SS Practical lessons learned.

My first endeavors to work folks was on the 20 meter band. Got crowded really fast but there were a number of clear opening.
The operators there had excellent signals and I firmly believed I should be able to communicate with them. At first there was W1AW/1 RI and I made that first call.
From there it was a mixed pot. Folks I could clearly copy were having a really rough time pulling me out. The voiced their concerns with reports of "that weak signal, again?"
Even had a few stations copy me but dumped me like a sack of taters, never to return. A lot of the contacts required repeats and that included the ones s9+ that were A class.
Couldn't even talk to my peers. Oddly, I could and did make contact with Antarctic a few weeks ago.
So, I going in to the blame game. That commercial offering of a magnetic loop is my new target. My homemade one worked circles around this one. Plan of attach. Commercial offering out, homemade one back in.
I didn't try overly hard to work very many. Had a grand total of 27 QSO's. Strangely I doubled down on Montana. Missed ND but doubled down on SD
So, I got a RI, MT, SD, and a number of others. Strange, not one 6 land.

It's not the contest I was worried about. It's the performance of the equipment in the presence of folks that were hungry for a contact. They had to do way too much work to get my meager station. Most stuck it out. It was largely a guessing game and after 20 questions we normally got it right. Some just had the attitude of "Go away son, you bother me". Not a problem there. I just found another victim and returned to the game of 20 questions.

I all fairness, the large number of contacts went very smoothly. It's just refreshing to learn more about your own setup and what is needed to improve. The small number of contacts
was based upon that goal.

I also have some surprises and that makes your day every time.

Have fun
73
Gary

 

All of us are sometimes the "weak signal". I had a few myself that had trouble hearing me... Since I have been on both sides of the signal game, I tend to be paitent. When I was calling CQ, there were a number of stations that I had trouble hearing. Most of them resulted in a completed contact. Some just faded out too much and I told them that. "Try again in a few..."

It was a fun contest. I did much better than last year and even surpassed all my goals.

 

In Sweepstakes, the clock is largely running against you and that forces operators to make tough decisions. When I am out to place competitively, I will shoot to maximize QSO count during certain hours. Unfortunately, in a few circumstances, that may mean cutting the line on a potential QSO if I am forced to dig very deeply to work a station. When I mean dig very deeply, I mean spending a significant amount of time trying to pry the information that is needed to get the exchange.

If it takes more than a minute or so to complete a QSO, I may indeed consider cutting the QSO loose. Reasons for this include 1) there may be others who are on the frequency awaiting a QSO with me but may not be there by the time I complete the QSO, 2) I am having to focus on a weak station and will not be able to focus on listening to QSOs on a second radio, 3) if the weak station is on 20 or 15 meters, a station within that station's skip zone may hear what appears to be an unused frequency and may try to take it over, or 4) the weak station may never give me enough of the correct information to complete the QSO - resulting in lost time.

Last time I did Sweeps seriously, I had to cut the line on maybe two or three contacts - usually on the first night when I average 80 to 110 contacts per hour.

 

Try the lower bands Generally, if you can hear them on 40/75, especially with lots of high-angle radiation (read as: "a really low antenna" ) they'll be able to pull you out.

 

I'm still pretty new to contesting in general so I kinda used the sweeps as a practice run for Winter Field Day, which in turn is a run-up to ARRL Field Day. Yeah, I know, those aren't really contests per se; but the skills are applicable. I only worked a couple hours each day; but still was able to come up with about a page worth of contacts including my very first Alaska station and the W1AW station from RI.

 

There's also the NAQP and CQWW WPX in there

 

If I understand you correctly, you are using a magnetic loop antenna and that could be the problem. Although they can work well, they are inefficient if not set up properly. A half wave dipole at 20-30 ft will perform quite well on 20 meters. Give that a try and let us know if it helps.

 

second that on a dipole - my AD-CC works very well there - from Alaska to Spain and South Africa

73

 

100ft dipole and an external antenna tuner helped very much here.

73 K2HAT