ARRL Sweepstakes Phone 2011 Recap

For the 2011 ARRL Phone Sweepstakes, I was again up at Kevin, AD6Z's place, and like last year, the two of us did a shared-station operation, with both of us on the air at the same time on different bands, making use of his excellent antenna farm, with bandpass filters keeping us from hearing each other. Many thanks to Kevin - the SS weekends are the highlight of my ham contesting experience every year, and I look forward to them with the same excitement I had when I was a new ham in the 1970s.

Here's the raw data:
Call: KM6I
Operator(s): KM6I
Station: AD6Z

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: Los Gatos, CA
Operating Time (hrs): 24

Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160:
80: 105
40: 267
20: 357
15: 167
10: 71
------------
Total: 967 Sections = 80 Total Score = 154,720
Club: Northern California Contest Club

A few observations:

- I'm about 100 QSOs short of my score from last year, despite the improved conditions on the high bands.
- My QSOs are skewed away from 10 meters, in spite of the the fact that many NCCC stations had many, many 10M contacts in the contest.
- I didn't have this skew toward the lower bands during the CW contest two weeks ago. In that contest, my QSO distribution across the bands was about the same as other NCCC operators.

This all points to me not using 10 and 15 effectively. That may be due to the fact that, due to the way Kevin's feedlines are arranged, one station gets exclusive use of the 10/15 meter tower. It's not possible for one op to use the 10 meter yagi while the other op uses the 15 meter stack. That wasn't a big deal when sunspot numbers were low, but I think it's limiting the combined performance of our dual-op efforts, and will also limit any SO2R efforts as well. For the CW weekend, I was the only op using the antennas, and could use whatever band I wanted.

Or, that previous paragraph may be total BS and I just wasn't aggressive enough in establishing a run frequency early in the contest. On 10 and 15, I was much more tentative in calling CQ because I was worried I was right on top of another west coast station I couldn't hear. It seemed like every clear frequency that was a candidate for a run had some faint station I could just barely hear, and I'd move on. I suspect that a better strategy would be to put out a couple of "is the frequency in use" calls, and then set up shop, moving only if the frequency is clearly in use or is unproductive.

By contrast, I am much more comfortable slotting in and calling CQ on CW. I think that may be due to the fact that I feel proficient in managing my receiver on CW, and can pretty much zero in on any weak CW signal using the K3's controls, and therefore feel "justified" slotting into tight spots on CW. On SSB, however, I have a hard time tuning out loud and splattery adjacent signals, and feel like I must be causing pain to someone running if I slot in 2 KHz above them. That is probably a false equivalence, and I should just call CQ. If I'm inconveniencing someone, I'm sure they will tell me. :-)

Another uncertainty is how long to call CQ before declaring a frequency unproductive and seeking a new one. Oddly, this turned out to be much easier on 20 and 40 for me than on 10 or 15, because I felt like I could hear the "whole situation" better on those bands. Once I slotted into a run frequency, even if it was crowded, I started to produce QSOs. Heck, on 40m I even tried the technique (K9YC's advice, I think) of zero-beating a broadcast station's carrier and calling CQ, and I made contacts.

In spite of these shortcomings, I had some great fun on Sunday afternoon running, with stations sending me serial numbers in the 100-200 range. Those casual contesters are what keeps Sunday fun. Thanks!

Because I did a poor job getting runs going on Saturday, I paid more attention to the spots on the band map, and I had a sweep before I went to bed on Saturday night. Surprisingly, the last section for my sweep was SFL - most of the "hard" sections either called me when I was running, or fell victim to Kevin's 5-el 20M yagi.

Other random thoughts:

I used the same WAV files that I used last year. I recall that, when I recorded and edited them with Audacity, they almost seemed comically fast. This year, I found myself sometimes sending my exchange manually because the recorded messages seemed too slow.

I felt like I was yelling when the run rate was high, but listening to the recording I made, I sound like I'm half-asleep. I should work on sounding excited at a low volume level - I suspect that the top SSB contesters are able to sound loud and fast without expending a lot of energy.

While running on 10M Sunday, I got called by my alma mater station W8UM. It was great to hear them on the air after a long contesting absence. The W8UM station has had some great operators pass through, including top contesters Pat Barkey N9RV and Steve London N2IC. Go Blue!

My CW QSO total (1099) + my SSB QSO total (967) adds up to 2,066, which will qualify me for another NCCC KB-2000 award this year. Woohoo!

Thanks for reading, and hope to work you in the 2012 Sweepstakes!

