I spent a few days before this contest working on the station to automate antenna selection, add full SO2R capabilities and to upgrade my very old version of Writelog. I made up cables for the SixPak and installed band decoders that had been in a box for many years since moving. I also unpacked the DX Doubler and connected it to both radios. Everything worked except I was unable to switch the DX Doubler using the computer. This is a new computer with a PCIe parallel port and nothing I tried seemed to work so I ordered a different PCI parallel port card on Thursday and I had it shipped next day air.  I spent  all Friday evening trying to get this new card to work but I was still unsuccessful.  Writelog sees the port but I could not get the LPT port to do anything. I woke up early on Saturday to install the Beverage antennas and by the start of the contest everything was ready. I decided to try the new LP Assisted category this year. Finding all of the multipliers was easy with the spotting network.  I did have to chase VY1EI though several bands before I could break his pileup and the rest of the sections were easily worked. I had the sweep after 8 hours. Nearly all of my QSOs were evenly distributed between 20m , 40m sand 80m, which is unusual. Propagation to the west was excellent on 15m, I don’t understand why it produced so few contacts. I hoped to surpass 1500 QSOs this year however rates really dropped during the last 5 hours. During this time I tried hitting the second radio hard looking for “fresh meat” and also picked on cluster spots desperately trying to add QSOs to the log. Shortly after the contest, I rolled up the beverage wires and coax feeding them (before they got chewed up by rodents again) and then drove to Chicago with the XYL for a lovely Thanksgiving holiday. Thanks to everyone for the QSOs.  Please QSL via WD9DZV.

73,

John KK9A / P40A