In a message dated 11/4/07 11:48:07 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> I have a K2/100 and a decent antenna. With all due respect, what do you consider a decent antenna? When I > > call someone they almost always respond after the first call. My cw > skills are pretty good I can exchange contest info at around 30wpm if I > have to, although I run between 22 and 25wpm most of the time. I try not > to get distracted, another words I try to stay in front of the radio. So > I feel as if I should be, at least, competitive. You *are* competitive - with stations that are similarly equipped. But, it happens every > > time. I sit down, eagerly awaiting the start of the contest, ready to do > battle, and get slaughtered. Within an hour or so I am hopelessly > behind. After 4 or 5 hours it is a joke. after 8 or 10 hours every > station I work has 600 contacts! Some of these guys are averaging a > contact a minute OVER 8 HOURS! I'm not mad, I am just amazed. My best > contact rate was about 30 an hour and that was only for a couple of > hours.I usually run a contact every 3 or 4 minutes. The question is, what factor limits your QSO rate? In my case, the limiting factors have always been: 1) My signal isn't usually strong enough to hold a frequency and run QSOs. 2) Finding new ones to work by hunt-and-pounce. The folks with 600 QSOs after 10 hours aren't hunting and pouncing much. They're holding a frequency and running QSOs two-a-minute. So after a while I > > get discouraged and start getting up and watching football for a few > minutes or something else and then I really fall behind. I don't mind > not winning, but I am getting clobbered by every one I work by a factor > of 7 or 8. I know what you mean. It's hard to maintain focus when the results are not up to expectations. Perhaps the expectations are unrealistic. I have to wonder, am I really that bad? No. The more-important question is, are you getting better? IOW, are you learning from the experience? One thing I notice about myself is that I'm pretty rusty when the contest starts, and it takes me a while to get up to speed. That means I need to do more "little contests", rather than just SS and FD. I also need to get the computer fully integrated into the shack well before the contest. As it was, all it could do was log and dupe - I did all the sending myself. --- SS is a really strange contest in some ways: 1) Compared to other contests, SS has a very long and complex exchange. Four distinct items to be sent and received besides the callsign. (Used to be five!) 2) It's a US-and-Canada contest (I'm old enough to remember when the Canal Zone was a section!) which makes it very different from DX contests, because you need to work close-in stations as well as far off ones. Where you are in the country can make a difference 3) Unlike almost every other big contest, you can only work a station once, regardless of band. This makes finding new ones harder and harder as the contest goes on. It also means you have to use completely different judgement than other contests, because the station you spend five minutes dragging out of the mud on 80 may be twenty over on 20 in a few hours - or minutes. 73 de Jim, N2EY ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
