I elected to hunt new ones as opposed to making a real
contest effort.
This weekend once again proved there is no substitute for
time spent "being there" if you're serious about working
new ones. After several days of mostly nil to poor DX
condx, things improved just in time for the contest. EU
was good throughout both nights; a bit better the second
night and subject to a lot of intense "above average" peaks
that made things interesting. Examples: 5B/K3UY was good
copy for several hours, but for some 15 minutes around
0030z he was S9+ and C4M came out of nothing to S8 at the
same time. Around 0240z 4L2M suddenly appeared out of
noise. I had been listening to EU working him for some
time, hoping to catch a break. I worked him at 0242 and by
0248 he had dropped into the noise again. The whole night
was full of those little surprises. You just never know
when top band will surprise you. Conversely, I never heard
A61AJ all that well the second night. He had been much
better 24 hours earlier.
Results for me: 5 all-time new, 14 new for this round
(since my return to top band late November). I guess there
won't be many more weekends like that as I should soon be
running out of easy ones soon. To help stay awake when
there were no new ones to go after, I made a run at
one-weekend WAS. Worked 49, missing only KL7 due to lack
of propagation (typical for that path). Some potential new
ones were heard but escaped to be chased another day. All
that got away were marginal path stuff and/or low power
stations.
It is amazing just what can be worked with a very modest
setup. Yes I know how lucky I am to live in Maine, but
even so...
73
Paul N1BUG
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