[3830] ARRL 10 PJ4DX SO SSB LP

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                    ARRL 10-Meter Contest

Call: PJ4DX
Operator(s): PJ4DX
Station: PJ4DX

Class: SO SSB LP
QTH: Bonaire
Operating Time (hrs): 28

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW:           
  SSB: 2203   137
-------------------
Total: 2203   137  Total Score = 603,622

Club: Chiltern DX Club

Comments:

I moved permanently to Bonaire last month and received my new PJ4DX licence just
five days before the contest (I'm ex-9M6DXX / 9M8Z in contests). 

This was only my second contest ever from the Caribbean and the first was
nearly 30 years ago, so I did not really know what to expect. At the start
there was severe auroral distortion on the South American signals, particularly
the southern LUs: there must have been a spectacular Aurora Australis somewhere!


The band opened properly to Europe at about 1200GMT on the Saturday, but there
was so much activity and such strong signals it was difficult to hold a run
frequency with just 100W and a low antenna. I fared much better later to North
America.

I decided to have a good night's sleep but found the band was already wide open
to Europe before 1200GMT Sunday so it looks like I lost at least an hour of
prime EU propagation.

I worked most EU countries that I heard, the only gotaway being GT8IOM. I did
not hear any Z3 stations despite working several YUs, 9As and E7s, and nor did
I hear a YL despite working several in ES and LY.

I was pleased to work all States, including KH6 and KL7. The 'rarest' mainland
States from here seem to be VT and NE, but there was a huge amount of activity
from MN, which I had always thought of as a bit of a 'black hole' from my other
locations.

>From Canada I missed VO2, VY1, VY0 and, surprisingly, VE2. Mexico was a bit of
a bust, with only three XE mults worked: I worked far more XEs a couple of
years ago from 9M6! I guess XE is just too close to PJ4. Likewise, it was
impossible to crack the pile-ups on Caribbean mults such as ZF1A, FM5AN and
PJ2T, but thanks to PJ2T for calling *me* later during a quiet spell!

Some of the JA signals during the greyline between 2200 and 2300GMT were great,
but I did not hear any other East Asian countries at all. From OC, the only
countries worked were VK, ZL and YB. 

So, overall conditions were good, maybe even very good - but not spectacular.

Rig: Yaesu FT-950, Ant: Spiderbeam at 18 feet above ground. 

See you next year! 73, Steve, PJ4DX.


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