[3830] ARRLDX CW N2IC SOAB HP

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ARRL DX Contest, CW

Call: N2IC
Operator(s): N2IC
Station: N2IC

Class: SOAB HP
QTH: New Mexico
Operating Time (hrs): 43
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:   58    26
   80:  253    65
   40:  733    87
   20:  670    92
   15: 1380   108
   10:  200    52
-------------------
Total: 3293   430  Total Score = 4,247,970

Club: 

Comments:

Started the contest with a surprisingly long JA opening on 15, then 20. Then
reality hit. 40 was unrunnable to EU. EU on 80 ? Ha ! The only redeeming
feature was that 160 was excellent to zones 8 and 9. I measure 160 opening
quality by the percentage of zone 8/9 stations who CQ in my face. It was 0 on
Friday night. Excellent JA run on 160 just before sunrise. Of course, at that
time it is competing against running EU on 20.

An hour of good 20 to EU at sunrise, and finally 15 opened to EU at 15Z. But
there was a 20 dB attenuator on all EU signals. The strongest were S7. Still, a
fine run for 2 hours before the band went flat. Back to 20 for nothing - a 50 dB
pad on EU. A long 5 hours doing S&P waiting for JA on 15. A 1 hour JA run on
10 was a welcome surprise.

4 hours of sleep. Saturday night was better to EU on 40, and even 80 showed
some life. One good thing about the RBN and being in a relatively uncommon
low-band QTH is that all I have to do is CQ a few times on a barely open band,
and all the EU multi's come and swoop on 80. A decent 40 EU run after EU
sunrise, then really, really slow to JA, despite the band being FB.

Eureka at sunrise, Sunday. 15 was excellent. Even 20 removed a few sections of
it's daytime attenuator after 15 closed. Over 7 continuous hours of running EU.
That's good for here at any part of the sunspot cycle in ARRL DX. Disappointed
there was no backscatter to EU on 10, but that made sense, because there was
also no direct path to zone 8 on 10 on Sunday AM, so nothing to scatter off of.
Worked a few western EU direct path, none louder than S3. I don't count S9+
CU4DX as real EU :). Ended with a bang - 4W/N1YC on 3 bands in the last 40
minutes.

A fun weekend !

73,
Steve


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