-Gordon KM6I


Rate Sheet:

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     48      0      0     48     48    5.0
2200       0      0      0      5      7     15     27     75    7.8
2300       0      0      0     25     27      0     52    127   13.1
0000       0      0      0     58      0      0     58    185   19.1
0100       0      0     43      0      0      0     43    228   23.6
0200       0      0     47      0      0      0     47    275   28.4
0300       0     19      8      6      0      0     33    308   31.9
0400       0     45      0      0      0      0     45    353   36.5
0500       0     17     24      0      0      0     41    394   40.7
0600       0      0     48      0      0      0     48    442   45.7
0700       0     10     48      0      0      0     58    500   51.7
0800       0      8      0      0      0      0      8    508   52.5
0900       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    508   52.5
1000       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    508   52.5
1100       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    508   52.5
1200       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    508   52.5
1300       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    508   52.5
1400       0      0     11      0     12      0     23    531   54.9
1500       0      0      0      0     32      0     32    563   58.2
1600       0      0      0     34      0      0     34    597   61.7
1700       0      0      0      8      0     18     26    623   64.4
1800       0      0      0     20      0      3     23    646   66.8
1900       0      0      0     10      0     15     25    671   69.4
2000       0      0      0      9      0     17     26    697   72.1
2100       0      0      0     24      0      0     24    721   74.6
2200       0      0      0      3     29      3     35    756   78.2
2300       0      0      0      0     60      0     60    816   84.4
0000       0      0      0     50      0      0     50    866   89.6
0100       0      0      4     57      0      0     61    927   95.9
0200       0      6     34      0      0      0     40    967  100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total      0    105    267    357    167     71    967

Gross QSOs=971        Dupes=4        Net QSOs=967

Unique callsigns worked = 967

The best 60 minute rate was 86/hour from 0029 to 0128
The best 30 minute rate was 94/hour from 0039 to 0108
The best 10 minute rate was 114/hour from 0057 to 0106

The best 1 minute rates were:
 3 QSOs/minute   19 times.
 2 QSOs/minute  182 times.
 1 QSOs/minute  546 times.

There were 21 bandchanges and 0 (0.0%) probable 2nd radio QSOs.

Number of letters in callsigns
Letters  # worked
-----------------
   3         1
   4       474
   5       344
   6       146
   7         2

