[3830] WAE SSB KQ2M Single Op HP

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                    WAE DX Contest, SSB

Call: KQ2M
Operator(s): KQ2M
Station: KQ2M

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: CT
Operating Time (hrs): 35.8
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  QTCs  Mults
-------------------------
   80:  164   164   128
   40:  177   144   111
   20:  729   714    94
   15: 1266  1254    98
   10:    2     2     4
-------------------------
Total: 2338  2278   435  Total Score = 2,001,435

Club: Frankford Radio Club

Comments:

I'm trying to get in the habit of posting right after the contest rather
than waiting for a good time to do a write-up. (but there is NEVER a "good time"
:-)

I had intended to seriously operate IARU but got very sick, so, on Friday,
when it looked like I had the possibility to operate this weekend, I 
jumped at the chance.  I put the station back together Friday morning and
all the EU antennas worked, (some of the non-Eu wire antennas were damaged and
still needed to be fixed), so then I went outside to manually adjust the
"legs"
of my 80 M Inverted L 4-square.  

Due to complicated health and family circumstances, pretty much every contest I
have operated over the past year has been a SOLM (Single Op Last Minute) affair
or a part-time operation.  Thanks to the cooperation of my XYL Barbara and my
daughter Melissa (now 5), by 6 PM Friday I knew I could operate full-time. 
Since I had not operated the WAE Phone contest seriously in almost 15 years,
this was going to be a real "treat"!

All that was left was for propagation to cooperate and it did!  It was quite
amazing for me to see a K index of 1 or 0!! for many hours!  I can't remember
the last time that happened!  With a SF of 115 and a Sunspot count of 85, it
looked like 20 would be open at EU sunrise and 15 and 10 would be great.  Well
it didn't quite work out that way, but 15 was GREAT! and 80 was pretty good
too!

At the start of the contest, I was briefly able to run some EU on 20 but then it
was a slog on 40 and 80 until about 0530z when I took off-time. I had expected
20 to open at EU sunrise but it did not, however the W6 and W7 stations seemed
to be able to work the Northen Eu and Russians quite well at that time.

20 opened for me about 1015z but not very well and 15 took some time to get
going. Surprisingly there seemed to be very little Russian activity.  10 was
DEAD!  Even the South Americans were weak!  Now this did not make much sense
given the decent SF and Spot activity and even with the low Aurora readings,
there was barely a peep of EU's that I heard skew path, briefly, with the "guns"
a barely audible S1.  W0YR in Virginia was running EU on 10 but I could not even
get a callsign! So, back to 15 for the duration.  15 was Excellent for most of
the day and the q's piled up.  I stayed on 15 as late as possible since 20 did
not want to open well, and, by the time it did, much of the EU activity had
moved to 40, leaving an open 20 meter band with little volume.

It was hard to understand why many EU stations were NOT listening up in the US
phone band on 40 between 23z and 0030z on Sunday (GMT) when they were very loud.
 This made 40M q's very few and far between and I took some more off-time even
though 40 was wide open  80 had good propagation after 0100z but there was
little volume.   I decided to try run on 80 to pick up some mults.  
Occasionally a mult would call in but it was slooooowwwww.  40 would not get
going so I had little alternative but to stay on 80 for a long time.  With the
2nd radio, I would hear a loud Southwestern EU station or Russian station on 20
every so often, and I would think that with the low Auroral activity, the band
would open "for real", but it was just a tease.  20 stayed 2 or 3 loud stations
and lots of "empty space" in between, a mystery for sure!  I packed it in about
05z when, once again, 20 refused to open at EU sunrise.

Cndx really start to change in September from the "Summer Cndx" to Fall, and
some years September is amazing, while other years it is frustrating.  We seemed
to have the "right" propagation numbers for great cndx on 20 at night, but this
did not happen for the East coast.  The frequent sun flares after 00z on Sunday
were probably largely responsible for this and you could see the effects on 10
and 15 after each flare.  10 was dead on Sunday for large parts of time with
barely audible SA staions and just when 10 started to open skew path to EU
("open" as in I can get two or three letters of the EU big-gun call)
we got a flare at 1530z and then another at 1830z.  My stalking of 10 all-day on
Sunday paid off with DA0WAE at about 15z (skew path with 10 elements!) and later
with HG6N at about 1830z.  There was NOTHING in-between although I did hear two
other super weak EU stations at various points in the day.  10 was a BUST and
given the solar numbers, it was a huge disappointment!

After each flare my run on 15 went away.  I used the time to catch up on my
qtc's, asking each DL station "Are you ready for QTC's"?  I think some of the
fine DL ops took pity on me and took my QTC's even though they didn't want to!

I bounced between 15 and 20 a lot on Sunday afternoon and then had a brief run
on 40 after 2315z.  I never got most of the "easy" EU mults that I didn't work
on Friday and Saturday nights.  In fact it was hard to imagine working an IT9
ONLY on 15 and how I could miss an LZ on 40.  Equally baffling was the COMPLETE
ABSENCE of 3A, C3, ES, GD, GM/s, GJ, HB0, OY, SV5, TA1, TK and ZB stations, many
of whom were spotted on DX Summit operating on CW during this weekend! 

Overall it was a GREAT contest with simply INCREDIBLE DL, G and PA activity!
It was very exciting to hear and work all those new and unusual DB, DC, DD, DG,
F1, F4, G1, G7, 2E, 2W, PC, PH and other prefixes!  I hope that they all get on
for CQWW and ARRLDX!

I had an AMAZING 739 DL qso's out of 2338!, 280 G qso's 124 I qso's and 103 PA
qso's!  There were always more DL's to work and to take my QTC's.  The DL
support of this contest was FABULOUS and made it VERY enjoyable to operate!

The "icing on the cake" was to be able to break the 2001 US record of LU9AY (now
KQ7W) operating at K3NM, even WITHOUT 10 meters.  Of course, those 80 meter
mults count double, which really helps the score.  Breaking 2,000,000 points
with a few minutes to go felt really good, although the score will certainly
drop well below it after log-checking.

Congrats to all the high-scorers and especially to Al at D4B for a mind-numbing
score!  Congrats again to the DARC and all the DL stations for such a great
contest and for so much fun.  Thanks to everyone for all the Q's!

73
Bob KQ2M   kq2m at earthlink.net


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