ARRL Sweepstakes

Mark,

Thanks for posting this Topic.

A few thoughts from someone that is a dedicated Contest op and even more so one that is dedicated to the Love of our hobby overall.

First off Contesting is Not for everyone.
However, everyone can benefit from a Contest being on the air, if they choose to use the event to work new Counties or States towards an award like WAS (Worked All States).

For those that are not award chasers and dislike Contests my recommendation is
Spend some time on the air in the WARC Bands eg 17m, 30m, 12m, and even the 60 Meter “Channelized Band)
Or simply go fishing, I do that as well 🙂

Of course these recommendations for use of The WARC bands are for those with the appropriate level of license class.

What ARRL Sweepstakes brings to the table is….

It is a “Domestic Contest” versus a DX Contest
Allowing just about anyone to work all 50 States as well as our Canadian brother and sisters,
Garnering the WAS award within one weekend.

Sweepstakes also has one of the most Non simplistic
Information Exchanges, far from the simply 599 and a serial number between stations.
Sweepstakes was designed to challenge participates with the copy of data in a fast moving (Contest) environment
so that those working in Message Traffic Handling would garner practical on the air experience on a crowed band.

A typical ARRL SS Exchange is like this…..
001 M KG5VK 72 NTX

What does that all mean…
Serial Number,  Precedence, Callsign, Check, Section

Serial Number is like a lot of other Contest it represent a consecutive number of the QSO’s made in the Contest for the sending station
Precedence is an Identifier of What Category the Station is playing in within the Contest, there are Many choices for the Category in Sweepstakes *
Call sign of Sending Station
Last two digits of year the License Holder of the Callsign was first Licensed (I was licensed in 1972)
ARRL or RAC (Canadian) Section (Ours is North Texas)

* Precedence or category of Entry choices….

“M”  Multi-Op however only one signal allowed at any given moment from the station (Multi-OP Single Transmitter) **
“A”  Single OP Low Power (under 100 Watts)
“B”  Single Op High Power (Over 100 watts but within the legal limit of license class)
“S”  School Club (Many Universities like Texas A&M will play in the ARRL Sweepstakes contest)
“U” Unlimited, which means either High or Low power Single OP, However they are using Cluster spotting Tools.

** Multi-Op Single Transmitter

Contest Love to push the edge and find ways to Excel beyond the others within the rules
So many of us use more than one radio to transmit, but within the rules by using Lock outs that will not allow more than one transmitted signal at
any given moment. A team doing this in the M category must not only use Electronic tools to prohibit more that one signal at any given instant,
they must also build a team of ops that can use Quick precise exchanges of information with the upmost precision of timing with the other operators of radios in the station.

Watching this Orchestration happen can be mind boggling.
Becoming an Op that has done this is very rewarding.
Talk about Team work!

Team work is why I love Multi-OP
The Comradery alone is priceless, to me personally.

I have Three Team members joining me this Weekend for ARRL Sweepstakes
So Four OPS at the KG5VK station this weekend and we could have used Six experienced Contest OPS.
There are only two of us that have ever done Multi-Op with Two rigs and the Transmit Interlock.

So maybe you wanting to get on and brave the contest environment and give the contest ops and Us a QSO, AWESOME we would love to have you work us.

Please keep this in mind One QSO with any station regardless of the Band.
QSO’s with the same station on other bands is simply a duplicated QSO counting Zero points.
So please work us just once and we thank you greatly for the very short prompt precise contact,
Even though we will hardly (not) even say 73 we are grateful for every contact.

Our Goal this weekend is to work 1500 contacts in all 85 Sections.
This is a 30 Hour Contest event window, with only 24 hours allowed On the air
1500 Q’s divided by 24 hours is an average of 62 Contacts per Hour or over one every minute
We do this at a very fast pace while being precise with our exchange.

Our Team for this weekend is….
W5PTX, W5JK, N5VU and myself KG5VK

One of our Guest OPS is traveling in from West Ft Worth
I have had guest ops from several states away
This year we will have a small efficient (Lean and Precise) Team

Please look for KG5VK and work us just once this weekend.
We will be active on 80 thru 10 meters and we will on <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>Sunday spend a lot of time in the Technician class area of the Band.</span>

Who will be the youngest Year (Check) we work ?
Who will be the Youngest at Heart that we work ?

We garner no extra points for the above two questions.
However, other that Schools I am always brought a huge smile working those very new to our hobby and well as those young at Heart.

I will gladly entertain questions on this Topic.
If you are am aspiring Contest Op, please drop me an email  KG5VK at ARRL dot ORG

Cheers!

Steve
KG5VK