I had a great run in the March NAQCC sprint, a two hour QRP CW sprint that encourages the use of straight keys. I am surprised (but pleased) to see that I took the top position in the W4 division for simple wire antennas. I think this speaks to good conditions where I was operating, luck in hitting so many multipliers, and the absence of other stations that typically score very well (K4ORD and others). I know that several of the contestors, e.g., K4BAI, were already preparing for their CQ WW WPX runs, so that might explain the absence of some of the regulars.
Speaking of CQ WW WPX…
With a 100W station and a couple fixed antennas in my attic, I’m not much of a threat to the CQ WW WPX establishment, but I thought I’d give it an “old school” try this time. Instead of working the contest with my workhorse Kenwood TS-450, I fired up the Collins S-line station. With the recently acquired Heathkit SA-2040 antenna tuner and the TenTec 1225 SWR meter to keep an eye on things, I had enough flexibility to work all the bands.
I had a number of other things to do over the weekend, so I put in about four hours in the contest. I went full manual — not even computer logging, just some sheets of graph paper. I worked 136 contacts, three of which were dupes (the paper-only method leaves something to be desired in terms of real time dupe checking).
According to my log, I worked the following DXCC entitites: Aland Island (Finland), Asiatic Russia, Belarus, Belgium, Bonaire, Curacao, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada,Canary Islands, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madeira Island, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the USA, Virgin Islands, and Wales.
The rigs worked flawlessly, and the warm sound was pleasant. I did a lot of repeating, and surely my signal was not very strong compared to most, but it got the job done.