[SECC] IOTA Contest Report

[ku8e at bellsouth.net]

   Hi Everyone...

    The trip over to NA-58 for the IOTA contest was worth the drive. I wasn't able to put in a full time effort because this was a vacation trip for the
wife and kids too. I was able to put in a few 2 to 3 hour operating periods.
I think I had maybe 6 hours or so of operating time. I had about 260 QSO's in the log , which was not too bad considering I was just running 100 watts to a mobile antenna. The band conditions were really weird. I worked K4BAI on 20 and 15 meters and he was about 40 DB over S9... talk about short skip. I also remember working AE4Y on 15 meters too. The absorption was high on 20 meters during the day so it was hard to get any attention from the EU stations, who were all working each other. The activity was just OK from the US. Later on
in the afternoon I was able to get a good run of EU going. I also had a pretty
good run when I got back on 20 Saturday evening just before we went to dinner.
Had some neat DX call me - a 3D2 and 7Q7 come to mind. I pretty much quit the contest at 0000Z to spend the rest of the weekend with the family.

 This could be a fun contest to do an expedition with a "real" antenna on an island somewhere - like NA58. I found some nice spots right on the oceanfront on Jekyll Island where you could probably park a motorhome for most of the weekend and set up a portable antenna. They also have a campground there too. St Simon's would be tougher because they have only 2 real public beach access points. It is also much more developed than Jekyll. Probably because most of Jekyll is owned by Georgia and it's a state park. 

I will have a report on my breakdown later.....

                      Jeff  KU8E