[SCCC] N6ED 2012 ARRL CW DX SOAB Assisted HP

[Craig Gullickson]

Band  QSO  DX
160     0      0
80      55     30
40     286    90
20     360    87
15     241    100
10     186    68
-------------------------
        1128   375      1,269,000
 
 
Overall a fun contest.  I did my usual part-time effort, slept some both nights, took a few hours off each afternoon to keep in check with the family ;-)
 
Propagation:
SUPER EU opening on 40m Friday night, I bailed on the high bands early to catch the loud EUs while they were there, Asians loud on 40m both nights.  By Saturday morning I had 83 countries on 40m and thought it would be easy to get to 100 the next night......apparently I vacuumed up everyone the first night!
20m had life in the middle of the night, worked a couple EUs at 2am local.  Caribbean super loud on 20m well before sunrise on Saturday morning.
Saturday night the high bands were on fire.  HUGE AU effect....lotsa flutter and raspy CW.  10m had a super opening over the pole into N. EU around 0000z with about 20 stations logged and was producing well into Asia until about 45 mins after sunset.  15m was going till about 0330 but had the big JA's even later still CQing.  20m was awesome....I had a great run from ZL to western EU on Saturday night that just didn't want to quit, lots of low power EUs and UA's in the log.  (Reminds me of the days of working "chainsaw Russians" as a teenager at WA6IET)  40m LP was there but very few stations.  Sunday morning on the high bands was a slugfest.  There weren't many new DX stations on the bands by this time so if a rare one was on, they got hammered.  I actually had to bow out of a few of the pileups because it was just utter chaos and literally the station was working about 1 every 2 minutes....V51YJ, ZS1EL and TK1MH come to mind.  There were many
 others I made it through but the QSOs were plagued with callers throughout the contact.....what a mess!  Never did hear 6O3A, ever, what a shame :-(
 
SCCC:  
Heard lots of our guys on, great activity.   Shared numerous pileups with N6WS, N6QQ, N6WIN, AA6PW which was great fun.  I agree that W6PH was rare on 80m, I went there on a packet spot often and even checked back but nada.  I have a tremendous noise level on 80/160 though so it's not suprising although I normally am able to catch him at some point.  Maybe time to have Ed VP9GE try a new 80m antenna ;-)  (Tim WIN, pack extra wire and coax for next month hihi)  
The big guns K6NA, W6YI, and W6YA all were being spotted often throughout the contest....it helps to have a potent signal guys, wonderful job!!!!
ZF2AM (K6AM) was super loud everywhere!
 
Interesting notes:
The winner for "pleasant surprise" was 9N1II calling in on 3 bands (10, 15, 40).  He had a very good 100W signal so it's obvious he has some sort of hardware up in the air.  Hopefully he will become a regular!
 
Till the next edition ;-)
Craig N6ED