[CQ-Contest] Wee hour AP openings on dead bands at multis

[jpescatore at aol.com]

I remember operating 40 or 80 overnight at W3LPL in the 86/87 timeframe, when being near the bottom of the cycle 
meant 20 and 15 shut down completely at night. On the second night, I'd been running on 40/80 and had just turned 
it over to someone else to take a break at something like 0230 local. I look over at the 20M position and Dave KM3T 
was sound asleep with his headphones on and his head on the desk. He'd been on 20 all day and then was grinding 
it out chasing LUs and the like into the early am and those 10 rate hours just lulled him right to sleep.




I heard noise from his headset and sat down at the mult position and tuned in - there were scads of VKs and ZLs and 
other Pacific stations on the band, many of them mobile driving around. I gently pulled the log sheet out from under 
Dave's head (yes, sheet - it was paper logging) and worked a page (not screen) or two of them before the opening 
fizzled out. Many of them said LPL was the only non-local signal on the band - they thought it was someone playing
a joke.


John K3TN