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CQ WW SSB 2011 @ N1LN

2011 N1LN Team: N1LN, N4YDU, AD4L, WW4M, W4KAZ, W4DTB, KA1ARB Subtitle:Â “How My Perspective On Contesting Changed Again”

Well. That sure was interesting.

After several years of gutting out the poor propagation conditions for this one, the barn doors were more or less blown off by band conditions this past weekend. Yes, 10m was great. 15m was great too. And even 20m showed new facets too.

The past several weeks leading into the contest have had better band conditions than we have had in quite a long while. With sunspots hitting 200+ briefly and solar flux levels over 120 for several weeks straight, the high bands have been open on a consistent basis daily. These measures had been drifting down going into the contest, but propagation remained good through the contest.

So.  Propagation remained GOOD throughout the contest. Even the dread 2:00am to 5:00am showed more life than years past. On Sunday a few spots posted on 20m during the 3:00am(local) hour showed stateside stations were hearing EU on 20m. 80m/160m was mostly a mind numbing hiss of static, so whats to lose in checking? Turns out the band was mostly open already. Very loud signals across the band just after 4:00am local. Some already had their ears on, and were able to hear my calls even though they were mostly not pointing antennas towards the US. Instant better rate over the low band hiss. Very nice.

N4YDU had a great run on 10m Saturday afternoon. Sunday was my […]

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