Saturday night was a 4 hour NA SSB Sprint ham radio contest. The format is fun and quick as no one maintains a frequency and calls CQ over and over. After a station is worked, the new station takes the frequency and becomes the calling station until they work another station and that next station takes over the frequency.
It started at 0000z (8:00pm local) and all I was all set to get going at the start of the contest, but I wasn’t hearing much activity on 20m. I’d hear a few stations but they weren’t strong and it was much quieter than it should have been. After about 20 mins of no activity, I got up, did a few other things and came back to the radio and realized I had my dual band FM antenna coax plugged into and not the 20m dipole. Doh!!! After switching coax to the proper one, magically I was hearing stations, and they could hear me.
I didn’t spend the remaining 3.5 hours of the contest active on the air, but I kept coming back for short stints while I was doing doing some other things. I didn’t end up with a big number of contests, but I enjoy the format of a Sprint contest and I enjoy the friendly atmosphere. Thanks to all the ops for the contacts – nice to be on the air!
Band QSOs Pts Mlt
3.5 18 18 9
7 29 29 11
14 22 22 12
Total 69 69 32
Score : 2,20873,
K2DSL