Well.\u00c2\u00a0 That sure was interesting.<\/p>\n
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.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, 10m was great.\u00c2\u00a0 15m was great too.\u00c2\u00a0 And even 20m showed new facets too.<\/p>\n
The past several weeks leading into the contest have had better band conditions than we have had in quite a long while.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 These measures had been drifting down going into the contest, but propagation remained good through the contest.<\/p>\n
So.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Propagation remained GOOD throughout the contest.\u00c2\u00a0 Even the dread 2:00am to 5:00am showed more life than years past.\u00c2\u00a0 On Sunday a few spots posted on 20m during the 3:00am(local) hour showed stateside stations were hearing EU on 20m.\u00c2\u00a0 80m\/160m was mostly a mind numbing hiss of static, so whats to lose in checking?\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out the band was mostly open already.\u00c2\u00a0 Very loud signals across the band just after 4:00am local.\u00c2\u00a0 Some already had their ears on, and were able to hear my calls even though they were mostly not pointing antennas towards the US.\u00c2\u00a0 Instant better rate over the low band hiss.\u00c2\u00a0 Very nice.<\/p>\n
N4YDU had a great run on 10m Saturday afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 Sunday was my turn.\u00c2\u00a0 I expect the 8:00 to 11:00 hours on Sunday to be the best of the contest.\u00c2\u00a0 While I ran stations on 10m, N4YDU was keeping 15m hot.\u00c2\u00a0 Easily the best rates I’ve ever worked over an extended period.\u00c2\u00a0 10m was stacked with signals from the bottom up past 29Mc.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a mixed bag of mini pileups and a steady flow of callers, no need for a “cq robot”, and easily the most fun I have ever had operating a contest.<\/p>\n
Murphy struck only an off hand shot at the team when KA1ARB had his travel plans snafu’d by the storm system in the northeast causing him to miss a flight on Saturday evening.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Pencil and paper whipped out, and N1LN came up with an interim schedule fix to cover the holes without resorting to Double Super Secret Expresso and too much lost sleep for anyone.\u00c2\u00a0 Although N4YDU had a six hour nap window shortened, I figure he had already made up those hours when I found him napping at the knobs at the end of the Saturday graveyard shift.\u00c2\u00a0 \ud83d\ude2e<\/p>\n
A second possible Murphy sighting was had by N1LN of Friday afternoon when the top 20m antenna was showing dead air, but that problem automagically disaparated and did not seem to recur during CQWW.<\/p>\n
A member of the OCRA club, Derek, W4DTB dropped by and piloted one of the positions for a couple of hours. \u00c2\u00a0Derek posted a nice audio clips of me stumbling through some 20m Q’s on Sunday afternoon, and a clip of N1LN doing much better<\/a>.<\/p>\n