[3830] N2IC IARU CW

[smlondon at lucent.com]

N2IC (/0) - IARU - Single Op - CW only

Band   QSO's   HQ   Zones

10      15      3     6
15     122      9    21
20    1073     16    39
40     393     15    32
80      75      3    13
160     14      1     6

      1688     47    117    ---> 1,055,504 points


What a great contest, year-after-year !  I start the contest refreshed after a
good night's sleep, hardly move from the chair for 24 hours, sleep a few hours
Sunday morning, then have the rest of the day to spend with the XYL. Add on
great summertime condx on 20 meters, and enough interesting propagation on the
other bands to keep things lively.

Propagation was a little funny this year.  I spent the first 17 hours
working/running EU, and the last 7 hours "walking" JA - In fact, after 0530Z, I
had no EU propagation on any band, including 20 meters.  Not at all like 2
years ago when 20 stayed open all night, and 15 had a fair EU opening beginning
around 0600Z and lasting until the end of the contest.

A high point was working YU0HQ on 10 meters, for my first 10 meter EU QSO in
nearly 3 years.  I'm sure that with a flux of 68, the F-layer had nothing to do
with that QSO !  No other non-North Americans were heard on 10 meters (not even
 LU or CE). Very strong signals from the east coast on 160 - too bad all the
beverages were down for the summer - I felt like an alligator.  KL7Y was very
strong early on 160 and 80 -  That looked pretty remarkable on my gray line map
showing Dan at least 300 miles on the daylight side of the terminator.  20
meters stayed very non-absorptive to EU through midday - often it closes to EU
from 1000 to 1400 local time from here in Colorado.  Only worked a few of the
big gun EU and JA stations this year on 15 - the band was dead after 0000Z,
except for a surprise QSO with a very weak YC8UYB around 0800Z.

Congrats to NM5M for the great showing from WX0B (/5).

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