[3830] ARRL 10 C4Z(5B4AIZ) SO CW HP

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                    ARRL 10-Meter Contest

Call: C4Z
Operator(s): 5B4AIZ
Station: 5B4AIZ

Class: SO CW HP
QTH: LARNACA
Operating Time (hrs): 20

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   CW: 1520   114
  SSB:           
-------------------
Total: 1520   114  Total Score = 700,000

Club: 

Comments:

Being unable to give the full amount of time to either of the CQ" contests
in recent weeks I was relieved that nothing got in the way for this weekends
ARRL 10 mtr contest, some PC  issues at the start and a couple of electrical
storms apart.

Sunday was far better than Saturday when there were long periods of fade outs
during the middle hours of the day and USA stns were very weak plus the band
pretty well died at 4,00pm local time. After that it was scratching around for
central/ south americas
and they are pretty thin on the ground. Having said that, whilst Oceania stns,
VK/ZL were coming through stable loud and clear for some hours SP  both
mornings far eastern stns were suffering from the band instability,
particularly on Sunday when I was trying to run and I wish I had done less
S&P on the first morning as neither JA's nor BY's were there in the numbers
of the day before.

On the whole I found band cndx difficult. Both days it was mainly 'spotlight' 
propagation and my log shows clusters of UA9's, then UA3's, SP's, OK's, DL's,
PA's, and UK stns (UK mainland only, I couldn't find the islands) these
clusters showing constantly throughout the log. Strangely there are very few
southern eu stations in the log, without  I, 9A, YU, EA stns puts a big hole in
the numbers and it was very strange to hear flutter on those areas.

We know that 5B has advantages for many contests but for this one west eu has
the edge, contact scoring is same for all areas of the world, and particularly
UK in terms of a clear water path and more shared daylight, so I hope that you
guys made the most of it..


When the spotlights were out I tried to S&P looking for areas that might
share propagation with little success, in fact my dxcc mults were a miserable
77 countries and I truly do not recall ever having less than 100 countries on
10mtrs in a two day event, I just could not find new ones most of the time,
rarely even coming across pile ups which would have caught my attention,
feeling the need to run at good times was obviously the reason.

Sunday was better with stronger signals from USA the band did stay open until
5.00pm local time and I was able to add some of the mid west and southern
states to the east coast and northerly states gathered the previous day. I
never even heard anything west of MO & IA but bear in mind 5.00pm here is
1500z and western USA would not have sunrise yet, so my 37 zones is no worse
than I anticipated except I could not find VE9. Where were you Mike??

Over driven amps do seem to be fewer but there are still far too many 'clicky'
signals and for some reason I seemed to have not one but two of those (ES) stns
who appeared to be following me around.


A couple of guys are going to cause a load of busts for sending their calls too
fast with characters merging. I hope the log checkers can collate the numbers of
busts against particular ops and penalise them too.

 I don't have a problem taking down cut numbers but wish ops would not do it,
This is not only inconsiderate of less experienced ops but frustrating when
waiting for an S&P find to hear requests for repeats which should not be
necessary if they had been sent properly. Additionally more than usual repeats
were necessary this weekend in the continually fading band conditions and added
to that too often we need to wait further  until the op decides to ID.

I must have had  two or three bad cluster spots as  I had more dupes than
usual, no excuse for them as I do ID after most  contacts unless the pile is
deep (and that did not happen very often this weekend) and then I never go more
than three contacts without ID'ing.

Total of 1520 qso's after dupes. Unassisted score circa 700,000. CW only

Kenwood TS570 + Acom1010 400w. Cushcraft X7 up 15m.  Logging - 'SD'

73  Brian C4Z / 5B4AIZ.


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