[3830] W6XR SO Assisted

[Natan Huffman]

Score for W6XR/2 , single op, with packet  SOA as follows:

Band			Qso		Prefix

160			9		5
 80			87		47
 40		            129		59
 20			940		443
 15			76		33
 10			2		0

Totals			1243		587		1.86 M 

30 hours operating

Commentary....

The last time I did one of these was a while back.....in fact, 30 hours was
the limit, which I  of course observed this time around.  Should have read
the rules as things do change.

I thought that the conditions were so terribly rotten during the ARRL phone
that they could not possibly get any worse.   Well, I was wrong as this
weekend was as bad as I have ever seen.  On Friday and Sat. night, 80 and
160 was no persons land.  Only had north south skip and that path produced
signals that were weak and masked by incredible static and crashes.  40 was
fair and at the end of the contest, I was able to run a few stations on
both 80 and 40 Sunday evening.

On Sat. night, a friends (SWL) was over listening while I was on 40 meters,
and he commented that he was not hearing the broadcast stations from Europe
that are typically found on this band at that time of night.  Sure enough,
I spun the dial and realized that even the broadcasters were not getting
through from Europe!

15 meters was North and South and nothing in between except for a few nice
surprises from Africa.  Never heard any Europe, even EA8, or IG9 or such.

10 meters did not exist.

Then there is 20......The band was strange as it went very long at times
and I was rewarded with some nice DX catches,such as 4S7, 7X, S92 and
others.  Even worked deep into the CIS, but few G stations.  I think in
retrospect that a 20 meter monoband effort would have produced as many
points as the all band effort.  Even the long path openings were good into
VK and I had the best JA run on Sat. night since returning to the East
Coast.  Just does not make much sense.

As I approached the end of this contest, I realized that to do well, one
must really strategies.  I believe I spent too much time trying to work
legitimate DX and did not get nearly enough prefixes from the US of A.  The
balance that the winners will show certainly eluded me!  This was a fun
contest and will now be a permanent fixture on the contest calendar for me.

All the equipment worked like it was supposed to and now I am left with the
task of taking many antennas down as I will be "upgrading" the station on
160/80/ and 40 this summer.  Will also be adding the second station in the
shack as it appears I have found a way into the packet cluster that is
reliable.

Thanks to everyone who worked me, not only in this contest but in all the
"events" of this contest season.  See all next year!

73

Natan W6XR/2

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