The propagation conditions were better to EU than its been for quite a long while.\u00c2\u00a0 That made the contest a lot more enjoyable than the DX contests have been over the past few years from here in the “cheap seats”[low power into low dipoles].\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure the scores at the big stations will reflect the changes.<\/p>\n
For my own part it went quite well-even with a small station<\/p>\n
In the week before the contest, conditions were sounding good, with good openings on 15m and 20m.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no real plan to put in a heavy effort here, but instead to have fun and get in some CW practice.\u00c2\u00a0 Check.\u00c2\u00a0 Mission accomplished.<\/p>\n
Overall, with conditions so much better it was easy to stay in the chair longer than planned. 15m opened early on both days, just after local sunrise.\u00c2\u00a0 20m was hot in the early afternoon, and 40m and 80m both opened to Europe earlier than I usually notice.\u00c2\u00a0 There were even a few QSO’s on the edges from 160m and 10m.\u00c2\u00a0 The 160m Q’s were early in the evening, when I was hearing a few EU stations, but they weren’t hearing the dulcet tones emanating from the Kazshack.\u00c2\u00a0 The 10m QSO’s were very fluttery, with lots of QSB, but worth chasing anyway.<\/p>\n
The operating plan quickly morphed from “Search and Pounce” into finding a place to try to run.\u00c2\u00a0 The original idea was to operate “unlimited” and play “S&P2R”.\u00c2\u00a0 The network connection never got connected after tuning around a bit and shifting the gray matter into run mode.\u00c2\u00a0 Wedging into a good spot is always a problem, but once found the good conditions had the stations lining up.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes too many – a new experience from the KazShack.\u00c2\u00a0 But good spots were hard to find and a lot of time running was done at lower rates up in the “nosebleed” areas higher in the band.<\/p>\n
The runs brought in a lot of surprises.\u00c2\u00a0 On 40m finding and working the KH6 was a surprise, as well as being called by a TA and a ZC up on 15m .\u00c2\u00a0 Early on the second day I also found a JA1 on 40m, but no joy – working left coast.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of the surprises were unusual enough to cause the brain to balk on copying the call sign correctly – V51 in particular.\u00c2\u00a0 A search and pounce sweep on 10m and 15m bagged ZM1A on 15m,\u00c2\u00a0 as well as five of the 10m mults.<\/p>\n
15m showed signs of signals from Europe just after local sunrise, and they were able to hear me soon thereafter.\u00c2\u00a0 Probably an hour or so earlier than that for the stations with good 15m antennas.\u00c2\u00a0 But the lack of good antennas served to limit the volume of responses rather than shut the band to use.\u00c2\u00a0 I was able to run stations on 15m after 1230z on the second day.\u00c2\u00a0 Just a couple of hours later, and 20m became hospitable for a low power run above 14100.<\/p>\n
Being a fan of 15m, not much time was spent in the local evening hours.\u00c2\u00a0 Its difficult for the DX to hear the 100w stations through their local QRM and QRN.\u00c2\u00a0 With 15m and 20m open, that’s not the disaster it has been in the past couple of years.<\/p>\n
It will be interesting to see the scores and compare them to those of the past couple of years.<\/p>\n
The Good:<\/strong><\/p>\n The Bad:<\/strong><\/p>\n The Ugly:<\/strong><\/p>\n ********\u00c2\u00a0 ********<\/p>\n The propagation conditions were better to EU than its been for quite a long while.\u00c2 That made the contest a lot more enjoyable than the DX contests have been over the past few years from here in the “cheap seats”[low power into low dipoles].\u00c2 I’m sure the scores at the big stations will reflect the changes.<\/p>\n For my own part it went quite well-even with a small station<\/p>\n In the week before the contest, conditions were sounding good, with good openings on 15m and 20m.\u00c2 There was no real plan to put in a heavy effort here, but instead to have fun and get in some CW practice.\u00c2 Check.\u00c2 Mission accomplished.<\/p>\n Overall, with conditions so much better it was easy to stay in the chair longer than planned. 15m opened early on both days, just after local sunrise.\u00c2 20m was hot in the early afternoon, and 40m and 80m both opened to Europe earlier than I usually notice.\u00c2 There were even a few QSO’s on the edges from 160m and 10m.\u00c2 The 160m Q’s were early in the evening, when I was hearing a few EU stations, but they weren’t hearing the dulcet tones emanating from the Kazshack.\u00c2 The 10m QSO’s were very fluttery, with lots of QSB, but worth chasing anyway.<\/p>\n The operating plan quickly morphed from “Search and Pounce” into finding a place to try to run.\u00c2 The original idea was to operate “unlimited” and play “S&P2R”.\u00c2 The network connection never got connected after tuning around a bit […]<\/p>\n\n
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Summary:\r\n Band QSOs Mults\r\n-------------------\r\n 160: 5 5\r\n 80: 55 28\r\n 40: 191 46\r\n 20: 187 45\r\n 15: 131 45\r\n 10: 8 6\r\n-------------------\r\nTotal: 577 175 Total Score = 302,925\r\n\r\namended 2010\/2\/26<\/em>\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"