ARRL Sweepstakes SSB 2008 - Review
Some critical errors on my part resulted in a less than expected final score. My goal was to make 800 qso’s and get the 80 section sweep, but that plan quickly fell apart Saturday evening. The first critical error was working on the 80m wire antenna Saturday morning. The second critical error was driving over 4 hours round trip to Fredericksburg, VA to picked an amp from W4MYA. Another critical error was attempting to run on 20m at the start of the contest in the middle of Big Gun Alley.
Saturday morning I decided to adjust the center frequency of the 80m wire from 3.650mHz to 3.800mHz. Somehow I did not notice that as I was pulling the one side of the antenna back up, it had become caught on a tree branch and the wire was hanging down into a branch with rain soaked leaves. A quick check of the SWR didn’t register an issue - it was about 1.5:1 at 3.800 - close enough.
The 4 hour trip to Fredericksburg was a mistake because I arrived at home with only minutes to setup the amp, get the tuning numbers sorted, and eat something before the start of the contest. I would have arrived home with the amp with plenty of time to spare had I not decided to stop at KE3Q’s and the AARC’s site - I was in the area so I figured I had plenty of time. Funny how time slips past you while you are stuck in shopping plaza traffic.
I intended to start the contest on 40m since I had some success in the CW contest two weeks earlier. Seeing that 20m was while getting the amp sorted, I decided to give 20m a try. In 2006 I had a great first hour with 64 qso’s. I was able to find a frequency about 5 minutes before the start at 14.206 MHz and started calling CQ making sure everything was setup. Andrew, K3ASK heard me calling CQ and wwe had a quick chat and then the contest started and then the QRM started in - there were some huge signals on either side of me and they were pushing closer and closer. After 15 minutes and only6 qso’s, I decided to drop down to 40m. The first hour only yielded 32 qso’s and a very disappointed contester.
In retrospect, i should have looked closer at my 2006 log and took note that I ran on 14.251 MHz. Up there, I could have had a clear run, but we’ll never know. Next year I’m making a closer study of the data, and to that fact I have assembled a few charts that detail my efforts in the ARRL SS SSB from 2004 forward.