I usually go to the Caribbean for this contest. I had not seriously operated this from the U.S. since 1992 so it was a little difficult to train myself to say the state instead of a power number in the report. I finally stuck a note on my monitor that said 59 NC and after a couple hundred QSOs it became routine. I operated 20m single band and I spent much of the first night searching and pouncing working mostly Caribbean and South America stations as I had a very poor opening to Japan and very little response to my CQs. After looking at the solar index on Friday, I expected poor conditions, but not being able to run at the start was frustrating. Luckily later in the evening the band did open nicely to Australia and New Zealand and I had a nice run of VK ZL stations before going to bed. I do not remember ever working this many in a contest. I woke up just before sunrise as the band was starting to opening to Europe. I had fantastic rates for three hours, one hour produced 186 QSOs. Rates slowed a little when many moved to 15m but even then I was still able to work at least 75 stations every hour. In the late morning I suddenly developed S9+15dB QRN. I looked out the window and saw that it was lightly snowing. This is unusual for this area but luckily the snow static only lasted for an hour. The snow did not stick to the ground and it was sunny for the remainder of the weekend. In the afternoon the noise level returned, but this time it did not appear to be from local weather. The noise level was S9 when beaming northeast. Around sunset the band finally opened to Japan so I turn the antennas and had a nice but short run. Afterwards, I searched and pounced a little before taking a dinner and sleep break. On Sunday morning I had another good European run working 60 to 90 stations per hour. In the afternoon the northeast S9 QRN returned making it difficult to work the weaker stations. Other directions were quiet but unfortunately the band never opened to Japan on Sunday. It was open to Australia however I had few callers, probably since it was Monday there and many hams were at work. When rates were slow I spent some time tuning for multipliers however I am sure that I missed quite a few. There was a lot of activity in this contest, especially from Europe where I made 79 percent of my QSOs. I had a great time operating and this score should easily break the U.S. fourth call area 20m record. I will definitely do this again! I would like to thank everyone that worked me on 20m. Please QSL via WD9DZV.

73, John