"KØHB" wrote:

A tale of two contests!

Started out like gang busters. Scouting the bands before the bell I came
across VY1JA handing out "placeholder" reports on 10M, so lurked there
and
put NT in the log as the 1st QSO. How much better can it be than that?

Then followed several good hours on 20 & 40, retreating down to 80M
about
midnight. At break time I had a nice fat log, including 79-mults
(missing
VE4).

Hit the bands again at 1400Z, and found Derrick VE4VV on 20 to open the
morning with my sweep in the bag, and started the day with some nice
(for
Sunday morning) runs on 20 & 15.

"HEY", sez I, "this may be my year!"

Alas it was not to be.

At around 1600Z things just collapsed, with only 15 showing much life.
Conditions fluctuated from bad to poor to fair to horrible the rest of
the
morning and all afternoon for me. At BIC=18-hours I decided I'd had more
fun than I could stand, so I sent in my log.

Only rrap'er I heard was N2EY early in the fray.

CU in two weeks!


I was out and about early in the contest on Saturday so I got a very
late start. Most of the early going was S&P though I decided to CQ on
80m in the middle of the night. I must've heard VY1JA about the same
time as Jim. He had a good signal for some minutes on 20m and it grew
weak rapidly.

I spent very little time on Sunday, having spent a goodly portion
watching the Steelers slap the snot out of the Eagles. Band conditions
on Sunday were dreadful. The watery, echo-laden, raspy signals
indicated aurora and those conditions extended down to even 80m. Never
caught a peep of N2EY, K0HB or W4NTI. Maybe we were all CQing at the
same times or all using S&O at the same time.

Line sco

ARRL Sweepstakes Contest, CW

Station: K8MN

Class: Single Op HP
QTH: West Virginia
Operating Time (hrs): 5.3 hours

Summary:
Band QSOs
------------
160: 0
80: 100
40: 141
20: 20
15: 0
10: 0
------------
Total: 261 Sections = 67 Total Score = 34,974

Dave K8MN