Today’s introspective question is “What’s a reasonable goal for this weekend’s NAQP?”.
Given the current level, I’m not sure 500 QSO’s is reasonable for a 10 hour contest. Thats where I would to get, but probably not for 2009.
So more modestly:
- run stations at 24wpm
- shoot for 400 QSO’s
- shoot for putting in all 10 hours, despite the illness
- Even spread of Q’s on 20m/40m/80m, and pick up mults on 15m & 160m if possible
- Move the run frequency lower if possible
The first goal will lead to the second, but only if I manage the third. The reset is icing. We’ll see.
edit 2009-01-08, Stuck in the past….cuz these are 2009 goals….
I think 400 QSO’s is perfectly reasonable if you get in all 10 hours. I only worked 7 hours and had 400 QSO’s.
I don’t think the WPM is at all relevant to the NAQP. Lots of exchanges are at 30WPM but just listening during the contest, anybody using their computer keyer to send at 40WPM will end up getting asked for a lot of repeats. It’s more important to work people than to concentrate on speed, and I worked several hams, maybe new to CW or new to radio, who were struggling to keep up at 10WPM, I’d hate to think that anybody’s goal is to give the new guys a hard time by insisting on high speeds. I think this is true for any contest except if you’re a real hot-dog rare multiplier.
Spreading QSO’s over all the bands is actually one of my goals for the NAQP. The activity seems to shift from 20M to 40M to 80M faster than it should, and for at least 6 of the 12 hours I hear the most activity on 80M. It is very much worthwhile to check out 20M and 40M occasionally even after the bulk of the activity has shifted… I got some new multipliers on 20M and 40M, including Hawaii, that I probably couldn’t have picked up earlier in the day.
Still, even though it’s a goal to spread out the QSO’s, the way the activity shifts so quickly to 80M, especially for us on the east coast, it ends up with the majority of my QSO’s every single winter.
400 QSO’s would be reasonable if I were a better op. I’m not where I want to be yet, and my accuracy is still quite abysmal.
I’d have to disagree about the code speed. While S&P, it’s a lot less critical. But I have found that trying to run at 18 or 20 wpm will draw relatively few responses. I’m not so good at matching speeds to the caller, but that’s part of what I was practicing. There are a couple of ops that always slowed down for me. Some are quite good at hitting the same speed on the first try.
Anyway, it’s a courtesy I’ve been given while I’m learning the game that I want to incorporate into my own operating.
Since I concentrated on running, I ‘swept’ 20m less rigorously than when I mostly S&P. Ditto 40m, but I can usualy get a CW run going on 40m for NAQP CW.
Thanks for the QSO!