------------ M u l t i p l i e r   S u m m a r y ------------
Mult     160     80     40     20     15     10  Total    Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------
MDC        0      4      4     24     11      2     45    4.7
MN         0      2      8     17     14      3     44    4.6
IL         0      1      9     14      9      7     40    4.1
WWA        0      6     18     12      2      0     38    3.9
VA         0      0      8     21      6      2     37    3.8
OH         0      2      7     17      7      1     34    3.5
MI         0      1      9      8      7      3     28    2.9
SCV        0      6      8      3      4      6     27    2.8
CO         0      1      6     13      6      0     26    2.7
AZ         0      4      7      9      2      0     22    2.3
OR         0      5     12      4      0      0     21    2.2
NC         0      3      2     11      4      0     20    2.1
NH         0      0      3      8      5      2     18    1.9
IN         0      0      3      7      4      3     17    1.8
TN         0      2      3      9      2      0     16    1.7
EPA        0      0      1     12      2      1     16    1.7
NTX        0      0      7      6      1      2     16    1.7
EMA        0      0      3      4      5      3     15    1.6
ENY        0      0      7      6      1      1     15    1.6
WI         0      0      5      4      5      1     15    1.6
WNY        0      1      5      5      3      1     15    1.6
SV         0     11      3      0      1      0     15    1.6
WY         0      4      2      4      4      0     14    1.4
NM         0      2      3      8      1      0     14    1.4
KS         0      1      2      6      4      1     14    1.4
UT         0      2      5      6      0      0     13    1.3
CT         0      0      2      5      2      4     13    1.3
NV         0      8      5      0      0      0     13    1.3
STX        0      1      2      4      3      1     11    1.1
EWA        0      0      5      5      1      0     11    1.1
WMA        0      0      4      3      1      3     11    1.1
ME         0      0      2      4      4      1     11    1.1
MO         0      2      2      4      3      0     11    1.1
ORG        0      4      7      0      0      0     11    1.1
BC         0      2      4      3      1      0     10    1.0
ID         0      2      4      3      1      0     10    1.0
NLI        0      0      0      8      1      1     10    1.0
SF         0      5      5      0      0      0     10    1.0
EB         0      2      5      0      0      3     10    1.0
LAX        0      3      7      0      0      0     10    1.0
WPA        0      0      1      4      4      0      9    0.9
AB         0      1      1      0      2      5      9    0.9
NE         0      0      3      1      3      2      9    0.9
MT         0      1      4      3      1      0      9    0.9
SDG        0      2      6      1      0      0      9    0.9
AK         0      2      3      1      3      0      9    0.9
WCF        0      0      3      5      1      0      9    0.9
ON         0      0      3      2      2      1      8    0.8
SNJ        0      0      2      5      1      0      8    0.8
NFL        0      0      2      3      2      0      7    0.7
OK         0      0      0      5      0      2      7    0.7
SK         0      0      2      1      4      0      7    0.7
SD         0      0      2      4      0      1      7    0.7
SJV        0      1      4      2      0      0      7    0.7
NNJ        0      0      2      3      2      0      7    0.7
WTX        0      2      2      3      0      0      7    0.7
KY         0      0      3      3      1      0      7    0.7
MAR        0      0      1      2      3      0      6    0.6
AL         0      1      1      2      1      0      5    0.5
GA         0      1      0      4      0      0      5    0.5
DE         0      0      1      4      0      0      5    0.5
MB         0      0      1      1      1      2      5    0.5
IA         0      1      0      1      0      3      5    0.5
NNY        0      1      2      1      1      0      5    0.5
QC         0      0      0      2      2      1      5    0.5
WV         0      1      0      1      2      0      4    0.4
SC         0      0      0      3      1      0      4    0.4
LA         0      0      1      2      1      0      4    0.4
SB         0      2      2      0      0      0      4    0.4
PAC        0      0      3      1      0      0      4    0.4
ND         0      2      1      1      0      0      4    0.4
AR         0      0      1      1      0      1      3    0.3
NWT        0      0      2      0      1      0      3    0.3
SFL        0      0      1      2      0      0      3    0.3
VT         0      0      0      2      0      0      2    0.2
NL         0      0      0      1      1      0      2    0.2
VI         0      0      0      2      0      0      2    0.2
RI         0      0      1      1      0      0      2    0.2
MS         0      0      1      0      0      1      2    0.2
PR         0      0      1      0      0      0      1    0.1
------------------------------------------------------
Total      0    105    267    357    167     71    967

Sweepstakes Checks
Check  QSOs    Pct
----------------------
  00    11     1.1
  01     7     0.7
  02     8     0.8
  03    11     1.1
  04     6     0.6
  05    13     1.3
  06    13     1.3
  07    19     2.0
  08    19     2.0
  09    14     1.4
  10    16     1.7
  11     7     0.7
  12     1     0.1
  13     1     0.1
  14     0     0.0
  15     0     0.0
  16     2     0.2
  17     0     0.0
  18     0     0.0
  19     0     0.0
  20     0     0.0
  21     1     0.1
  22     2     0.2
  23     0     0.0
  24     1     0.1
  25     0     0.0
  26     0     0.0
  27     0     0.0
  28     0     0.0
  29     0     0.0
  30     1     0.1
  31     0     0.0
  32     0     0.0
  33     1     0.1
  34     0     0.0
  35     2     0.2
  36     0     0.0
  37     0     0.0
  38     1     0.1
  39     1     0.1
  40     1     0.1
  41     0     0.0
  42     0     0.0
  43     0     0.0
  44     0     0.0
  45     0     0.0
  46     0     0.0
  47     1     0.1
  48     1     0.1
  49     0     0.0
  50     1     0.1
  51     2     0.2
  52     9     0.9
  53     7     0.7
  54    17     1.8
  55    22     2.3
  56    16     1.7
  57    25     2.6
  58    23     2.4
  59    26     2.7
  60    26     2.7
  61    20     2.1
  62    18     1.9
  63    31     3.2
  64    17     1.8
  65    17     1.8
  66    17     1.8
  67    28     2.9
  68    14     1.4
  69    23     2.4
  70    20     2.1
  71    24     2.5
  72    16     1.7
  73    27     2.8
  74    11     1.1
  75    18     1.9
  76    37     3.8
  77    39     4.0
  78    20     2.1
  79    16     1.7
  80     9     0.9
  81     8     0.8
  82     9     0.9
  83     8     0.8
  84     7     0.7
  85     6     0.6
  86     9     0.9
  87    16     1.7
  88     6     0.6
  89    12     1.2
  90    10     1.0
  91    17     1.8
  92    17     1.8
  93    16     1.7
  94    13     1.3
  95    11     1.1
  96    10     1.0
  97    12     1.2
  98    12     1.2
  99    11     1.1

