09/21/2004 | KB8U This was the best contest ever for KB8U, despite the complete absence of Es skip. There was excellent tropo on Saturday night to the east coast, especially on 432. These weren't ear-straining weak CW QSO's, but instead were arm-chair copy on SSB, clear out to Maine. Not too much above that, though. I had high hopes for a repeat on Sunday morning to the east, but conditions were 'only' above normal. The consolation was excellent UHF and microwave conditions to northern Illinois and surrounding areas instead. Lots of "I can't believe you're so loud!" contacts this weekend and all-time new grid/band QSOs. If they QSL, I'll finally finish off VUCC on 903.

Thanks to a pair of rovers, I logged a couple dozen QSOs when they were at the intersection of four grids (and not the closest 4 grids, either) during the normaly-slow Sunday afternoon period. Lots of other rover QSOs made it into the log this weekend thanks to the good conditions.

I didn't even complete my sole pre-contest arranged sked, all QSOs were random or were scheduled during the contest. Funny thing is, I couldn't work the sked on 50MHz meteor scatter on Sunday, but had managed to work the same station on 432MHz SSB the previous evening!

No equipment malfunctions this time that I know of. I still haven't got the 10GHz rig going after lightning damage this spring, but I don't think it made much difference in the score because the rovers who had the band didn't get close enough to work anyway.

See you in the next contest,

Russell
KB8U -- KB8U