This weekend, besides my International Space Station (ISS) contacts (see earlier posts) I ended up logging contacts in 3 different ham radio contests.
Washington State Salmon Run
Saturday and Sunday was the Washington State Salmon Run (aka QSO Party). I ended up making a few contacts each day coming out with 11 SSB contacts with WA stations in 6 counties.
North American Sprint SSB
Saturday evening (0000z to 0400z) was the 4 hour NA SSB Sprint. After you make a contact with a station, they need to QSY (change frequencies) and you get the frequency to call CQ for the next contact. After that contact, you need to QSY to another frequency. It means a single station doesn’t just call CQ over and over on the same frequency. I got going not long after the start and worked 20m for the 1st hour before moving to 40m and switching back from time to time to see if there were any new stations on 20m. At the 3rd hour I switched to 80m and made a few more contacts before calling it an early night. I was up since 4am and just after 11pm I needed to hit the sack. I imagine the last hour of the contest saw activity move to 80m but I was beat. It is nice to work the SSB contests and the folks that I typically just send dits and dahs or diddles too. Even though the sprint is a very fast paced contest, every single op took the time to say hello or nice to hear you. It’s a competitive “sport” but everyone is extremely friendly and courteous. Here’s the score summary for the NA Sprint SSB:
Band QSOs Pts Sec 3.5 7 7 3 7 26 26 13 14 20 20 12 Total 53 53 28 Score : 1,484
BARTG Sprint 75
The third contest this weekend was another short one but another fun one. The BARTG Sprint 75 is a 75 baud (vs 45 baud) RTTY contest. 75 baud is faster then 45 baud and with a short exchange of just a a serial number, the exchange happens really quick. I actually was so busy with the IIS (International Space Station) that I didn’t realize the contest was underway. I joined the contest about 90 mins after it started on 20m and other then 1 lone 15m contact, all activity was on 20m. There was a fair amount of participation but plenty of room to grab a frequency and run for a bit, which I did, though I don’t think I logged more then 4 or 5 contacts in any one run before I needed to S&P for a bit.
After working the contest on and off for 2 hours and 15 mins, I stopped a little early to get ready for another ISS pass and was lucky enough to make my first voice contact which is a huge thrill. It was a fun contest though and I like the fast pace that 75 baud brings with it. 2 hours and 15 mins and contacts made with 25 DXCCs from
Band QSOs Pts Cty Sec Cnt 14 52 52 25 7 3 21 1 1 0 0 0 Total 53 53 25 7 3 Score : 5,088
All contacts loaded to eQSL, LoTW, QRZ and the logs sent in for the contests.
73,
K2DSL