U.S. Call Areas Worked
Area    QSOs     Pct
--------------------
   0     120    12.4
   1      84     8.7
   2      86     8.9
   3      78     8.1
   4      96     9.9
   5      52     5.4
   6     109    11.3
   7     138    14.3
   8      73     7.5
   9      76     7.9
--------------------
Total    912    94.3

Sweepstakes Precedents
Precedent  QSOs    Pct
----------------------
    A      398    41.2
    B      228    23.6
    Q       34     3.5
    M      102    10.5
    U      194    20.1
    S       11     1.1

ARRL Sweepstakes CW 2011 Recap

ARRL Sweepstakes CW is in the log for 2011. Here's my story

First, a million thanks to Kevin AD6Z and his wife Christine for letting me use his station again this year - and for that awesome banana bread. Kevin's located in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Los Gatos, CA, and has a fabulous station:

80m: Dipole @ 110', main lobes N/S, Dipole @ 120', main lobes E/W
40m: Moxon @ 50', 2 el yagi @ 70 '
20m: 5 el yagi @ 70'
15m: 5/5 yagi stack
10m: 5 el yagi
Beverage receive antenna

Score Summary:

Op Time: 24 hours

Band    QSOs    Pts  Mlt
3.5     108     216    2
7       301     602    5
14      162     324    4
21      280     560   20
28      248     496   49
Total  1099    2198   80
Score: 175,840

This is a personal best for me operating from a single station (last year I had 1215 QSOs, but that was across two different stations). I'm happy with the score, but I know I can do better.

Like last year, I brought my Elecraft K3 and plugged into Kevin's Ameritron AL-1200B amplifier. The antenna switching is well laid out, with a StackMatch and SixPack making antenna selection very point and shoot. The rotators were also computer controllable, although I tended to to leave everything pointed at about 70 degrees except when chasing a multi I needed.

On the drive up, I was tuning around the bands on my HF mobile and, despite a lousy antenna, was hearing many, many CW beacons on 10 meters, including a VY2. Thad me me think really hard about starting on 10 meters.

Everything at Kevin's was set, as I'd been up there Thursday night to get my K3 hooked up and verify that everything was working correctly, including my computer, which last year had a disk fail at the start of the contest. I had about an hour to tune around the bands, so I put out a few "test km6i" to poke the reverse beacon network, and noted that I was 30 dB+ snr into some of the east coast skimmers. I decided to start on 10m.

Like last year, Kevin set up his SDR IQ on the extra 80m dipole and hooked up CW Skimmer, which gave me access to very high-quality spots. I'm amazed at how well CW skimmer does its job. It does bust calls occasionally, but I'd put the error rate at well below 1%. Since it has a built-in packet cluster, I just connected to it like any other cluster in N1MM.

At the start of the contest I spent the first two hours on 10m running and occasionally chasing skimmer spots. I dropped to 15 and had my best hour (97 QSOs), made a short pass through 20 and headed down to 40. During the 0400Z hour I went to 80, but rate really went down, so I went back up to 40 and things picked back up. I quit at 1 am and had 643 Qs and 78 sections (needed ND and NL).

Recording of my 97/QSO hour (sorry about the audio quality - I think the recorder I used for this had some sort of AGC and I didn't think to turn it off):



I started the next morning at 6am local time on 20, but noticed that the skimmer was seeing a lot of activity on 15, so I moved up before the hour was out. 15 seemed to dry up a bit, so I dropped back down to 20 at 8 am for an hour, then jumped up to 10. Rate was fairly steady around 50 Q/hour.

Around 11am, with 836 Qs in the log, rate started to fall off quite a bit, and most of the skimmer spots in the N1MM bandmap were gray, indicating that I was running out of stations to work. At this point, I switched between running for a while, then stopping to let the Skimmer work (it was getting desensed and didn't get much time to listen when I was beacon-CQing). After the map populated, I would go into "shooting fish in a barrel" mode, waiting for an unworked call to show up and pouncing on it. It's S&P without the "S". Lazy? Probably. Effective? Yes. I kept this up until the end of the contest, although I did make a number of manual passes through the bands listening for stations the skimmer had not found (there were a few, but not many).

