a nice bit of 6m prop on Saturday late afternoon helped as the ACOM 1000 loafed along at about 300w on FT8. I was also able to make a couple of surprising 2m FT8 QSO's into central FL with the Mirage at about 100w.  Did not really expect that type of distance with the yagi at only about 28' !!

It's not quite as fun working the contest alone compared as when we all get to join together and eat Jerry's cooking, but it might be a bit better on the waistline....

Slack helps with the conversion and contact SKEDs but it's not quite the same, of course.

I was able to pick up a couple of local SSB contacts, and was hoping to see a few more around here on the air, but I did not encounter any others.

I saw MANY single decodes (and they were stronger than -10)  only to have the signal vanish after that 1 cycle.

I thought at first K4VBM was pranking me.  I'd see him at -5, then nothing for several cycles, the -8, then gone again...  I later noticed that I could hear some "whistles" for several seconds like 6m would have a very tiny opening.  I guess it might have been a meteor, but many times I could hear/see the full WSJT TX interval only to get a single decode then not see the signal again for several minutes in most cases.

Next task is to go through the 432 coax jumpers to see if I can identify an intermittent connection as I seemed to not have reliable 432 operation.  I also think I saw a trace on 222 from WB8LYJ/R when he was not too far from my QTHwhen I used the 2m yagi, so there is some hope for the 222 xvtr.

Also many thanks for "VHF Jeff"'s efforts to light up grids around GA!!  I know it is a huge effort.

73 KI4US

Bill