2003 ARRL 10 Meter Contest
12/20/2003 |
YP3A
Whuff! So hard conditions, sunday more bad...
JA's? Where were they? Not only one in the whole weekend as multiplier?
W's? I know that in an ARRL Contest they are hundreds of them! This time only 40 in CW (due to an 30min opening on saturday afternoon) and 10 in SSB (lucky to catch them sunday to make 6 states!!!).
Whith the southern emisphere the condx were better, whit good sigs from SA stations, even at 22-23 local time!!! Both days, in the morning the propagation started from OC, but never coming to JA. It was like a borderline there, working DU, YB, HS, but not only a signal from JA, HL, 9V, UA0 passing to this side. Some UA9 and eastern EU came in with weak sigs, but was OK with the EU west coast (strong sigs even from the QRP stations from EA, CT, G, sometimes F). Central EU only time-to-time. Saturday afternoon I was expecting better condx, but only a single opening to the NA gave me the permission to work 12 states on the East Coast for the multiplier. That borderline was also to the west passing to the centre of NA!!! I was very frustrated to see that the west EU's are working NA stations (especially CT's) wich I couldn't hear, but they are closer to NA so the opening was larger and they got Central NA. Didn't hear someone working W6! With the Central America the propagation was flutting, with up and down sigs. Saturday evening central and west EU started to come in so the rates were going up (finally, after such a hard day) but only few new mults (like 3A; I missed T77C, couldn't find him anywhere). NA and EU sides were working on the same band with no passing signals. In the late evening some skew path openings to SA. I expected also to NA, but never coming :( so I ended the first day with 680 QSO's, almost like UU7J and LZ9W, one of my objectives :)
Sunday - DISASTER!!! I could see how the QSO number of the opponents is getting up and mine was blocked around 700, with very slow rates of 5-10 QSO/h
so my hopes were down, also the top 10 dream! There were moments when no one cold be heard anywhere in the band. In the morning, for the JA's I tried also long path, with no result. An opening to OC with good sigs from 3-4 VK's made me believe that we'll have a better day. In the afternoon I focused to SSB hoping to catch another NA opening(like sunday) to make the multiplier, but only few big guns worked (more of them from FLA).
The strangest thing in this contest was that sunday afternoon, about 12z, I could hear just ONE station in the SSB band CQ'ing, and that was WP4EDD/QRP, peaking sometimes S8! WOW!!! Could't believe my ears! How was that possible? "What a crazy band!" I said to me!
Results: 868 QSO's, 178mults(160+18), score - 479,532
Thank you all the weak sigs guys for the patience, and also to all those who QSY for me. Thanks also to KP2/K2ZZ for the schedule, but at 17z couldn't hear him anymore. I enjoyed this contest as usual.
"Merry Christmas!" and "A Happy New Year!" to all of you, and see ya in the ARRL CW 2004! (hope in better condx!)
73! Tibi -- YO9GZU
JA's? Where were they? Not only one in the whole weekend as multiplier?
W's? I know that in an ARRL Contest they are hundreds of them! This time only 40 in CW (due to an 30min opening on saturday afternoon) and 10 in SSB (lucky to catch them sunday to make 6 states!!!).
Whith the southern emisphere the condx were better, whit good sigs from SA stations, even at 22-23 local time!!! Both days, in the morning the propagation started from OC, but never coming to JA. It was like a borderline there, working DU, YB, HS, but not only a signal from JA, HL, 9V, UA0 passing to this side. Some UA9 and eastern EU came in with weak sigs, but was OK with the EU west coast (strong sigs even from the QRP stations from EA, CT, G, sometimes F). Central EU only time-to-time. Saturday afternoon I was expecting better condx, but only a single opening to the NA gave me the permission to work 12 states on the East Coast for the multiplier. That borderline was also to the west passing to the centre of NA!!! I was very frustrated to see that the west EU's are working NA stations (especially CT's) wich I couldn't hear, but they are closer to NA so the opening was larger and they got Central NA. Didn't hear someone working W6! With the Central America the propagation was flutting, with up and down sigs. Saturday evening central and west EU started to come in so the rates were going up (finally, after such a hard day) but only few new mults (like 3A; I missed T77C, couldn't find him anywhere). NA and EU sides were working on the same band with no passing signals. In the late evening some skew path openings to SA. I expected also to NA, but never coming :( so I ended the first day with 680 QSO's, almost like UU7J and LZ9W, one of my objectives :)
Sunday - DISASTER!!! I could see how the QSO number of the opponents is getting up and mine was blocked around 700, with very slow rates of 5-10 QSO/h
so my hopes were down, also the top 10 dream! There were moments when no one cold be heard anywhere in the band. In the morning, for the JA's I tried also long path, with no result. An opening to OC with good sigs from 3-4 VK's made me believe that we'll have a better day. In the afternoon I focused to SSB hoping to catch another NA opening(like sunday) to make the multiplier, but only few big guns worked (more of them from FLA).
The strangest thing in this contest was that sunday afternoon, about 12z, I could hear just ONE station in the SSB band CQ'ing, and that was WP4EDD/QRP, peaking sometimes S8! WOW!!! Could't believe my ears! How was that possible? "What a crazy band!" I said to me!
Results: 868 QSO's, 178mults(160+18), score - 479,532
Thank you all the weak sigs guys for the patience, and also to all those who QSY for me. Thanks also to KP2/K2ZZ for the schedule, but at 17z couldn't hear him anymore. I enjoyed this contest as usual.
"Merry Christmas!" and "A Happy New Year!" to all of you, and see ya in the ARRL CW 2004! (hope in better condx!)
73! Tibi -- YO9GZU
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