[3830] CQWW SSB N8II SOSB/15 HP

[webform at b41h.net]

                    CQ Worldwide DX Contest, SSB

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

Class: SOSB/15 HP
QTH: WV
Operating Time (hrs): 

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
------------------------------
  160:                    
   80:                    
   40:                    
   20:                    
   15:  971    28      120
   10:                    
------------------------------
Total:  971    28      120  Total Score = 415,436

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

Comments:

Wow, what a difference between at SFI in the mid-70's compared to upper 60's
when it comes to 15M into EU from here. Condx were much better than they have
been most of the month of October. Usually it seems that the WW weekend never
hits the best of the month's propagation; this time it did! I screwed up again
and assumed 20 would be wall to wall QRM and 15 would be marginal into EU, so a
trip to the vet for a minor doggie problem was scheduled for 1430Z Saturday
rather than taking time off work; I was off from 1345-1655Z, hence the rather
poor showing. My antennas aren't good enough to seriously compete for a single
band USA high, so that figured into it as well. That was the ugly. 

The good was that there were workable Europeans Saturday just after sunrise,
but it was almost an hour before I could run at any rate. There was plenty to
work in the meantime. Sunday, there were workable signals about 10 minutes
before sunrise or earlier! Sunday, by 1215Z or so, the band was loaded and we
had a good long opening into Scandinavia, many SM's and OH's called and loads
of LY's, no LA's for some reason (got 1 on Saturday). The opening extended
about as far east to St Petersburg and Moscow and the Ukraine, no UA4's, but
not a lot of either. 9K2HN plopped exactly on my frequency and started calling
CQ; he kindly QSY'ed after our QSO when I asked him to. That was as far east as
I worked, but I'd guess that VU was workable. I went a long stretch without a
single Italian QSO!
Also noticeable was almost no OK's, OM's, YU's, SP's during the 13-14Z time
frame; there was a hole in the propagation. The opening to NE EU closed around
15Z. 

I was amazed to be able to hold down around 21221 kHz from about 1245Z until
1612Z. It was not perfectly clear, which slowed down the rate, but many signals
were really loud, so it was possible to work thru S5-S9 QRM. Someone moved in
below me about the time I must have been spotted; it was fun to run at max rate
(probably one of my fastest the whole weekend) right thru the QRM; after about 8
minutes, he left. My best rates were 13Z - 116, 14Z - 154, 15Z - 155. I almost
pulled up stakes at 14Z to look for many missing mults, but the rate picked up
just in time. There were many fewer broad overdriven signal compared with 5-10
years ago, thank goodness; 15M was packed to the hilt, even when only SW EU was
still workable. I didn't have a lot of luck with rare mults calling; nobody
called me from AF except EA8. 7Z1SJ and several 4X's did call. Easy EU mults
missed were GI, GD, Z3. I heard nothing from the following workable zones: 36,
39, 40. Zones 01, 22 and 29 may have been workable as well. Activity from zone
35 was really low, only booming 5H3EE was worked from 37. The pleasant suprise
was a nice tour of every corner of zone 32 working FK8GM, E51JD, ZL's, FO8RZ,
A31KK, and ZK2DL. VK's were weak and few. Saturday there was
a brief opening into zones 27 (AH2R and AH0BT) and 25 from 2230-2310Z; they
were all quite weak. The only mult heard and not worked was 4U1UN on
backscatter, I suspect the QRN level in NYC is not the best, Hi! Most of the
pile-ups were pretty easy to crack; I had to give up on E51JD and come back
later. I suspect ST2KSS will finish near the top on 15, always loud and busy!
All of the very close in mults to the south were workable, but some only
briefly. VP9, C6A, VP5, ZF, CO, and 6Y were all logged. A little extra effort
near the end payed off with 10 mults logged to the south and the Pacific at
21-22Z. 15 was a blast, I can't wait until 10 is the same!


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