[3830] ARRLDX SSB N8II SOAB HP

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                    ARRL DX Contest, SSB

Call: N8II
Operator(s): N8II
Station: N8II

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: WV
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   11    11
   80:   69    38
   40:   85    46
   20:  790    86
   15:  381    67
   10:   16    10
-------------------
Total: 1352   258  Total Score = 1,045,654

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

Welcome to hopefully the absolute bottom of the cycle; condx were actually
 better than on many recent days, e.g. 15 was nearly dead in the REF
 contest a week earlier. As usual Friday was the busiest day of the week
 at work, so I knew I couldn't make a go at a serious effort. My time on
 the low bands was limited as the totals reflect, but there was enough
 action to keep me busy from 01 thru 0330Z after starting at 0030Z on
 20 and finding decent Caribbean/SA condx. The whole contest, no new
 band countries were worked and Q's on 75 were limited more or less to
 EU and south. On 160, only OK5R and CU2A were worked from Eu, but I
 was in bed at Eu sunrise which is crucial to success at this point in
 the cycle. ZS9X did have a nice signal with 100W on 75 at his sunrise
 the first day.
   Both days, I didn't arrive on 20 until well after the band had opened
 to Eu and by that time the band was packed. I ended up running most of
 my Q's between 14310 and 14336 both days. Saturday this worked out well
 with plenty of callers; Sunday was slower, the QRM level was higher,
 and the callers were weaker as most of the serious competitors were
 in the log. Not having a chance at any serious competitive score, I
 took off about an hour to take the dog a walk on the C&O Canal towpath.
 The snow and ice was gone, but the water/mud was not. The dog's
 underside was soaked! The Potomac River was a torrent of muddy water
 above its normal shore line, but no serious flooding thankfully.
   Past 19Z, 15 seemed only open to the south, 10 was good for about
 4 Q's into SA, and 20 didn't sound much better. Since I missed my
 father-in-laws birthday dinner due to ARCW, I felt obligated to have
 dinner with the family Sat PM, so over 2 hours of prime low band time
 was missed starting 2240Z. I tried running on 40, with very little
 luck. When I returned, condx sounded about normal on the low bands, but
 activity was fairly poor from Eu being the middle of the Eu night 2nd
 day. I ran a few on 75, but the run lasted maybe 15 minutes. Condx to
 the south were great on 40 around 03Z, LP1F was louder than any Eu, but
 they were fading out by then.
   Sunday was becoming a horrible struggle thru the QRM and I was about
 to bag it, when 15 popped open to large areas of Eu. SA3C was logged
 with a good signal at 1348, and immediately I looked for a good run
 frequency; I dug in around 21239 which stayed clear for the next hour.
 Northern Eu was louder than the rest of Eu until at least 1430! Two
 Russians and couple of Ukrainians made it into the log along with many
 from OH and SM. Between 1348 and 1447Z, 131 Q's were logged with many
 new mults. My best rates on 20 were Saturday with 126 Q's in the 12Z
 hour, 106 - 13Z, and 111 - 16Z. On Sunday, 10 was open only to very
 limited areas at one time. By going back fairly often I managed to
 eek out 10 mults. The biggest surprise was 6Y1V around 21Z probably
 on a sporadic E opening. I ran a few on 40 between 23 and 2330Z when
 I called it quits.
   As on CW, there were many who called out of turn in the pile-ups
 which only slows things down for everyone. While running, I perfectly
 copied an IZ6 and gave him a report. The only problem was another
 Italian with an IK4 or IW4 call gave me the report back while the IZ6
 stayed silent. Guess what, you're not in my log. I never copied your
 full call. W2SC at 8P1A gets the best runner award again; I never have
 to wait for him and he's running just as smoothly after 40+ hours as
 at the beginning. I never worked so hard to make 1 meg; there was a
 lot of running DL's and I's in that mix. Finding the mults was more
 difficult than ever and some potent line noise certainly didn't help,
 but it was fairly quiet at times. At the peak of the cycle, the same
 effort would yield at least twice the score. Let's hope by at least
 2009 or 10, we will be merrily running Eu on no meters like ten meters
 again!


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