Some Sweeping Thoughts about sweeping-up in Sweepstakes

It is no secret that the November Sweepstakes contest (Cw 1st, Phone 2nd) is my FAVorite radiosport event.  Sweepstakes has encountered a handful of incarnations since its introduction to the operator world, way back in 1929.

 

While officially radiograms are no longer sent per se', the radiogram header is the core of ALL traffic handling and therefore worthy o reinforcement, which is why I still view the November Sweepstakes contest as an emergency preparedness training exercise.

My first exposure to Sweepstakes (SS) was the Cw event, I played around in when I was 19 years old.  Over the years, I have found opportunities to run SS from QTH's in Livermore and San Jose (California), Cincinnati and w/K8CX in Northeast Ohio (1992).  Beginning in 1998, running Sweepstakes from the SB section (Ojai Valley) became an obsession - in those days,
SB section was on the Top-ten list of most-needed ARRL sections.

WQ6X.Info/Sweepstakes documents WQ6X operations from that period to today's portable setup @W7AYT's QTH in the SF East Bay (EB) section.  Numerous WQ6X contest blogs have been written about Sweepstakes.  From those blog entries it is clear that I've experienced a number of different ways to run a Sweepstakes event.  ([CLICK HERE] to see a search of some of the relevant WQ6X blog entries about Sweepstakes.)

Because Sweepstakes was (and still is) a traffic handling exercise, for me, it's all about improvement in operating acumen, leveraging as many distinct aspects of technology in order to get the message (headers) through.  Use of software macros and Cw keyer memories (built-in to the FT-2000), transmit data is the same for exchange sent.

In recent years, I have dual-OP'd Sweepstakes events, dividing the 30-hours of available op-time between WQ6X as SOALP from the ARRL EB section, while putting in time running remotely for the NX6T Multi-single operations.  

For CQP this year, I tried "something completely different" (quoting Monty Python).  I ran K6Q at the 100-watt level and put in some time for NX6T.  However, in between these op-periods I put WQ6X
on the air as a QRP station (dialing the FT-2000 down to its 5-watt minimum).  NoT surprisingly,
when switching logs back to K6Q, sometimes I would forget to turn the power-level back up to
100-watts - Oops.  The amazing thing was being able to exchange an exchange anyway.

For me, radiosport is all about trying new ideas, all in the name of emergency preparedness. 
I operate by a rather unique edict: "When in Doubt CHEAT (but within the rules)"; running a
dual-OP and triple-OP operation is clearly within the rules.

Do YOU operate the November Sweepstakes?

What unique operating setups have YOU been a part of?

Do YOU ever Cheat within the rules?