ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB 21 Nov 2009

ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB 2100Z, Nov 21 to 0300Z, Nov 23
Saturday afternoon thru Sunday evening (@9 PM local)

Mark your Calendars Now !

steve

While preparing for this year I look back at what happened in last year's ARRL SS Phone Contest

Last year we had a false start with some equipment problems that kept us off the air for the first hour.

The First hour or two are always the most intense in a contest and very true in Sweepstakes.
Rick AE5T and His Son N5OZB beat us out of first place in the state as well as our ARRL Division by just over one hundred Q's (106 q's to be exact)

So we were right on their heels !
A good hour and a half with a Q rate of 90 or more an hour and we could have maintained our status in First place in State and Division

Things were a bit more competitive for the region box...........

Foremost we still maintained showing in this Box
however we fell from 2006 fourth place to fifth , still a respectable finish

Again look at how close this race was !!!

KA1ARB 219,840 M (1374 QSO's)
AE5T (N5OZB, op) 182,560 M (1141 QSO's)
W5JJ 174,880 M (1093 QSO's)
W8JI 166,058 M (1051 QSO's)
KG5VK 165,440 M (1034 QSO's)

Sweepstakes Multi-op style is always fun for me
of course like most that enter contest we love to place high in the finish
This Year I believe the competition will even be tougher
with our founding members of the Louisiana Contest Club challenging
all of us for a place in that Region, Division and State places.

And of course this is the 75th year of ARRL SS
and there will be more activity than there has in recent years, possible more OPS on than ever before.
Providing even higher Q counts for everyone.
In the past our target QSO count for finish was often 1500, this year we need to shoot even higher !

ARRL SS Phone is the week-end of 15 November
The contest starts at 1500 local time that Saturday

73
steve
KG5VK

3	AE5T (N5OZB, op)	182,560	1,141	80	M	LA	89	24		78	470	537	56			(+ packet)
4	W5JJ	174,880	1,093	80	M	AR	97	22		419	213	418	43			(+ K5DB)
5	KG5VK	165,440	1,034	80	M	LA	72	24		390	76	542	26		Shreveport ARA	(+ KA5M, KF5XV, N5VU, N5FH, N5SH, K5SL)

Is attendance at a contest operation worth your time ?

Even if your not an HF op

There is a lot that non HF ops can do during the contest
but the most important thing is to come and have fun !

Things to do during an HF contest if you either do not want to operate or are just not sure if your fast enough or a proficient HF op......

Monitor the bands on The Multi-Op finder rig
looking for band openings and needed multipliers
In sweepstakes there are 80 multipliers available and the team is eligible for the prestigious Sweepstakes mugs once we work all of those multipliers
(In SS The multipliers are ARRL and Canadian Sections for example many states are divided into several ARRL sections) A couple of the hardest sections to work over recent years has been Alaska and North West Terittory (in Canada)

There will also be periods where the contact rate falls way below 60 -90 QSO's per hour !
and even ops that are not fast or real proficient get to work the rigs alongside a more experienced contester (many dedicated contesters including myself started by watching and learning this way)

Several ops show up just for a few hours to watch us dedicated contesters run the rate count whay up over 100 conteacts per hour, visit the antenna farm and tour the shack just before the contest starts or simply enjoy the wide range of "Contest Ala Gourmier Food" we have on hand

One word of caution......
Contesting is an addictive sport !

73
steve
KG5VK

Mark your Calendar Now !!!!!!!

The 75th year of the ARRL Sweepstakes contest is this year

I will again hoist a team effort during the Phone contest week-end
Mark those calendars for

November 15 - 17

ARRL November Sweepstakes (Phone)

This week-end I am heading to The Paris Texas Hamfest where I will purchase a few more items to complete the build of my new 75 meter Bi-Square antenna

I will have a Shack familiarization open house early either late this month or a week before the Phone week-end

If you have not yet played in this great contest and are interested in joining our team simply send me an email !

