Hi again...............
Don asks whether we thought activity was down this time. Well, I have to say
NO.
For me, in GU, I found that there were plenty of newcomers to the RTTY scene
in Roundup, and there were many of the usual folk who seem to have nothing
better to do for the weekend.
I did work quite a few W6's, but sadly W6/Gzerosomething was not see or
heard from here, and sadly, neither was Chen AA6TY.
I found that most of the regulars were around, and there were some real big
serial numbers doing the rounds 24 hours into the contest. I saw several
giving 1000+ at around 1800 yesterday, which tends to indicate good
participation.
Maybe conditions were a part of it, as I had good paths to the NorthWest USA
and VE6/7, but I had a real struggle to find you Don, and your signal was
way down on usual. However, you seemed to hear me no problem, and the
exchange was as slick as usual.
>From here, there were some VERY loud W1's and W2's (in NY/NJ) who just
weren't hearing many of the EU stations calling them. Was this conditions,
or just lots of power into poor antennas?
Steve N1NB mentioned the bad exchanges, and I have to agree with him on many
points. On several occasions, I had someone call me, sent them a report,
only to get back UR 599 001 001 BK which sounded louder than the original
call. There were also plenty of GU0SUP UR 599 XYZ XYZ BK, which is also
prone to mis-interpretation, as I don't always know whether it came from the
person I called, or from someone jumping in for a quick one!
I am certain that one IK station has me in his log, as he tried to call me
when I was answering someone elses CQ. He then took the report sent to ME,
as MY report to HIM. Ah well, his mistake!
I also had a hard time making the exchange with Scott K9JY, as each time I
sent him a report, another station tried calling me, and it wasn't my
frequency! It took a while to complete, but we made it eventually, although
it probably spoiled Scotts run.
On top of all that, my head was full of fluff, my sinuses were throbbing
like mad, and my XYL couldn't understand what it was that made me sit in
front of a PC monitor and all that noise, when I couldn't sit down in the
warm and watch TV! One day she'll learn!
73 to all,
Phil GU0SUP
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