Another great thing at Kevin's is the beverage he installed recently. I connected this to the aux antenna input of my K3 and used it with the subreceiver in diversity mode. Simply put, it was awesome. I've used diversity receive at home a bit, but I don't think my antennas are"diverse" enough to fully take advantage of the feature. At Kevin's, though, it was amazing. Signals that would have experienced a deep fade on a single antenna would instead swing from one side to the other in the stereo mix (diversity receive on the K3 places the receivers one in each ear). Even with weak east coast stations on 80 meters, I hardly ever needed fills. It gave me a lot of confidence to call stations I normally would not have.

A couple of other highlights/lowlights/notes:

• This is the first time I've had to give EU stations a signal report so they would leave me alone. And on 10 meters yet! Kevin noted that we were lighting up the EU skimmers - perhaps that was part of it.
• We dodged the power failure that hit W6NL. Kevin's power comes down from a different direction, apparently.
• During the first day of the contest, I was running and, when I didn't get calls for a while, I would surf over to a spot and work it, then Alt-Q to get back to my run frequency. One time, however, I was in a hurry to get back to CQing, and I unknowingly fat-fingered the Alt-Q and CQd on top of the guy I'd just worked. Unfortunately, I didn't notice it right away, because I got a response, so I inadvertently stole the poor guy's run frequency (I did hear a well-deserved, sarcastic "TU" though). I figured out who I'd done it to and sent an apology via email, and he was *very* nice about it.
• My 837th contact was with my friend Tim, KT8K in Ann Arbor. Running 5w and wire antennas, his number to me was 416. Only 0.3% of my power, but almost 50% of my rate!
• Almost half my QSOs (48%) were on 10 or 15. And I got 61% of my mults on 10. Thanks, Sol!
• QRP stations seemed to benefit from the good band conditions. Many times I had S9+ stations give me a "Q" precedence. And I worked 90 of them (8% of my contacts).
• We dodged the power outage that got W6NL - Kevin's power comes down from Skyline Blvd., and although we had a few minor brownouts, it stayed on.

And some lessons learned

• With good-quality skimmer spots, you can achieve pretty good rate solely S&P. The technique I developed was to select 3 or 4 unworked spots, and sequence through them to identify the one most likely to finish the QSO next (since the SS exchange is so long, it's really to your advantage to do this).
• SS Prefills are a blessing and a curse, but mostly a blessing.
• Having the prefill allows me to be faster on the turnaround at the end of a contact if the exchange I'm receiving from the other station matches the prefill - my finger is already on the enter key.
• If your attention wanes, it's easy to not actively check the preflll. I thought this would be rare, but it actually happens quite a bit when you're focusing your mental energy on what to do next. The incoming exchange has the serial number first, which you need to copy, but then the rest of the exchange may be prefilled, and it's easy to, say, start thinking about which spot you're going to grab next. I found I really had to focus on double-checking the prefill.
• With the prefills, the band map can also actively advise you of new mults you need. For example, on Sunday morning my band map was completely full of gray (already worked) spots, and a W0 popped up in red, because the prefill "knew" he was in North Dakota, which was the last multi I needed. One click, one call, and my sweep was complete.
• Once in a while, if I hit Esc to terminate a message, my rig won't unkey. It's not transmitting, but the PTT from the Winkey is asserted, so the receiver is turned off. The only way I've found to get out of this mode is to send another message and hit Esc again. This is a real bummer because I like to abort my "TU" message, (which is "TU KM6I") after the "TU" when I know I've got a several-deep pileup. It not only makes things a little faster, but tends to thin the pileup a bit, or at least spread out the callers in time.
• When surfing packet spots, it's a good idea to click the spot, then tune up or down about 100 Hz. This separates you from all the other spot-surfers who are all zero-beat with each other. Being on the running side of the equation, I noticed that if I had, say, 4 stations calling, with 3 of them zero-beat and one way up or down in frequency, I would get the outlier's call first.
• Another technique I used was sort of a poor-man's SO2R. It works like this:

1. Get a run frequency and call CQ.
   
2. When things dry up, look at your bandmap. If there is an unworked spot, click it. If the QSO is just about to end, hang out and try once to make the S&P contact.
3. After (a) deciding the contact won't finish soon, or (b) calling once and losing, or © making the contact, hit ALT-Q (in N1MM at least) to pop back to your run frequency, and if no one has stolen it, call CQ.

