Friday, December 28, 2012

November Sweepstakes SSB 2011 Recap

Call: KM6I
Operator(s): KM6I
Station: AD6Z

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: Los Gatos, CA
Operating Time (hrs): 23.5

Summary:
 Band  QSOs
------------
  160:    0
   80:  144
   40:  197
   20:  349
   15:  171
   10:  124
------------
Total:  985  Sections = 83  Total Score = 163,510

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Comments:

Warning: long post - but may be interesting to read due to the fact that two
simultaneous operations were active from the same station. I think I saw one of
those from W3LPL for the CW weekend - did anyone else do one?

K3 + KPA500
80M dipoles (E/W, N/S) @ 110'
2 el 40 (2)
5 el 20
5 el 15
5 el 10

This was a shared-station operation at Kevin, AD6Z's shack above Los Gatos, CA,
in Silicon Valley. Kevin's shack is SO2R-capable, and we split it in two for
this contest. Antennas were shared by getting up and walking over to a
Six-Pack, and band coordination was handled in an ad-hoc fashion, mostly by one
of us getting sick of 20 meters and asking for a change. The 10 and 15 meter
antennas share a common feedline, so it wasn't possible for us to use those two
bands at once, which was kind of a drag since 10 was pretty good this year (I
had my best hour of the contest running on 10).

My goal this year was to make enough QSOs to qualify for the NCCC KB-2000 award
(2000 QSOs between the two Sweepstakes weekends). Since I had made 1085 Qs on
CW, the easy goal was 915 contacts, but I set a stretch goal of 1065 to give me
something to shoot for. I made a target rate sheet by multiplying last year's
rate sheet by 1065/915. That actually turned out to be a bad idea. When sharing
a station, band choice is limited, and that will make the rate sheet very
"lumpy" and unless you are on the same bands as the previous year, the target
rates may not be achievable. But it was good having a target.

This was also my first contest using my shiny KPA500. Since Kevin's the host,
he gets the 1500w amp, but he does have an AL-80B and I could have used that,
but I, well, just wanted to play with my new toy. It just sat there and put out
500w. I could tell its fan was running a little faster when I was running and
CQing a lot, by putting my hand behind the case, but Kevin's AL-1200B was right
behind me sounding like a small tornado, and totally drowned out any small noise
the Elecraft amp was making. Switching bands with the KPA500 in the mix is a
dream: Select the right antenna on the Six Pack, select the correct bandpass
filter, press the band button on the KPA500, and talk. No tuning, and the K3
follows the band selected on the KPA500 (or vice versa). I can't wait to use
this amp in a CW contest and make use of QSK.

Since I led off last year on 15, it was Kevin's turn to get the 10/15 antennas
for the start of the contest. I found a frequency on 20 meters about 10 minutes
before the contest and held it by making some contacts. Then, the contest
started... and I got booted by a really loud station about 500 Hz up from my
run frequency, and no room to move down. He was making rate and I wasn't, so I
went S&Ping up the band to find another slot. After an hour, I hadn't found a
slot, but that was when we'd agreed to swap antennas.

On 10 I got a run frequency right away and the rate went to 76 for the next
hour. I may have made a mistake by choosing a run frequency above 28.5 MHz, but
the band was pretty crowded, and the rate was good, so I stayed.

After that hour we swapped antennas again, so it was back to 20. It was
crowded, as expected, and I S&P'd until I found a run frequency, and then had a
nice 82-QSO run that took an hour and 8 minutes. There was a lot of
headache-inducing splatter on 20. Two stations in particular were the worst
offenders, with one covering 20KHz of the band. I stayed on 20 for a long time
because it was productive and because 15 had closed and Kevin was using the 40
meter antennas.

Just after 0200Z Kevin went to 80 and I hopped on 40 and found a run frequency,
which had rate > 60/hr for a while, but a broadcast station came on at 0230 and
kept getting louder and louder. Around 0330 we swapped antennas and I found a
run frequency low on 80. Rate wasn't great, so I used the second VFO to line up
S&P QSOs and used the SO2V capabilities of N1MM to swap the VFOs quickly for the
"second radio" contacts. I feel like I'm getting more proficient at listening to
the two channels of audio at the same time. The downside is that you give up the
great diversity receive capabilities of the K3 (it puts the two antennas in a
stereo mix), and Kevin's beverage really works great on the low bands.

For the rest of the evening Kevin and I traded off on 40 and 80. My rates were
fairly steady. At 0830Z I got called by V73AX in the Marshall Islands for a
signal report. I stayed up 30 minutes later than last year, as I'd taken a 30
minute break earlier in the day to eat. I quit at 0900 needing ONE and SC.
Because I'd had a good run on 10 and then 20 was productive for me, I had zero
15 meter QSOs in the log, which seemed weird, but that's how things shook out.

Sunday morning I started on 20 around 1400Z but went to 15 at 1430 because it
looked good in the bandmap. I eventually found spots for ONE and SC and had the
sweep at 1921Z, Oddly, I got called by 4 more ONE stations while I was running
on Sunday (one was QRP). Working ONE was a lot easier if you were running.

