Topband: WAS is "Easy?"

[Ford Peterson]

It's been 5 days since the last "dot" was fired from the guns.  I've been
monitoring this and other reflectors regarding the chatter about Worked All
States in a weekend on Topband.

Here is this year's short list of claimed WAS.  If you should be on it, then
send me an email.  This is of course the claimed list so the log checkers
have not yet had their way with them.

These are not in any particular order...

N5IA
AA1K (with ND in the last minutes)
K7OK (RI was the holdout this year)
W5TM (it took 23 hours and 11 minutes to finally work RI)
K1LT
K9YC (Worked ND with one hour left)
K7OX (RI was the holdout)
N2WN

So I count 8 out of what will probably the typical population of 1000 or so
contestants.  In my world of numbers, 0.8% is clearly well outside the
normal bell curve.  So my only conclusion is that this year, WAS on a single
weekend was possible, but NOT easy, from just about everywhere.

Several sent me their comments and frustrations about missing ID, ND, RI,
AK, HI, ME.  Several sections were worked by only a few stations.  NNY comes
to mind.  And of course, PR was missing in action.  

Nobody appears to be claiming a Sweep this year.  So K5NA's SOHP sweep from
2004 appears to remain enshrined for at least another year, and the LP/QRP
slots remain empty...

In the hours before this year's running.  The A index was quite high (>30).
It dropped to a very low value for the weekend.  (3 comes to mind)
Unfortunately, the high levels of A (in my opinion) were just settling out
through the D layer throughout the contest so there was lots of attenuation.
California didn't show up here until about 05:50Z on Friday night when I can
typically work CA after 01:00Z.  Sunday AM was better than Saturday.  So the
'window' for ideal conditions may have been earlier this week, after the D
settled out a bit, but before the A returned to an obnoxious value again.

I find it interesting that AK seems to be more workable out east than it is
in the Midwest.  How can this be?  I can only conclude that the Aurora oval
is a donut shaped feature and that New England can work under the D layer
and through the hole in the donut.  AK was certainly not workable from here
in MN--the path was along the donut and not through the hole.  I remember
one contest at the peak of the cycle where the 'donut' extended down into
Iowa.  That year, I was north of the boundary and could work VE sections,
and the northern tier of US sections all night long with seemingly no
problems.  But TX, CA, and points east were all but missing in action except
for only the big guns.  

Looking at the history of the SOHO satellite passes over the weekend is an
interesting study.  You can find the 'topside soundings' history and the
related maps here http://sec.noaa.gov/pmap/index.html

Thanks to everybody for the Qs.  And get those scores posted at ARRL and
3830.

See you in "The Stew..."

Ford-N0FP
ford at cmgate.com