• This poor-man's SO2R technique works a lot better if you have a monitor that's tall enough to show the whole band. My netbook has such a tiny screen that this wasn't as effective as it could have been.
• CW Skimmer spots show the caller's CW speed. This helps you, say, avoid blasting some 20 WPM CQer with your 35 WPM callsign (although, I have to say, when I did accidentally do this to people, they did a great job of coping my call. I did, of course, QRS for the exchange).
• The smaller keys on my netbook caused some fat-finger QLFs.
• In the heat of battle, I found it easy to hit the wrong F-key when using them for fills. I think the function key template I have taped to the computer could be clearer.

If I worked you in the contest, thanks for the QSO, and thanks for reading!

73,

- Gordon

Rate Sheet:

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

CALLSIGN: KM6I
CONTEST: ARRL-SS-CW
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      0      0     76     76     76    6.9
2200       0      0      0      0      0     76     76    152   13.8
2300       0      0      0      0     69      6     75    227   20.7
0000       0      0      0     13     57      0     70    297   27.0
0100       0      0     51      4      0      0     55    352   32.0
0200       0      0     62      0      0      0     62    414   37.7
0300       0      0     59      0      0      0     59    473   43.0
0400       0     23     13      0      0      0     36    509   46.3
0500       0      2     49      0      0      0     51    560   51.0
0600       0     47      0      0      0      0     47    607   55.2
0700       0     25     11      0      0      0     36    643   58.5
0800       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    643   58.5
0900       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    643   58.5
1000       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    643   58.5
1100       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    643   58.5
1200       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    643   58.5
1300       0      0      0      0      0      0      0    643   58.5
1400       0      0      0     35     12      0     47    690   62.8
1500       0      0      0      0     43      0     43    733   66.7
1600       0      0      0     53      0      0     53    786   71.5
1700       0      0      0      0      0     50     50    836   76.1
1800       0      0      0      0      9     28     37    873   79.4
1900       0      0      0      0     28      0     28    901   82.0
2000       0      0      0      0     20     12     32    933   84.9
2100       0      0      0     15     12      0     27    960   87.4
2200       0      0      3     18      7      0     28    988   89.9
2300       0      0      0     11     23      0     34   1022   93.0
0000       0      0     16     13      0      0     29   1051   95.6
0100       0      8     19      0      0      0     27   1078   98.1
0200       0      3     18      0      0      0     21   1099  100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total      0    108    301    162    280    248   1099

Gross QSOs=1104        Dupes=5        Net QSOs=1099

Unique callsigns worked = 1099

The best 60 minute rate was 97/hour from 2331 to 0030
The best 30 minute rate was 102/hour from 2331 to 0000
The best 10 minute rate was 114/hour from 2349 to 2358

The best 1 minute rates were:
3 QSOs/minute    3 times.
2 QSOs/minute  199 times.
1 QSOs/minute  692 times.

There were 23 bandchanges and 0 (0.0%) probable 2nd radio QSOs.

Number of letters in callsigns
Letters  # worked
-----------------
3         1
4       695
5       311
6        90
7         1
9         1