Kevin and I kept swapping the 20 and 10/15 antennas about every hour until
early afternoon local time, and I actually pulled almost even with my goal.
Near the end of the contest I spent some time trying to run on 80, but I think
I'd worked most of the west coast stations and rate was low. I was able to S&P
some stations in the Midwest/East Coast with the high dipoles, and the
beverage/K3 diversity receive was really helpful there. But looking at the
goals, I realized I'd had a big spike in rate for the last 4 hours last year,
and I wasn't sure if that would materialize. It didn't, and I ended up about 80
QSOs short of the stretch goal. Still, I beat my main goal by 80 QSOs, beat last
year's QSO count by 18, and had a great time in the process.

Thanks again to Kevin for sharing his station with me for the Phone weekend,
and letting me play with it exclusively for the CW weekend. Across the two
weekends, Kevin, me, and his station put more than 2,500 QSOs in the the log.

Comparison:


Time  2011  2011  2012  2012   2012   2012  Diff
      Rate  Total Rate Total Actual Actual  From
                  Goal  Goal   Rate  Total  Goal
------------------------------------------------
2100    48     48   53    53     31     31   -22
2200    27     75   30    83     76    107   +24
2300    52    127   57   140     30    137    -3
0000    58    185   64   204     38    175   -29
0100    43    228   47   251     70    245    -6
0200    47    275   52   303     55    300    -3
0300    33    308   36   339     28    328   -11
0400    45    452   50   389     44    372   -17
0500    41    394   45   434     28    400   -34768
0600    48    442   53   487     41    441   -46
0700    58    500   64   551     35    476   -76
0800     8    508    9   559     31    507   -52
0900     0    508    0   559      0    507   -52
1000     0    508    0   559      0    507   -52
1100     0    508    0   559      0    507   -52
1200     0    508    0   559      0    507   -52
1300     0    508    0   559      0    507   -52
1400    23    531   25   585     40    547   -38
1500    32    563   35   620     52    599   -21
1600    34    597   37   658     36    635   -23
1700    26    623   29   686     42    677    -9
1800    23    646   25   711     18    695   -16
1900    25    671   28   739     42    737    -2
2000    26    697   29   768     28    765    -3
2100    24    721   26   794     10    775   -19 *
2200    35    756   39   833     49    824    -9
2300    60    816   66   899     38    862   -37
0000    50    866   55   954     54    916   -38
0100    61    927   67   1021    42    958   -63
0200    40    967   44   1065    27    985   -80


* Lost will to face 20M, took some off-time


---------------------------------------------------


Cabrillo Statistics           (Version 10g)           by K5KA &
N6TVhttp://bit.ly/cabstat


CALLSIGN: KM6I
CONTEST: ARRL-SS-SSB
CATEGORY-OPERATOR: SINGLE-OP
CATEGORY-TRANSMITTER: ONE
OPERATORS: KM6I


-------------- Q S O   R a t e   S u m m a r y ---------------------
Hour     160     80     40     20     15     10    Rate Total    Pct
--------------------------------------------------------------------
2100       0      0      0     31      0      0     31     31    3.1
2200       0      0      0      2      0     74     76    107   10.9
2300       0      0      0     14      0     16     30    137   13.9
0000       0      0      0     38      0      0     38    175   17.8
0100       0      0      0     70      0      0     70    245   24.9
0200       0      0     52      3      0      0     55    300   30.5
0300       0     18     10      0      0      0     28    328   33.3
0400       0     30     14      0      0      0     44    372   37.8
0500       0      0     28      0      0      0     28    400   40.6
0600       0     41      0      0      0      0     41    441   44.8
0700       0      9     26      0      0      0     35    476   48.3
0800       0     31      0      0      0      0     31    507   51.5
0900       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    507   51.5
1000       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    507   51.5
1100       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    507   51.5
1200       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    507   51.5
1300       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    507   51.5
1400       0      0      0      9     31      0     40    547   55.5
1500       0      0      0     24     28      0     52    599   60.8
1600       0      0      0     13     23      0     36    635   64.5
1700       0      0      0     27     15      0     42    677   68.7
1800       0      0      0     18      0      0     18    695   70.6
1900       0      0      0      0     25     17     42    737   74.8
2000       0      0      0     11      0     17     28    765   77.7
2100       0      0      0     10      0      0     10    775   78.7
2200       0      0      0     18     31      0     49    824   83.7
2300       0      0      1     19     18      0     38    862   87.5
0000       0      0     28     26      0      0     54    916   93.0
0100       0      0     38      4      0      0     42    958   97.3
0200       0     15      0     12      0      0     27    985  100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total      0    144    197    349    171    124    985


Gross QSOs=994        Dupes=9        Net QSOs=985


Unique callsigns worked = 985


The best 60 minute rate was 76/hour from 2200 to 2259
The best 30 minute rate was 90/hour from 2226 to 2255
The best 10 minute rate was 108/hour from 1455 to 1504


The best 1 minute rates were:
 4 QSOs/minute    1 times.
 3 QSOs/minute   16 times.
 2 QSOs/minute  175 times.
 1 QSOs/minute  583 times.

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