It turned out to be a wonderful weekend for a radio contest. The weather here in central North Carolina was crappy, but not crappy enough to ruin the radio conditions completely. The bands were noisy, but the QRM was much worse than the QRN. Finding a clear frequency to run seemed the bigger problem.
So it was great to sit at the controls of N1LN for several stretches over the weekend. The company is good, and the operating was fun too.
The start of the contest had me on the 20m station. Propagation at the start of the contest seemed very strange, and I was not able to establish a good run. S&P was also problematic. Signals were strong, but I was getting mixed results trying to pick up mults from the band map.
Over the evening, 40m showed mixed results, but I felt better about my first stretch there. This was the first time I had used N1LN’s beverages on 40m, and they definitely helped reduce noise levels for copy on weaker signals.
I had the great good fortune to pull the slots that resulted in being at the helm for the beginning of the day on 15m. The end of my slot for Saturday morning showed 15m opening to Europe just after 11:00z. I took a short break from the (then) low rate 40m drudgery for a toasted bagel around 11:20z. When I sat back down at the station at 11:35z, the band map was full of fresh […]
Continue reading 2009 CQWW DX @ N1LN