[Elecraft] K2 #00008 - Sweepstakes 2004 Report

[Tom Hammond]

Well, as always, the SS was a BALL! Even more fun when I'm using the K2.

The first afternoon and evening, the bands were in pretty good condition 
and Qs were plentiful... my rate for the first 8 hours has about 40/hour, 
dropping to about 20/hour for the next 2 hours. Then I slept... ZZzzzzz.

Sunday morning and early afternoon was as anticipated... sheer boredom... 
few new stations to work and calling CQ from the midwest, esp. with 5W, 
doesn't seem to cause much of a pileup... <G>.

Sometime about 2300Z, I started to hear some really aurora-like signals (on 
just about everyone), so tuned the K2 to WWV just in time to get the bad 
news... BIG upheaval in the ionosphere and high levels of perturbation for 
the next 24-36 hours... and the bands were certainly beginning to 
demonstrate just that as signals become more watery by the minute.

By 0100Z (Monday) I'd given up all hope of working the last two sections i 
needed for a Clean Sweep (PAC and NT) but I kept hoping. Then, as if by a 
miracle, there appeared KH7X (Hawaii) to give me PAC _if_ could break thru 
the rather heavy pileup with my QRP signal. Persistence pays off... 
after  about 20 calls (and 20 Q's with others) KH7X finally picked me out 
and I got one of my two remaining needed sections.

I never did hear VY1JA (for the last needed section), but that's OK, I'm 
pretty sure there are a bunch of others who probably missed him as well.

I would up with 585 Q's and 79 sections for a final score of 92,430 points. 
Not quite as good as I'd hoped, but better than I thought I might do, given 
the conditions of the earlier evening.

I heard a bunch of Elecraft owners on in the SS. I hope they were using 
their K1's and K2's.

My Band-by-band QSO Breakdown follows:

  Band   QSOs
   80    163
   40    177
   20    155
   15     87
   10     13
  TOTAL  858

It's not a bad score, but I'm certain there are numerous others who will 
have spanked me badly.

There's always next year... something I've been saying this time on 
November for the past 44 years... hehehe!

73,

Tom   N0SS