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It has been three years since Bill Kollenbaum K4XS made the move from Florida to Hawaii and started making noise with his KH7XS station on the Big Island. All that work ceratinly paid off in 2009, as Kollenbaum swept to victory in the 2009 ARRL Sweepstakes SSB Contest.
Kollenbaum went into log checks with a 24,000 point lead over defending champ Dan Handa W7WA, and kept just about that in the final results.
Handa held on for second over Bruce Draper AA5B, who was operating again last year from the station of Steve London N2IC.
In fourth place was Todd Dravland WD0T. Todd also finished fourth in the "B" category in SS CW in 2009, making him the only contester to place in the top five of both Sweepstakes.
George De Montrond NR5M finished in 5th place.
As for the 2009 winner's QTH, Kollenbaum currently has his KH7XS station up for sale for $699,900, as detailed at kh7xs.qth.com.
"As I recall, the first two were squeakers, but the last two provided a bit more breathing room," Mason told radio-sport.net.
"I wish I could say my operating ability was the sole reason for these big scores the last couple of years," said Mason. "Truthfully, the money bands 20m and 40m have been outstanding from WWA. I think my Northwest counterpart, W7WA, would agree too."
Mason won by over 21,000 points over Ty Stewart K3MM, who was bidding for an Unlimited victory in both the SSB and CW legs of the 2009 Sweeps.
Stewart won his CW "U" title by just one contact over K6LL.
Rounding out the top five in Unlimited were W7RN (WX5S), WB1GQR (W1SJ) and N4ZZ.
Even with somewhat depressed propagation, this year's winning Unlimited score was only 18k less than the record set in 2003 at KP2A.
The distinctive voice of Paul Newberry N4PN chalked up another win, by claiming the "A" category with 222,400.
"I have won one other SS," Newberry told radio-sport.net. "My small, in town station is okay for SS, W/VE and QSO Parties."
Newberry was the only low power entrant to finish with over 200k. Art Hambleton K1BX finished second with 199,360 points.
In QRP, Mike Hance K5NZ denied a second straight "Q" win for Al Sinopoli KC5R, winning by just 1,154 points.
N2IC - High Power
N4PN - Low Power
K5NZ - QRP
K7RL - Unlimited
W6YI - Multi
K0HC (W0BH) - School
The results of the 2009 SS SSB are available at the ARRL website.
The results of the 2009 SS CW are available at the ARRL website.
After snapping a 14 year old Multi-op record held by AA5B in the CW Sweepstakes, Team W6YI grabbed another record in the SSB Sweeps, as W6YI won the "M" category for the third year in a row.
The SSB record was even older than the CW mark that W6YI passed, as this mark was from 1990, when Team AA5B scored 376,684 points after log checks.
W6YI smashed that by over 25k, becoming the first Multi-op to ever break the 400,000 point barrier.
The overall scoring record remains intact, 425,280 held by Rich Boyd KE3Q, who set that during his 10 year winning streak from WP3R in Puerto Rico.
The 2009 SSB Sweepstakes was a record setting event for another reason as well, that being overall participation.
The ARRL reports that 2,054 logs were submitted, an all-time high.
"It is great to see so many hams not just getting on for our contests, but submitting logs in record numbers," said ARRL Contest Manager Sean Kutzko KX9X.