73
Steve
KG5VK

congrats to AE5T and N5OZB for 1st place Delta and Louisiana in ARRL SS phone

#	Call	Score	QSOs	Mult	Class	Section	Check	Hours	160	80	40	20	15	10	Club	Ops
1	AE5T (N5OZB, op)	182,560	1,141	80	M	LA	89	24		78	470	537	56			(+ packet)
2	W5JJ	174,880	1,093	80	M	AR	97	22		419	213	418	43			(+ K5DB)
3	KG5VK	165,440	1,034	80	M	LA	72	24		390	76	542	26		Shreveport ARA	(+ KA5M, KF5XV, N5VU, N5FH, N5SH, K5SL)
4	AB5GG	112,970	715	79	M	AR	91	22		293	153	251	18			(+ WF5X)
5	NW5U	106,400	665	80	M	AR	92	18		339	122	159	45			(+ NW8U, KC0NLQ)

A couple of OPS at the Helm of KG5VK during ARRL SS

Ray AD5ZT
making his first ever DX Phone contact
during a visit to KG5vk

N5VU Marcel & Ka5M Marsh
at
KG5VK
During ARRL Sweepstakes Phone Contest 2007

Rate is the name of the game, QSO Rate in ARRL SS

here is a vital excerpt from the MAD River Contest Club SS handbook.........

High power SS is almost 100% a rate contest. You need to call CQ constantly to finish well.
Maintaining a run frequency is an art unto itself, but here are a few tips:

• Adjust your CQ to your current audience. If signals are loud and the rate is good, you can
shorten up your CQs. If conditions are poor (perhaps on the low bands with QRN) or the rate is
slow, you may need to slow down and lengthen your CQ to draw attention to your signal.

• The best way to hold a frequency is to be making QSOs quickly.
While this might seem obvious,
there are things you can do to make this happen.
Keep your exchange short, and don’t repeat anything unless asked.
Again, tailor your technique to the audience you think is there.

• If a frequency dries up, but you don’t want to change bands,
try a different place in the band.
Vary your CQing spot in the band by trying down low, up high, or somewhere in the middle.
With one radio, if you’re S&Ping then you’re at best holding your own and at worst losing the
contest. With two radios you can CQ on one radio and S&P on the second.

With high power, if you are doing a good job of making yourself available to QSO, most of the
section multipliers will come to you. Don’t start to worry about multipliers until the second half of the contest.

Usually, you’ll end the first day with a section count in the mid-seventies, which leaves
only a few to worry about.

However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t feel a little kick if a
difficult section calls in early or on an unexpected band. (In the 1996 CW SS, VY1JA called K8CC
on 3518 the first night!)

In reality, none of the sections are difficult to work as long as there is
reasonable activity from that section. These days there are permanent and rental contest stations in PR and VI, which typically makes them easy to work.

Often, there will be one or more Canadian sections (never including Ontario) which proves elusive, particularly on CW.
If you hear any of these, work ‘em now - you might not hear them later. 􀀀

A few Tips from the MAD River SS Handbook

Marsh KA5M pointed me to a couple of Blogs

One of which contains a note about the K4JNY station dismantling
this is Big news to us as they are the ones that had been bumping us from first place in our division and keeping us down in the region box !
Read more here

the important part is..............

" I'm gathering things I need from the piles of stuff from the K4JNY station teardown, "

The other Blog contains the Mad River Radio Club Sweepstakes Handbook
which I highly recommend every SS Op read

here is some important excerpts from the from of the manuscript.....
(the first example most of us LA folks know but read on....)
-------------------------------------------------------------

It is important to become familiar with the names, territories, and official abbreviations for the
various ARRL sections because there are opportunities for ambiguities and confusion, which lead
to errors in logging. For example:

• “Los Angeles County” is a section and most people associate Los Angeles with “LA”. However
“LA” is the abbreviation for the state of Louisiana; Los Angles County is “LAX”. Your logging
program will most likely accept “LA” as the section for a W6 since a callsign can appear from
just about any section these days. But keep in mind that when the ARRL scores your log, it
counts “LA” as Louisiana and if that’s wrong, you lose the QSO.

Other sections with similar
names are Orange County (ORG) and the state of Oregon (OR), San Diego County (SDG) and
the state of South Dakota (SD). Ambiguous state combinations abound: Arkansas (AR) and
Arizona (AZ), Alaska (AK) and Alabama (AL), and the quadruple-header of Michigan (MI),
Minnesota (MN), Missouri (MO) and Mississippi (MS).

