Many of my friends know that my favorite operating event of the year is the ARRL November CW Sweepstakes. It seems my entire ham radio year revolves around this oldest of ham radio contests. This past 2024 edition of the contest continues my love for CW, contesting, and of course CHILI!
Contest Chili
Every year, I make what I call “contest chili” the Friday before the contest. Chili is my favorite food, and I enjoy making it. I try to change things up somewhat in my recipe, but this year I stuck to the traditional way I make it.
My chili recipe is pretty simple, 1lb of hamburger, 1lb of Italian Sausage, chili powder, cumin, Rotel Chili Fixins, and Three Bean Blend Beans (Black beans, Dark and Light Kidney Beans). I also like to add Chipotle Tabasco Sauce to taste. I have been making it this way for a while and it seems to be a favorite for those who come over to partake in it.
Once the chili is done, I bring some over to my elmer’s house, and this year, a good friend and fellow contester join us for our annual Sweepstakes toast! I brought over some of my Clean Sweep mugs to fill with coffee for the toast. A recent tradition is watching a few episodes of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon to help bag that elusive TER section. Will it work this year like in years past?
The Calm Before the Storm
The day of the contest, I like to do a little cleanup of the shack, take a nice shower, and put on comfortable clothes. I make sure all of my equipment and software are working correctly and get things ready for the start time of 5pm eastern time. This year, as last year, I decided to call CQ from the start to allow pad my speed. Since I participate in the Unlimited Class (where you can use spotting networks), I scan the DX clusters for new sections I need to work.
I have not done SO2R, but I do use a technique where I call CQ, watch the cluster for known sections and when I see one, I switch over to the band that the section was spotted, work them, and move back to the band I was calling CQ on. This has helped me in the past and it worked this year too.
Go time approaches. I call my elmer on 146.415 simplex for a quick chat 15 minutes before the contest starts. He is also Unlimited and we use that frequency for spots and assistance for new sections.
Day 1 – Go Time!
My strategy with Sweepstakes is to get as many sections as possible in the first session while calling CQ. I find a clear frequency on 15M and begin to call CQ. My first section that comes back is EMA. The second is NNY, a difficult section to obtain! Nice to get that out of the way. I see AB appear on the cluster on 10M, so I switch over to work them. Back to 15M to continue calling CQ. OK, EWA, CO, MN, WWA all bagged. Then I get my elmer return to my call. OH is now in the bag. I notice that TER appeared on 15M so I switch over to the other VFO, move the beam, and work TER. Good to get that out of the way!
Working more stations on 15M from calling CQ, I am starting to get into a rhythm. CW starts to flow very well. Early in a contest, it is fun to see which stations are coming back to you. It allows to see how propagation is doing. I usually keep my beam pointed west towards the setting sun to get many of the western sections I can. I notice AK appear on the cluster on 10M, so I quickly switch over to get that section.
Only after an hour in the contest, I already have 23 sections down including some more difficult sections. This is starting well! I continue to calling CQ and bouncing to spots as they come in.
I continue this run with rates up to 81 QSOs an hour. I am noticing early on that there are stations way ahead on their QSO count. No matter, I am competing against myself, and according to my log from last year, I am ahead.
As the sun starts to set, I start moving down to 20M. Finding it not too productive (even though I got some new sections) I settled on 40M. I spent the rest of the time on 40 with some dabbling with 80.
I decide to call it for the first session of the contest at around 3:41 in the morning. Time to get some sleep. 80 sections bagged and 309 contacts in the log. A nice start to this year’s contest with plenty of time to get the remaining sections and get more contacts for a high score.
Day 2
The next morning, I wake up later than I intended. In the past, I usually get about 4 to 5 hours of sleep, but this time I start at 12:30pm. I will need to catch up! I began by hunting and pouncing looking for the remaining 10 sections. I captured NB on 15M, now 9 sections left to go. I then find NL on 10M, 8 sections to go.
I begin calling CQ on 20M to start catching up on my QSO count (and score). This is when I noticed a SB station calling and went to get them. The station was not very strong and they had quite a bit of a pileup. Finally was able to get them. Another section down, 7 to go.
Back to calling CQ on 20M to get more QSOs in the log. I still need more sections so while working stations, I watch the cluster. Thankfully, the remaining sections roll in while calling CQ and I was down to one section: ONN.
Sweep!
One of the techniques I use is utilize the Reverse Beacon Network to look for sections I need (I use previous year logs to find callsigns for the sections I need). One ONN station that I have worked in the past is VE3ZI so I looked for them in RBN. I am still calling CQ and monitoring th RBN page. Then it happens! VE3ZI appears on 20M!
Since they just started calling CQ, I was one of the first stations to get them with no pileup. QSO number 379, section ONN. All sections filled in. At 2:55PM EST I obtained my SWEEP!
Now that the sweep was secured, it was time to pad my contacts and score, however, I wanted to help my elmer get his first sweep ever. So using my technique of using the Reverse Beacon Network, I start to find out what sections he needed. After a couple hours of doing this, he was able to get close to a sweep, but he was having a hard time trying to get new sections. So I began to call CQ again to get my count up.
When I jumped back in, I started on 20M. I was at 379 QSOs so I was behind from the previous year’s QSO count. 20M was not productive for me, so at QSO 401, I went to 40M and decided to stay there as 40 is always a productive band late in the contest.
On 40M I started to catch up to last year’s count. The last contact was from IA and we completed the QSO right at the ending bell. The final count was 581 contacts, 4 shy of last year’s count.
Post Mortem
My first goal is to always get a clean sweep and I was able to meet that goal. My second goal is to beat my previous year’s score. Even though I was short of last year’s goal, it was still a productive sweepstakes for me. I wanted to help my elmer get his first clean sweep, and I probably spent too much time doing that, but that is ok. It is fun chasing down those sections for him and hearing him bag them.
I think the biggest thing that prevented me from beating last year’s score is that I got up late on Sunday morning. This late start got me behind early even though when finished the previous session I was ahead.
My best QSO rate was 81 after I had dinner. I never got my rate higher than that. Late in the contest, my rate remained pretty steady to allow me to catch up some. If I had an extra hour, I would have broken 600 qsos.
One of the nice things about N3FJP’s contest software is a feature called Hamdash. It shows where you rank amoungst other contesters using his software. At the end of the contest, my final rank was 3rd behind my buddy Tom, K8TW. Of course, this is not indicative of all stations because most use software like N1MM+ which has become somewhat of a standard for most contesters, but it is still fun to see others on Hamdash.
I do plan to participate in the SSB Sweepstakes, but it is not as fun as the CW Sweepstakes.