1995 ARRL Sweepstakes CW
K5ZD, Single Op, High Power
Randall A. Thompson, K5ZD
k5zd@contesting.com
Summary Sheet
ARRL SWEEPSTAKES -- 1995
Call: K5ZD Section: Western Mass
Mode: CW Category: Single Operator High Power
BAND QSO QSO PTS SECTIONS
160 0 0 -
80 274 548 -
40 827 1654 -
20 242 484 -
15 19 38 -
10 0 0 -
-----------------------------------
Totals 1362 2724 77
Score: 209,748
Commentary
SS CW is my favorite contest! Although I recall it being much more fun from NTX than from WMA!
Contest started very slowly. Was CQing on 40 and tuning on 20. 15 was near dead. Went to 80 early just because 40 didn’t seem to be producing too well. When I finally went to 40, quickly realized I may have been on the wrong band! Was just going through the motions until 40 opened. My back was constantly reminding me that I had just done 44+ hours of DX contesting only six days earlier (another sign I am getting old, never used to notice this!).
Great condx on 40 Sat night. Good signals from coast to coast. Skip zone was ONLY about 200 miles. This made for some good rates that got me mentally back in the contest.
Did 2 radio stuff the whole weekend. But unlike past years, didn’t find as many QSOs on the 2nd rig. Many times I would tune for up to 10 mins without finding a new station to work. Meanwhile, the CQing radio would continue a steady 40/hr rate.
Operated non-stop to 0940z. Decided I would go until the rate dropped. Could have stayed on, but 12:40 hours is a long stint in the chair without getting up. Back on at 12Z for a much better than expected hour.
I have about decided that the rates on Sunday just keep going down. So my strategy was to operate as long as rate stayed above 40/hr. Second off time was at 1800z. So I operated 18:40 of the first 21:00 hours! This left me the luxury of being able to kill lots of off time all afternoon and evening. It becomes a game of hoping that the competition doesn’t catch up.
Found the KP2 on 15m Sunday morning while tuning with the 2nd rig. Got him on the first call. Didn’t think anything of it until I heard all the horror stories later about the pile-up. Was worried about VE5 until got 3 of them Sun afternoon. Worked about 6 ME stations on 40 Sunday.
The last section was NWT. Found VY1JA at 14001 (tnx to tip from KR0Y) but it was a mess and he was very weak. Didn’t expect to make a sweep anyway so decided to concentrate on QSOs. A little later I was CQing on 14051 and very happy to have VE8NC call in. My first sweep in 3 years!
This is a challenging contest from W1. First you get to listen to the W5 and west guys run way ahead. Then they seem to disappear on Sunday morning so you almost catch up (and visions of Top Ten dance in your head). But then Sunday afternoon the bands go long and its over. Gotta find a way to squeeze another 50 QSOs out of the first 6 hours in order to have a chance.
Congrats to KZ2S at N2NT for top Northeast score. And to K1TO for pushing me all the way. New Division Record makes it worthwhile.
Here’s the numbers…
Rate Sheet
HOUR 80 40 20 15 10 HR TOT CUM TOT 2nd Radio 21 ..... 55/23 23/17 ..... ..... 78/40 78/40 13 22 . 6/3 70/14 1/0 . 77/17 155/57 7 23 33/1 18/2 27/2 . . 78/5 233/62 18 0 67/3 . 13/3 . . 80/6 313/68 13 1 16/0 58/1 . . . 74/1 387/69 3 2 7/0 77/1 . . . 84/1 471/70 7 3 3/0 79/0 . . . 82/0 553/70 3 4 8/0 60/0 . . . 68/0 621/70 8 5 16/0 36/0 ..... ..... ..... 52/0 673/70 16 6 37/0 13/0 . . . 50/0 723/70 11 7 36/0 8/0 . . . 44/0 767/70 8 8 8/0 33/1 . . . 41/1 808/71 8 9 3/0 27/0 . . . 30/0 838/71 3 10 . . . . . . 838/71 . 11 . 1/0 . . . 1/0 839/71 . 12 5/0 51/0 . . . 56/0 895/71 5 13 1/0 47/1 2/0 ..... ..... 50/1 945/72 3 14 . 48/2 2/0 . . 50/2 995/74 2 15 . 50/0 4/0 . . 54/0 1049/74 4 16 . 43/0 1/0 4/1 . 48/1 1097/75 5 17 . 34/0 7/0 6/0 . 47/0 1144/75 13 18 . 6/0 9/0 . . 15/0 1159/75 6 19 . . 23/0 5/1 . 28/1 1187/76 5 20 . . 19/0 1/0 . 20/0 1207/76 1 21 ..... 27/0 8/0 2/0 ..... 37/0 1244/76 10 22 . 16/0 5/0 . . 21/0 1265/76 5 23 . 9/0 28/1 . . 37/1 1302/77 8 0 3/0 . 1/0 . . 4/0 1306/77 1 1 16/0 1/0 . . . 17/0 1323/77 1 2 15/0 24/0 . . . 39/0 1362/77 14 TOT 274/4 827/34 242/37 19/2 ..... ..... 1362/77 201