the killer team at K1ZX.
Thanks to all for the QSOs - hope to be on the phone weekend, but we'll see.
73, Gator N5RZ
Rate Sheet
HOUR 80CW 40CW 20CW 15CW TOTAL ACCUM
---- ------ ------ ------ ------ ----- -----
21 0 0 97 0 97 97
22 0 0 107 0 107 204
23 0 0 106 0 106 310
0 0 23 49 0 72 382
1 0 73 0 0 73 455
2 45 11 0 0 56 511
3 74 9 0 0 83 594
4 59 9 0 0 68 662
5 47 7 0 0 54 716
6 49 5 0 0 54 770
7 33 17 0 0 50 820
8 15 26 0 0 41 861
9 9 10 0 0 19 880 off 0925Z
10 0 0 0 0 0 880
11 7 25 0 0 32 912 on 1123Z
12 6 12 0 0 18 930 off 1215Z-1245Z
13 0 7 47 0 54 984
14 0 1 28 0 29 1013 off 1431Z
15 0 6 45 0 51 1064 on 1503Z
16 0 2 17 0 19 1083 off 1623Z
17 0 10 25 0 35 1118 on 1701Z pitiful rate
18 0 3 23 0 26 1144 off 1837Z
19 0 0 12 4 16 1160 on 1936Z
20 0 0 54 1 55 1215
21 0 2 54 0 56 1271
22 0 1 49 0 50 1321
23 0 13 35 0 48 1369
0 0 37 0 0 37 1406
1 0 25 0 0 25 1431 off 0137Z
TOTAL 344 334 748 5
Breakdown by Section
1. MI 66
2. OH 64 Are 8's important??!! Yessir!
3. IL 53
4. MDC 52 PVRC!!
5. WWA 49
6. EM 43
7. VA 42
8. WNY 41
9. EP 40
10. WI 39
11. SCV 35
12. STX 34
13. CO 32
14. NC 30
15. NTX 30
16. NNJ 29
17. NH 28
18. CT 28
19. EN 27
20. MN 26
21. KY 25
22. OR 25
23. TN 25
24. IN 24
25. WPA 24
26. MO 23
27. ORG 22
28. GA 20
29. NFL 20
30. NLI 20
31. LAX 19
32. SV 19
33. AZ 19
34. AL 18
35. SFL 18
36. SNJ 18
37. SDG 18
38. EB 17
39. ON 15
40. WV 14
41. SF 12
42. SB 12
43. AR 12
44. NV 11
45. RI 11
46. OK 11
47. SC 10
48. KS 10
49. WMA 9
50. UT 9
51. AB 9
52. NM 9
53. IA 8
54. ME 8
55. BC 8
56. LA 8
57. SJV 7
58. EW 7
59. ID 7
60. VT 6
61. DE 6
62. NNY 6
63. MS 5
64. ND 4
65. PQ 4
66. NE 4
67. MAR 4
68. MT 4
69. SK 3
70. AK 3
71. PR 3
72. WTX 2 Whew - One Local (AA5TN) & N5DO 90 miles away
73. NWT 2
74. SD 2
75. PAC 1 KH8/N5OLS
76. MB 1 VE4GV
77. VI 1 KP2/K8HVT
78. WY 1 NA7R
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