This was an interesting contest from here in Upstate New York (75 miles
north of NYC), although a lot of factors probably limited participation. I
had only planned on working 20 meters in the second round at 8:30-11:30 am
local time. The factors included DX activity by T2YY in Tuvalu and 9K2KH in
Kuwait. T2YY was running split, which meant a lot of stations transmitting
in the blind between about 14.086 and 14.090, effectively making that
segment unusable. UN7ZL/7 from Kazakhstan also made an appearance above
14.090, running simplex. I made a total of 5 contacts, all above 14.092. I
did hear G6NHU in the lower portion od the band, but was unable to raise
him, and DL4RCK, who I worked above 14.092, also spent some time calling CQ
in the lower portion. DL4RCK had the loudest signal here at about S4. I
also heard ES7FU calling CQ, but was unable to make a contact. Factors on my
end included minimal antennas, as I was using a G5RV only. I suspect that
the stations I worked were probably using a beam aimed at NA. I didn't hear
a single U.S. station either calling or answering a CQ.
I used RCKLOG with MMTTY and also ran an older version of 2Tone as a
standalone receive only setup. Copy went back and forth between the two
decoders with one or the other printing usable data while the other printed
garbled text. DL4RCK was the only station that printed consistently on both
decoders simultaneously.
Hopefully, this contest will be better advertised if they decide to run it
again next year! Thanks to IK1MEG, DL4RCK, OH2BBT, OH5KUY and IQ4RN for the
contacts.
Bob, WB2COY
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