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The 2013 ARRL November Sweepstakes contest is in the books for another year.  The main goal of having fun was successful from my modest basement ham shack and I believe I did pretty well considering. 

I had prepared everything earlier in the morning before a run out to the local shopping mall and lunch with my wife.  With computers and radios on, I sat down just before 21:00 UTC (2 PM local) and began scanning up and down the 20m band.  From the sounds of things, the band seemed to be in pretty good shape and many ops were beginning to stake their claim to their small chunk of the spectrum. 

Just like clockwork, I began hearing KK6L calling CQ Sweeps and quickly logged him as #1 from Eastern Pennsylvania.  I tuned up the band and quickly added Nevada, South Texas, Arkansas and Eastern Mass all within the first few minutes of the contest.  By this time I had also managed to settle into a rhythm with the long exchange.  It was time to try to run a frequency.

However, finding a frequency which wasn’t in use proved to be as elusive as stations operating in Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota and West Texas.  I would tune to a frequency, listen, listen, listen…then ask if the frequency was in use 3-4 times.  Start calling CQ….then get chased away.  After this situation played out 2-3 times and getting a bit too close to those who occupy the space around 14.313, I decided I would just hunt and pounce my way around the bands.

As you can see from the above map (courtesy of the N3FJP Contest logger) I managed to work most of the sections (and US States) and with exception of Delaware, South Carolina, Utah, South Dakota and Wyoming…would have managed WAS in less than 24 hours. 

As I stated at the beginning, band conditions were surprisingly good.  I mostly worked 20 and 40 meters on Saturday.  Then on Sunday I found success in both 10 and 15 meters.  

The final damage after about 8 hours of contesting is as follows:

Total QSO’s: 200
Total Sections Worked: 72
Sections not worked: 11
Total Contest Points: 28,800

Contacts by Band
40 meters:    18      9%
20 meters: 144    72%
15 meters:    32    16%
10 meters:      6       3%

Looking at a few other statistics.  I worked Santa Clara Valley (SCV) a total of 17 times, followed by Maryland DC with 10.   Looking at state QSO’s, California with 40 Q’s followed by Maryland with 10, Virginia 8 and New York and Texas each at 7.  Finally, 180 Q’s were USA, 16 Canada then Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Is. all one QSO each. 

I wasn’t so surprised to miss working Utah, Wyoming and South Dakota.  However, I was surprised with no contacts in Delaware and South Carolina.  I just simply never heard any stations on the air from the First State and the Palmetto State. 

I’m not sure how my score ranks with other stations running in my category (Alpha), but will submit my log and look forward to finding out.  The other possible silver lining might also come in the form of filling in a few missing states on 20m and 40m ARRL WAS Phone category.  Time will tell…

Until next time…

73 de KDØBIK (Jerry)

Series Six Episode Twenty-Three of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news and Chris Howard (M0TCH) inviews Mike Gloistein GM0HCQ/MM about CW and more in Antarctic.

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ICQ Podcast S06 E23 - CW and more from the Antarctic (17 November 2013)

Conditoins remain excellent on the 10m band. I made several contacts and even had Stateside DX stations reply to my CQs. Two of my contacts were with Elecraft K3 users – don’t often hear K3s on digital though they are the perfect rig for it.

When I’m not actively working stations I like to look at the PSK Reporter reception reports map.  It’s more interesting than WSPR as the reports are of actual PSK31 signals. It’s a pity there isn’t a beacon mode because you have got to transmit or call CQ to see reports of your own signal. At least it is motivation to actually go on the air rather than just lurk!

Take a look at this diabolical interference on the 10m WSPR frequency.

Fortunately it doesn’t seem to affect decoding too much. The PSK31 sub band is free of it too.

I always thought “why don’t more people share their shacks” well when I was approached to create a tour of mine. Its clearly quite a nerve racking thing. Allowing people into your inner sanctum and allowing people to see how you operate and how your equipment is set up is strangely one of the more worrying things Ive done in recent weeks.

Well if you are interested you can see the video here. 1 comment from Sandy – has already requested a further video on the morse keys I have. So in the upcoming days / weeks I will be uploading a amendment video to show what I have.

It’s unusual for me to work a station in Alaska, so I’ve been very happy to make a contact with KL7QZ in Anchorage, on the 12 meter band and at a distance of 3,242 miles @ 3 watts, makes this contact even better…..

I’ve only worked a station in Alaska twice in all the years I’ve been on the radio and I had a great copy (599) on him. He was hearing me at the 339 level but we completed a QSO.

In Alaska they were experiencing a real “heat wave” with the temp being -3 (C) and going down to -10 (C) tonight.

Propagation was terrible according to all the usual forecasts, but I still worked KW7D in New Mexico and I also found HC2IMP in Ecuador (again) on the 10 meter band.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear a “nice crisp chirp” from him this time. If you remember a post from our WV Chapter outing from Hurricane WV, on the first of November, I was hearing a real “growler” at that time.

I’ve not worked a lot of long distance stations the last few months because I’m focusing my energy on the new club; so it was enjoyable to work these unusual stations although they’re not very distant.

I’ve actually enjoyed the QRP contacts even more than in the past.

They’re much more personal than the “handshakes” for DX contacts. Yesterday, after completing a QSO with a QRP station on 30 meters, I was contacted by WV4TN in Knoxville TN. Wayne had many friends living here in Charleston, so knew exactly where I lived, and asked me to say hello to Dave Ellis (WA8WV).

Dave is the guy with a “very nice beam” who offered it’s use to me for some of my QRP contacts when we met at the Parkersburg Hamfest. I was happy to talk to Dave by phone and say hello to him from his friend in Knoxville.

I’m working a lot more stations this year, since 2010, when I first started keeping track of all my contacts.

To date, I have 2,349 QSO’s in the log book. My numbers are also up from “last year” from 472 in the year 2012— to 656 in this year of 2013. (with still 2 months to go before the end of the year).

Not surprisingly, I’ve worked 413 NAQCC members now out of a total of 462 QRP QSO’s.

I might not be working as many DX stations as previously, but with 667 in the log book and 90 countries, I’m OK with those numbers. I’m liking those nice QRP QSO’s very much and they’re equal to all the handshakes I’ve made the last few years.

This afternoon I ventured on the air for the first time in several weeks. Indeed it  is the first time I’ve felt like switching on the radio since my brain tumour removal operation. It was not entirely a good experience.

I thought I’d try digimodes since I would only need to click a few buttons to complete a QSO. But I found the whole experience a bit bewildering. I made two contacts on 20m thinking I was on 10m! And a couple of times I left the other guy waiting for me to send something.

About the only way I can describe how I felt is “out of it” – the phrase sometimes used to describe a person who is so drunk that they don’t know what they are doing. Only unfortunately in this case the demon drink was not to blame.

Somehow I think it is going to take some time for things to get back to normal.