Operator(s): KM6I
Station: AD6Z
Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: Los Gatos, CA
Operating Time (hrs): 23
Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 64
40: 299
20: 351
15: 365
10: 6
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Total: 1085 Sections = 83 Total Score = 180,110
Club: Northern California Contest Club
Comments:
Many many thanks to my station host Kevin, AD6Z, for letting my use his amplifiers and aluminum farm again this year. Like previous years, Kevin provided me a local skimmer to feed me spots. He also heroically pulled a Macgyver when the wireless connectivity to my laptop failed, and built a wireless bridge from a Netgear router and some open-source software. And then when the amplifier failed he built a new one from a coat hanger, some aluminum foil, and a potato. Ok, I made that up. But the wireless bridge thing is true.
Elecraft K3 + AL-1200B
80M dipoles (E/W, N/S) @ 110'
2 el 40 (2)
5 el 20
5/5 el 15
5 el 10
When I sat down to plan for this contest, I looked back at last year's score and noticed that I was 17th place nationally in Single-Op Unlimited HP. Delusions of grandeur led me to calculate that if I could improve my score by 6%, I might crack the top ten and get my call listed in QST. And then I calculated that if I added 130 more QSOs and got an 83-section clean sweep, it would put me at 200,000 points, so I set that as my stretch goal. I created a target rate sheet for the stretch goal so I could track my hour-by-hour progress.
I also did a few things to reduce the number of QLFs, including using a full-size keyboard instead of the built-in mini keyboard on the netbook I use for logging. I also used a second, larger monitor to let me have larger bandmaps on screen. Last year I only used the netbook screen and the bandmap was just too short vertically to see new calls unless they were close to my run frequency.
I made sure to find a good run frequency about 15 minutes before the contest and occupied it right up until the bell. That paid off, with rates the first two hours of 94 and 84 vs 76 and 76 last year. I was excited to be slightly ahead of my stretch goal after the first two hours.
I stayed pretty close to my goal rate most of Saturday, and tried to use N1MM's SO2V support to get S&P QSOs queued up on the KRX3 subreceiver during slow times. I actually managed to grab a couple of extra Qs that way, and only lost my run frequency once. It was good to discover that managing the separate audio streams in each ear didn't cause my head to explode.
Saturday night I started to fall behind my goals pretty significantly, and I decided to stop at 12:30am local time instead of 1am like last year, hoping that starting at 5:30 would give me more time on 20 when the east coasters were there. I had 660 Qs in the log and was missing only RI.
When I got started at 1330Z Sunday morning, 20 wasn't happening yet, so I ended up starting on 40 and did pretty well, with 27 QSOs in 30 minutes. Maybe it was still a good choice despite 20 not working. I moved up to 20 at 1400Z and got called by RI for the sweep at 1419.
Later, though, things really started to come apart. The bump in rate I saw at 1600Z last year never materialized, and I kept sliding backwards toward my totals from last year. It really felt like I'd worked everyone, and everything the skimmer was seeing (and that I could find by tuning around) was a dupe. Switching bands every now and then would find a few fresh-meat calls being devoured by bloodthirsty pileups, and CQing on that band would produce little bursts of rate, but it wasn't enough to keep me on track. I kept at it, watching for new calls to pop up on the skimmer and pouncing on them.
Sunday afternoon, Kevin and I noticed that many of the big guns were showing skimmer spots on two bands at once - probably using dueling CQ mode on their SO2R setups.
Finally, at 0200Z after CQing on 80 meters for 10 minutes straight without a call, and staring at a bandmap full of grey, I decided to call it quits. On the bright side, I got home in time to say goodnight to my kids.
In retrospect, having the rate goals was motivating for the most part, and I'm glad I used them, even though it was frustrating on Sunday. I saw some 3830 soapbox comments where people felt like participation was down about 10% from last year. So maybe staying even with last year's rate was actually an improvement. The sweep might be at risk from log-checking, though, as I only have one contact each for NNY, ONN, and PR.
Looking at the 3830 claimed scores, I'm sitting in
Thanks for the QSOs everyone!
-Gordon
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Rate Goals vs. Actual:
Hour 2011 Goal Actual
---- ---- ---- ------
2100 76 85 94
2200 152 169 178
2300 227 254 231
0000 297 331 316
0100 352 392 380
0200 414 462 448
0300 473 527 498
0400 509 568 551
0500 560 625 595
0600 607 677 640
0700 643 717 660
0800 643 717 660
0900 643 717 660
1000 643 717 660
1100 643 717 660
1200 643 717 660
1300 643 717 687
1400 690 770 738
1500 733 818 776
1600 786 877 823
1700 836 933 855
1800 873 973 896
1900 901 1005 923
2000 933 1041 951
2100 960 1072 975
2200 988 1102 1002
2300 1022 1140 1031
0000 1052 1172 1068
0100 1078 1202 1085
0200 1099 1226 1085
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 94 0 94 94 8.7
2200 0 0 0 0 84 0 84 178 16.4
2300 0 0 0 34 19 0 53 231 21.3
0000 0 0 0 85 0 0 85 316 29.1
0100 0 0 37 27 0 0 64 380 35.0
0200 0 0 68 0 0 0 68 448 41.3
0300 0 0 50 0 0 0 50 498 45.9
0400 0 0 53 0 0 0 53 551 50.8
0500 0 11 33 0 0 0 44 595 54.8
0600 0 40 5 0 0 0 45 640 59.0
0700 0 13 7 0 0 0 20 660 60.8
0800 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 660 60.8
0900 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 660 60.8
1000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 660 60.8
1100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 660 60.8
1200 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 660 60.8
1300 0 0 27 0 0 0 27 687 63.3
1400 0 0 0 51 0 0 51 738 68.0
1500 0 0 0 24 14 0 38 776 71.5
1600 0 0 0 30 17 0 47 823 75.9
1700 0 0 0 14 17 1 32 855 78.8
1800 0 0 0 0 41 0 41 896 82.6
1900 0 0 0 1 25 1 27 923 85.1
2000 0 0 0 11 17 0 28 951 87.6
2100 0 0 0 14 6 4 24 975 89.9
2200 0 0 0 1 26 0 27 1002 92.4
2300 0 0 0 24 5 0 29 1031 95.0
0000 0 0 3 34 0 0 37 1068 98.4
0100 0 0 16 1 0 0 17 1085 100.0
0200 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1085 100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 0 64 299 351 365 6 1085
Gross QSOs=1095 Dupes=10 Net QSOs=1085
Unique callsigns worked = 1085
The best 60 minute rate was 95/hour from 2342 to 0041
The best 30 minute rate was 104/hour from 2103 to 2132
The best 10 minute rate was 120/hour from 2112 to 2121
The best 1 minute rates were:
3 QSOs/minute 10 times.
2 QSOs/minute 204 times.
1 QSOs/minute 647 times.
There were 30 bandchanges and 1 (0.1%) probable 2nd radio QSOs.
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