[CQ-Contest] CQWW, e-mail and 10M!

[Alfred J. Frugoli]

Everybody must have been contesting this weekend, only 11 messages in 2 
days!  

I personally had a GREAT time this year.  I operated K1NU which took 
place at the QTH of K1TTT.  Couldn't be there Friday evening, or 
Saturday until evening, but had a great time when I got there.  I'm not 
much of a 160 fan, mainly becuase of a lack of experience.  Well, 160 
had me hooked for the better part of the night.  Got 3 hours sleep 
between 0200z and 0500z, and then got up to work the European greyline.  
That was a first for me, to hear the band litteraly switch on, and then 
fifteen minutes later switch off.  It's really amazing, but those 15 
minutes are sure a blast!  

I had planned to sleep more after the 160 greyline, but decided to check 
some spots on 40.  Worked there for a while, but then started to see 
some 15M spots along about 0900z, so I was off to 15 to check.  The 20M 
op was having a fun time getting the European stations to turn their 
beams and stop working each other, but amazingly I was able to work 
Europe on 15M.  At this point sleep is history.  Within a half hour I 
had established a pretty stable run, and that run continued on and off 
throughout the day, regardless of the operator.  

Well, this was breaktime.  But before I had a chance to think about 
sleep, 10M started to open.  from 1700z until I left at 2000z I didn't 
have a period where I was below 20q's per hour on 10, and most of the 
time I was higher than that for rate.  10 opened to Africa, Southern 
Europe (even squeaked GW4BLE out just as 10 peaked to the east).  Then 
the band started to turn.  NH7A is spotted.  Tune in, descent signal.  I 
call...worked one call.  Work or zone 3 10M mult as I find a run 
frequency.  Then, I just set one antenna on Europe, one on South 
America, and one West.  Had 4 ZL's call me.  Worked VK4 with good 
signals.  10 sounded like what I'm used to on 20!  It looked like the 
propigation might continue, and maybe the east coast would be able to 
work some Asia on 10M.  Unfortunatly, other duties called and I had to 
hit the road home.

This is my first experience with 10M being open like this, and I LOVE 
it!  I was first liscenced in September of 1993, and was not on HF until 
the spring of '94, so I don't know what sunspots over 100 must be like, 
but I can't wait.  What a thrill to have 3 bands running at the same 
time in a M/M!  Looking foward to the next contest!

In Love with Sunspots (and big antennas high in the sky),

Al, KE1FO  
-- 
Al, KE1FO, ex. KE6BER    mailto:ke1fo at contesting.com or ke6ber at tiac.net
Check out my web page, http://www.tiac.net/users/ke6ber for summaries 
from the contest reflector and a growing list of amateur radio links.


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