[RTTY] Best Ever RTTY Contest

[Don Hill AA5AU]

For those that missed this past weekend's CQ/RJ contest, you missed
what could be the best RTTY contest ever held.  It was the most fun I
ever had on RTTY.

Condx (from here anyway) were excellent other than 40 & 80 the first
night.  The low bands were very noise and signals were fluttery but on
the 2nd night they were nice and quiet and actually fun to be on.

10 opened late to EU the first morning, but opened at sunrise to EU the
2nd morning.  Worked EU on 15 all the way past 0000Z Saturday.  JA runs were
great on 10.  20 was good but the flux was not high enough to keep the
band open all night here, otherwise the damage could have been worse.
I kept waiting for that great EU/JA run 20 around 0700Z but it never happened
either night so I went to bed.

Several firsts for me in this year's contest.  First time using high power
when a low power category exists. That was a gas.  First time over 2000 Q's
in any contest (2443).  First time over 700 Q's on a single band (839 on 15M).

Too much DX to mention.  Looks like I missed the 7Z and JX.  I called
the 7Z on 10 but he never heard me.  Never knew Per (JX7DFA) was active
this weekend.  Broke several huge pileups I would never have attempted
low power.  I hadn't made up my mind to do SOHP or SOA until just before
the contest started.  I'm glad I went unassisted.  There was so much
activity, I think the packetcluster might have distracted me and probably would
not have added much to the fun.

My score at http://lists.contesting.com/_3830/2002-September/041347.html.

73, Don AA5AU
http://www.aa5au.com
http://www.geocities.com/writelog