Back to top ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, SSB Call: KE1FO Operator(s): KE1FO Station: KE1FO Class: Single Op LP QTH: VT Operating Time (hrs): 16.5 Radios: SO2R Summary: Band QSOs ------------ 160: 0 80: 68 40: 85 20: 181 15: 116 10: 0 ------------ Total: 450 Sections = 73 Total Score = 65,700 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club Comments: Started off the contest on 15 and 20 as 2 radio S&P. I felt good after the first couple of hours, 84 q's in the bag, all S&P from my tiny gun station. Felt loud enough on these two bands, but could never find a place to settle down and call CQ. Hour 3 only yeilded 24 q's, on 15/20/40M. 40 was killing me - I didn't feel loud anywhere on 40 - lots of loud signals but nobody could hear me! At 0015z I moved one rig to 80M. 80 was just as bad as 40. Lots of loud signals, but nobody could hear me there either. From 0000z until 0333z, when I started my sleep break, I had just 69 q's, mainly on 40 & 80, but a few on 20. My plan had been to operate until 0600z or so, but I was getting tired and I just didn't feel like banging my head on 40/80 any longer so I was off to bed with only 174 q's in the bag. I returned to the rigs at 1045z - revived from extra rest. No sense in getting up really early since 40/80 were so miserable the night before. I was hoping to hit 40 early and find a good spot to hopefully get a run going as the sun marched across North America. No such luck. The 10, 11, and 12z hours yeilded a total of 27q's on 40/80 and a few on 20. Again, not feeling loud on 40 at all, so my few attempts at running were met with not a single q. The 13 and 14z hours only netted 38 q's as 20 starts to open. At this point I knew I probably missed my chance at RI and VE2, the propigation is real tough there on the high bands and 40/80 just weren't playing well for me. By the end of 16z things were starting to "pick up" a little bit. I had a "run" frequency on 20M - well let me state the truth here. Nobody bothered me as my computer called cq over and over again with little response. I had a clear frequency, and nobody cq'd on top of me, but I had an average of 1 q every 3-5 minutes. This left plenty of time for 2nd radio playing but was of little satisfaction. This practice of letting 1 rig cq and making S&P q's continued for the next several hours. I had become much less serious because of how poorly the station was playing on phone, so there were several small breaks in there for lunch and some family time. Thanks to AD6E for the spot at 2237z, but it was of little consequence as I didn't work a new q on that frequency until 2345z and another one at 2352z. At the start of the contest, I had hoped for 1000q's. By the time I went to bed at the end of the first night, I was thinking I'd be happy to get close, or at least over 750. By midday on Sunday it was clear that 500 was a much more realistic goal and that a sweep was probably not in the cards this year. At around 2300z, with 417 q's in the log, I decided that 450q's would be a sanity saving goal, since I was just utterly frustrated with calling LOUD stations 3 and 4 times while they had NOBODY else calling and not being heard. Plus, 15 was gone, 20 was fading fast (where I actually felt like I had a chance of being heard), and I knew that 40/80 were not my strong point this weekend. I ended at 0130z and q number 450. K1AR had a nice loud signal from NH. I thought, here we go again, I'll call till I'm blue in the face and then finally eek out a qso repeating every element of the exchange six times. Fortunatly he heard me on the first call, got all the exchange info on the first try and I was done! I operated much less seriously in SS CW but had almost as many q's and found the q's came much easier. Either the propigation was much worse, or I'm really getting to enjoy CW (I never would have thought that 10 years ago when I was struggling to pass my 5wpm)! Obviously the narrower bandwidth of CW makes is a much better mode for a marginal station such as mine. Thanks to W1CX for loaning me his LISPA (Loyds Incredibly Simple Phased Array), which is a 2 element phased array for 20M. Certianly played better than my MA5B at 25 feet on 20M. Thanks to my family for giving me the space to devote 16.5 hours of our weekend to this event. Thanks to everyone who kept trying and finially got my exchange. And finially, thanks to all the new hams and contesters who got their feet wet and gave all of us "serious" guys a point.

Back to top CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW Call: KE1FO Operator(s): KE1FO Station: KE1FO Class: SOAB LP QTH: Vermont Operating Time (hrs): .1 Radios: SO2R Summary: Band QSOs Zones Countries ------------------------------ 160: 80: 40: 1 1 1 20: 15: 1 1 1 10: ------------------------------ Total: 2 2 2 Total Score = 24 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club Comments: After a long SS Phone last weekend, just couldn't muster much interest for this one. Low Power and not great conditions made the christmas lights look much more appealing. Maybe next year I can get away for the weekend to a more competetive station. See you in the pileups.

Back to top ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW Call: KE1FO Operator(s): KE1FO Station: KE1FO Class: Single Op LP QTH: VT Operating Time (hrs): Radios: SO2R Summary: Band QSOs ------------ 160: 0 80: 76 40: 45 20: 168 15: 55 10: 2 ------------ Total: 346 Sections = 70 Total Score = 48,440 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Back to top ARRL DX Contest, CW Call: KE1FO Operator(s): KE1FO Station: KE1FO Class: SOAB HP QTH: VT Operating Time (hrs): 7.5 Summary: Band QSOs Mults ------------------- 160: 0 0 80: 13 13 40: 96 41 20: 82 42 15: 24 16 10: 0 0 ------------------- Total: 215 112 Total Score = 72,240 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club Comments: Had a great time. I love CW contests. Low 40/20M dipole and a short vertical on 80. TS-940, AL-80 amp. Looking forward to the next CW test.

Back to top New England QSO Party Call: KE1FO Operator(s): KE1FO Station: KE1FO Class: Single Op LP QTH: CHIVT Operating Time (hrs): 7 Summary: Band CW-Dig Qs Ph Qs ------------------------ 80: 40: 20: 114 73 15: 10: ------------------------ Total: 114 73 Mults = 50 Total Score = 15,050 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club

Back to top ARRL DX Contest, SSB Call: KE1FO Operator(s): KE1FO Station: KE1FO Class: SOAB(A) HP QTH: Operating Time (hrs): ~36 Summary: Band QSOs Mults ------------------- 160: 0 0 80: 72 46 40: 96 58 20: 323 82 15: 478 90 10: 45 26 ------------------- Total: 1014 302 Total Score = 918,684 Club: Yankee Clipper Contest Club Wow, when the dust settled, and the results were released, I came out as first place in Vermont for SOHPAB (unassisted),beating out K1KD who operated SOABHP (assisted)! The differnece was mults. Here are the breakdowns: Call Score QSOs Mults KE1FO 882,378 987 298 K1KD 869,976 1,032 281 Diff 12,402 45 17 Amazing how important multipliers are! I had 45 less Q's, but 17 more mults, which made a 12K difference in score.