------------ M u l t i p l i e r   S u m m a r y ------------
Mult     160     80     40     20     15     10  Total    Pct
-------------------------------------------------------------
VA         0      5     10     12     17     11     55    5.0
IL         0      2     12      5      6     17     42    3.8
MN         0      3     11      2     11     15     42    3.8
MDC        0      2     17      8      6      6     39    3.5
OH         0      1      6      8      9     14     38    3.5
WWA        0      7     16      1      9      4     37    3.4
SCV        0      4      6      3      6     16     35    3.2
STX        0      2      7      4      7     13     33    3.0
EPA        0      6      7      5      7      7     32    2.9
WI         0      5      7      1      9      8     30    2.7
TN         0      4      6      7      5      6     28    2.5
CO         0      3     10      6      9      0     28    2.5
NC         0      1      9      3     11      3     27    2.5
NTX        0      0      4      0      8     14     26    2.4
OR         0      3     13      1      3      4     24    2.2
IN         0      6      8      3      2      4     23    2.1
AZ         0      1     10      8      3      1     23    2.1
MI         0      2      4      3      4      9     22    2.0
EMA        0      2      7      3      4      3     19    1.7
SV         0      1      7      2      2      6     18    1.6
WNY        0      1      2      3      9      2     17    1.5
NH         0      1      4      5      4      2     16    1.5
SFL        0      0      3      2      5      6     16    1.5
EB         0      1      4      0      6      5     16    1.5
ON         0      2      4      3      6      1     16    1.5
AL         0      1      2      3      4      5     15    1.4
GA         0      0      3      3      5      4     15    1.4
ORG        0      4      6      3      1      1     15    1.4
CT         0      0      3      4      5      1     13    1.2
ENY        0      0      4      1      6      2     13    1.2
WCF        0      0      4      0      8      0     12    1.1
NM         0      2      2      2      6      0     12    1.1
WPA        0      0      3      1      6      1     11    1.0
MO         0      0      0      4      1      5     10    0.9
SJV        0      1      5      0      1      3     10    0.9
NLI        0      0      2      3      3      2     10    0.9
KS         0      3      3      1      1      2     10    0.9
IA         0      2      2      3      1      2     10    0.9
SDG        0      2      5      0      3      0     10    0.9
MAR        0      0      4      2      1      2      9    0.8
OK         0      0      0      0      4      5      9    0.8
LA         0      2      2      1      3      1      9    0.8
ME         0      1      4      0      2      2      9    0.8
NFL        0      0      2      2      4      1      9    0.8
LAX        0      1      5      1      2      0      9    0.8
SF         0      4      2      1      1      1      9    0.8
BC         0      0      2      3      2      1      8    0.7
SNJ        0      1      4      1      2      0      8    0.7
WY         0      2      3      1      2      0      8    0.7
NNJ        0      0      2      0      3      2      7    0.6
EWA        0      1      1      2      1      2      7    0.6
MT         0      1      4      0      1      1      7    0.6
AK         0      0      2      0      4      1      7    0.6
UT         0      2      4      1      0      0      7    0.6
KY         0      1      0      1      3      2      7    0.6
SD         0      1      2      0      1      2      6    0.5
SK         0      0      1      0      2      3      6    0.5
WMA        0      0      2      0      3      1      6    0.5
WV         0      1      2      1      1      1      6    0.5
VT         0      2      1      2      1      0      6    0.5
NV         0      1      1      1      1      1      5    0.5
WTX        0      1      0      1      3      0      5    0.5
ID         0      1      2      1      1      0      5    0.5
SC         0      1      0      1      2      1      5    0.5
AR         0      1      0      0      1      2      4    0.4
QC         0      0      1      2      0      1      4    0.4
VI         0      0      1      2      0      1      4    0.4
NNY        0      1      0      1      1      1      4    0.4
PAC        0      0      2      0      2      0      4    0.4
SB         0      1      2      1      0      0      4    0.4
RI         0      0      1      2      0      1      4    0.4
MS         0      0      1      0      1      1      3    0.3
NE         0      0      0      0      1      2      3    0.3
DE         0      0      0      1      2      0      3    0.3
AB         0      1      1      1      0      0      3    0.3
PR         0      0      1      0      0      2      3    0.3
ND         0      0      0      1      2      0      3    0.3
NWT        0      0      1      0      0      1      2    0.2
MB         0      0      0      1      1      0      2    0.2
NL         0      0      0      1      0      1      2    0.2
------------------------------------------------------
Total      0    108    301    162    280    248   1099

Sweepstakes Checks
Check  QSOs    Pct
----------------------
00     6     0.5
01     1     0.1
02     2     0.2
03     2     0.2
04     1     0.1
05     6     0.5
06     5     0.5
07     3     0.3
08     3     0.3
09     3     0.3
10     5     0.5
11    10     0.9
12     7     0.6
13     4     0.4
14     6     0.5
15     2     0.2
16     5     0.5
17     5     0.5
18     7     0.6
19     6     0.5
20     5     0.5
21     4     0.4
22     5     0.5
23     3     0.3
24     3     0.3
25     2     0.2
26     3     0.3
27     6     0.5
28     2     0.2
29     1     0.1
30     4     0.4
31     2     0.2
32     7     0.6
33     5     0.5
34     3     0.3
35     1     0.1
36     1     0.1
37     3     0.3
38     3     0.3
39     7     0.6
40     4     0.4
41     1     0.1
42     3     0.3
43     2     0.2
44     5     0.5
45     0     0.0
46     3     0.3
47     5     0.5
48     5     0.5
49     4     0.4
50     2     0.2
51     7     0.6
52    13     1.2
53    11     1.0
54    24     2.2
55    33     3.0
56    24     2.2
57    27     2.5
58    40     3.6
59    34     3.1
60    37     3.4
61    25     2.3
62    46     4.2
63    30     2.7
64    19     1.7
65    21     1.9
66    23     2.1
67    18     1.6
68    27     2.5
69    31     2.8
70    32     2.9
71    28     2.5
72    33     3.0
73    22     2.0
74    16     1.5
75    23     2.1
76    36     3.3
77    30     2.7
78    20     1.8
79    16     1.5
80     8     0.7
81     6     0.5
82     9     0.8
83    11     1.0
84    10     0.9
85     3     0.3
86    13     1.2
87    10     0.9
88     6     0.5
89     7     0.6
90     9     0.8
91     9     0.8
92     9     0.8
93     7     0.6
94     5     0.5
95     9     0.8
96    10     0.9
97     7     0.6
98     8     0.7
99     4     0.4

