Bottom Line:
QSOs Sections Score
728 77 112112 QRP
I think K6LA said it best - excellent Saturday, dismal Sunday. I was 50
QSOs ahead of last year when I knocked off at 0800 Saturday evening and
was really looking forward to a deep East Coast run on 15 and 10 Sunday
morning...even got out of bed right on time! I knew the bands had that
"uh-oh" sound after about 0100Z on Saturday, but I was hoping the good
conditions of Saturday would hold. NOT!
After a little encouragement on 20 in the morning, Sunday turned into a
major slog. QRP stations know this train of events well. No high bands
means EVERYBODY is on 20 - no one can hear anyone inside their (long) skip
zone and the band turns into mud. Unless you're lucky, running QRP means
you can hold a frequency for about 15 minutes until an A or B-class
station that can't hear you gloms onto the clear-as-far-as-they-know
channel. Fact of life! On the plus side - it meant S&P only had to cover
one band with an occasional foray to 15 or 40 just to check things out.
And that led to the high-point of the show for me...
I bumped the 2nd rig to 15 just in time to hear, "...1MP
something-something NL". Eh? What luck - riding long waves of QSB at the
verrrry edge of the continent was VO1MP. Bagged him and spun the dial
(literally) up the band to start a downwards sweep and landed exactly on
VE9XB for MAR. Tried spinning the dial a couple more times without
equivalent successes, but those are Magic Sweepstakes Moments (tm).
If I hadn't had the two radios to keep me interested, I'd have gone MAD on
Sunday between 10AM and 4PM Sunday. Very frustrating to listen to a lot
of activity on 15 further south and east...but, hey, that's the Northwest
for you. Things picked up a little by 0000Z as the Big Noise moved to 40,
leaving a little hole for me at 14017, but all things must pass and I was
delighted to maintain the rate at a whopping 20-30 for the last couple of
hours.
Congratulations to K1TR, KG5U, N6MU, and others who hung in there and took
advantage of the conditions to crack 750 QSOs and more! Will N0AX ever
take the top spot? As Ralph Kramden would say, "One a these days, Alice,
one a these days..."
See you in the phone phray with a roomful of boys playing M/S.
73, Ward N0AX
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