I Really Love a Good Contest. Pat, I'd like to buy a vowel"

Well, I really enjoyed the IARU contest Saturday.  I enjoy working almost all of the big contests, but this one and the CQWW are the best for me.  I also like to work some of the state QSO parties, and I especially like the California QSO Party.  On most contest days I have a pipeline into California, and that always makes for a big score.  For the IARU I made 105 contacts for a claimed score of 13776 points, and that makes me a very little gun indeed.  I submitted my log this afternoon without fear of winning any awards, but simply as a check log for all the hopefuls out there.

And, of course, all the big guns as well as some of the medium guns were there.  There were the HQ stations and the real gentleman who was running the W1AW/6 station.  For the most part all I heard was courtesy and HAMS helping other HAMS get through the process.  There were, as you might expect, a few jerks, some who were just nasty to the new people and others that tune up on the frequencies of the more desirable contacts.  One guy bothered me enough that I went to take a look at his QRZ page to see what he was all about.  He stated that contesting and competition was all he cared about.  One phrase, “If you are reading this because you worked me (probably in a contest) thank you very much for the QSO. It is the people such as you that dial the bands and give out the QSO that makes this fun for all of us.”  This struck me as a “Thanks to all the little people” speech, and I’m sure that this is a guy who sleeps alone.

I would normally use my old Kenwood TS-440 for the contest because I really know my way around it, and it’s always done a good job for me.  But this time I decided to use the TS-480 and, wow, I’m glad I did.  The audio and the filter on the 480 are so far superior to the 440 it’s hard to describe.  It seemed as if I could hear everything with much greater clarity.  I have the voice module installed and even though I am still clumsy with it, I could go back and pull some of the essentials I missed.   That’s something I need to work to improve on. 

This is the first contest I’ve been able to use my new twenty-meter vertical dipole.  I built a 20 meter wire dipole and dragged one end up to the fifty foot level of a tall tree at the back of the property and let the other end hang down.  I tethered the other end at the bottom of the tree.  It worked like gangbusters for me.  I could switch back and forth between the vertical dipole and the 135 foot OCF dipole I have up at the forty-five foot level and on most signals I could hear better with the vertical, and as my Elmer, WA4IGL (now AG4AF) used to say, “If you can’t hear them; you can’t work them.” For forty meters, you can’t beat the big OCF dipole.  I worked a lot of stations on forty in a short period of time.

Lest you think I’m a hard core contester, let me set you straight.  I got a late start on Saturday, because, well, I always get a late start regardless of what day it is.  (I’m retired, and my entire life is a “Staycation!”)  I broke for lunch at two local, took a little nap until four and then worked the contest until midnight.  This morning it was all over while I was getting ready for church.  I enjoy contesting, but I’m not a late night pizza and Pepsi kind of contester!

I hope you had as much fun as I did.  If you didn’t participate, you might want to think about it for next time.  I know there’s a big argument out there for and against contesting, and I try to respect everyone’s viewpoint.   People, this is not life and death; it’s only a hobby.