U.S. Call Areas Worked
Area    QSOs     Pct
--------------------
0     117    10.6
1      93     8.5
2      95     8.6
3      98     8.9
4     136    12.4
5      93     8.5
6     125    11.4
7     116    10.6
8      69     6.3
9     105     9.6
--------------------
Total   1047    95.3

Sweepstakes Precedents
Precedent  QSOs    Pct
----------------------
A      479    43.6
B      227    20.7
Q       90     8.2
M       34     3.1
U      264    24.0
S        5     0.5

So that's where they eat!

A text message from my wife today:

N1MM Logger and Sweepstakes - QLF

While operating CW Sweepstakes this year, I forgot that N1MM requires that you type the serial number and precedence without a space in between them, if the fields are typed out of order. When using a prefill file, you are typing things out of order most of the time, because the check and section are auto-populated from the prefill.

For example, if I type W6YX in the input field, and press space, the entry field will auto-populate with:

24 SCV

Then if W6YX sends me "74 S W6YX 24 SCV" I have to remember to type:

74S

rather than

74 S

If I type the latter, the contact gets incorrectly logged with a serial number of 24 and a check of 74.

I didn't realize until after the contest that I'd done this, and at first I thought my log was toast. However, the "damage" is regular and can be fixed up by applying the following algorithm:

for each log entry:
if serial number in log == check from prefill file
  swap check and serial number

Note that this only affects contact where the serial number is less than 100, because N1MM knows that's not a valid check and does the right thing.

It also doesn't affect contacts where the prefill data was wrong and I copied the whole exchange, because it uses the last two numbers typed as the serial number and check, which is, again, the right thing.

Here is a Download link. You'll need Python 2.X. Just run the program to get help.

WooHoo and SS 2011 Prep

I won this with a relatively modest phone score (1,027 QSOs and a clean sweep for a score of 164,320) compared to the winners in the B category (K1ZM@VY2ZM had a score of 349,022), but I'm very happy with the wallpaper. To be fair, many of the NCCC heavy hitters were doing split-site operations to maximize the club score, and if you add their two station scores together, they are way larger than mine.

I also only made this score because Kevin, AD6Z, shared his station with me. He's SO2R-capable, so we split his station in two and shared antennas (of which he has many, on 3 towers), and he let me use his spare amplifier. And he gave me the best band most of the time.

This year, I'll be doing a solo unlimited-category effort from Kevin's place for the CW weekend, and we'll be sharing the station for phone like last year. I went up to his place this evening to get my K3 and computer plugged in, and was reminded of how great his antenna farm is. It was about 10pm local time and I was tuning across 40 meters when I copied an ES and a YO. I never hear Europe on 40 from my home shack, but at Kevin's place they were 5X9. It's a different world up in the mountains with 40m beams.

Goals For 2011

• Equal my CW QSO total from last year (about 1200 QSOs). This might be tough, as I did a split-site operation last year, but it's a good stretch goal.
• Equal my Phone score from last year. I'm setting a modest goal because I want to give Kevin the best bands this year, since he gave me the good ones last year. Hopefully he will have tons and tons of tech licencees to work on 10 Meters this year.

Woohoo!

NAQP CW 2011 Winter

I really should do a full-time effort in this contest some time. Even from my little home QTH with 100w and wire antennas, I was able to maintain 50/hr rate for the 4 hours I operated. Summary:

Band QSOs Pts Sec NA
1.8    18  18   6 1
3.5    88  88  30 0
7      39  39  28 1
14     34  34  20 1
21     21  21  12 0
28      5   5   4 0
Total 205 205 100 3
Score: 21,115

I really enjoy this "back to basics" contest - low power, no spotting, other then M/2. Having these things off the table really focuses me on basic radio skills. Don't get me wrong - I am a big fan of technology - but there is something cool about getting in that groove, whether you're running or S&Ping, and it's all about the wetware between your ears.