It has been a long time since I have spent much time operating a contest.  I decided to do a part time effort in this years ARRL SSB Sweepstakes.  My primary goal was to work all 83 ARRL Sections, which is called a Clean Sweep.  Unfortunately I fell one short of a Clean Sweep.  The section I missed was Puerto Rico.  That was not surprising since Puerto Rico is still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria.  They have much more important things to deal with than ham radio.  Not hearing Puerto Rico made me realize how fortunate and blessed I am.

Normally I do search and pounce contesting, but this time I spent a couple of hours running stations on 15 meters in order to improve my confidence running stations.  I ran stations on 15 meters until the band started to fade late in the afternoon.  When 15 started to fade I decided that was a good for a dinner break–soup, fresh baked dinner rolls and hot homemade apple pie with ice cream!  My wife really takes good care of me!

After dinner I spent a little time on 40 meters doing search and pounce.  The pickings were pretty slim, so I decided to throw in the towel and relax the rest of the evening.

Here is a summary of my score.

Start Date : 2017-11-18

CallSign Used : KC9QQ
Operator(s) : KC9QQ

Operator Category : SINGLE-OP
Assisted Category : ASSISTED
Band : ALL
Power : HIGH
Mode : SSB
ARRL Section : IN
Club/Team : SOCIETY OF MIDWEST CONTESTERS
Software : N1MM Logger+ 1.0.6903.0

Band QSOs Pts Sec Pt/Q
3.5    64    128    22    2.0
7       81    162    24    2.0
14     75    150    17    2.0
21    113   226    19    2.0
Total 333   666    82    2.0
Score : 54,612

73,

Fred, KC9QQ