• The California sections “Sacramento Valley” and “Santa Clara Valley” sound very similar, but
the abbreviation for the former is “SV” and the latter is “SCV”. Transpose the two and you lose
the QSO as well.

• It’s not uncommon for a Canadian station in one of the sections comprised of combined
provinces to give his province as the exchange rather than the section name. In SS most
logging programs will not accept a province abbreviation which is not a section. Most people
will substitute the section name; so if you hear a NB, NS or PEI substitute MAR and for YT, NWT or NU the abbreviation NT should be substituted.

• Hawaii, and all of the US possessions in the Pacific Ocean are grouped under the Pacific
section, abbreviation “PAC”. In the Caribbean Ocean, Puerto Rico is a section (abbreviation
“PR”) and the Virgin Islands are a section (abbreviation “VI”). Guantanamo Bay (KG4) is
included as part of VI.

Listed on the next page in this manuscript are the names and official abbreviations for
the eighty ARRL sections.
Become familiar with the names and abbreviations, and perhaps we can avoid
having a busted exchange deleted from our SS log.
----------------------------------------------------------------

N1MM Contest software how to videos....

At KG5VK we are using N1MM contest software for Sweepstakes
the link below is a site that has a set of videos on use of this software

while some of the video is jerky is is a good over view of the features
esp chapters 3-4

click here

73
steve
KG5VK

Sweepstakes getting ready..........

ARRL SS Rules High Lights

Work Stations ONCE regardless of band

Unlimited band changes for Multi-Op teams

Multi-Op SINGLE Transmitter

(only one transmit signal at any time)

24 hours total operation time out of the 30 hour period

(Off time in 30 minutes increments or more)

Time OFF strategy for KG5VK

Barring a Saturday afternoon/Evening Thunderstorm that QRT’s us we will QRT for 4 hours of sleep at 1 AM Sunday Morning

Returning to the air as sun rises at 5 AM

This leaves us Four 30 minute off periods that may be taken Saturday or Sunday

Band changes

Use the highest frequency band that is open

For Running the Q’s we need a high QSO rate to break past scores and maintain our first place in the Delta Division and move a notch or two higher in the regional listing box

We were fifth in the region and second in the division 2005,

last year (2006) we were fourth in the region and first place in the division as well as first in our state – all with out getting a Sweep yes we busted the call on one of the multipliers !

Bottom line here is we need to break the 1,500 QSO wall !

1500 divided by 24 hours = 62.5 Q’s per hour

Yes we remain competitive if we stay above 1100 Q’s

2006

Call Score QSOs Mult Class Section Check Hours

KG5VK 165,268 1,046 79 M LA 72 24

160 80 40 20 15 10

0 80 449 418 99 0

2005 first year we made the region box !

Call Score QSOs Mult Class Section Check Hours

KG5VK 165,280 1,033 80 M LA 72 23

160 80 40 20 15 10

0 98 415 344 176 0

2004 No region Box and k4jny from Tennessee beat us out of 1^st for Delta division

Call Score QSOs Mult Class Section Check Hours

KG5VK 187,704 1,188 79 M LA 72 24

160 80 40 20 15 10

0 10 387 513 278 0

2003 I was single Op High power this year !

Call Score QSOs Mult Class Section Check Hours

KG5VK 133,526 856 78 A LA 72 24

160 80 40 20 15 10

0 196 44 314 302 0

After 2005 I worked to ensure we would have better antenna choices for 80 (75meters) and I also added a second 40m beam at a much lower height

I also invested in Propagation software tools to help ensure we don’t over look a Ten meter band opening

KG5VK Sweepstakes Team members are encouraged to watch the cluster and the prop software computers when not operating and help us be on the right band and not miss a ten meter opening – I totally blew catching a great albeit short opening during 2005 on ten meters !

Steve

One of the best articles on SweepStakes I have seen

and it is right here on the world wide web

click here

ARRL Phone Sweepstakes is November 17, 2007
Are you Scheduled to Operate this year at KG5VK ???

I am building the Op List now
email me and I will ensure your on the list

73
Steve
KG5VK