12/20/2004 | NX5M We could have gone qrt for the last 3 hours of the contest. Less than 20 qsos were logged between 2100z and 2359z Sunday.
Five minutes before the start of the contest there were very few signals on the band. But once 0000z hit there was certainly life to be found.
The first night we logged over 100 more qsos than we had the first night the year before.
Decent openings to Europe Saturday and Sunday. Nice surprise opening over the pole to G, SM, YL, OH, etc., during the middle of the day on Saturday.
I never would have thought that we would have had a blackout to SK, MB, MT, WY, UT and AZ. It took what seemed like forever to finally get AZ into the log. Eventually we got WY and UT but those were certainly tough qsos to complete.
It is a shame that so many do not get on the band later into the night. Band was open but there was no one to work.
Oh yes, it is also a shame that so many people do not have their paddles hooked up. Come on guys. CW is fun. Use it!
We were on track for our target qso count (2200) at 1800z Sunday. But the 1900z and 2000z hour rates were 19/19 so that pretty much revealed that it was not going to be reachable. Little did anyone know that the last 3 hours were going to be the worst of all.
The two other Sunday ops departed for home about an hour before it was over. N5XJ because he was on his Harley and did not really want to drive back home after dark, and N5DUW, who has a good 2 hour drive back to his home qth. So I sat in the chair a finished it up alone.
In the last hour the band sounded like it was going to open up again but it never did except for a few weak signals....most of which were already in the log.
N5XJ operated his 8th consecutive 10m contest with me. N5DUW made his 3rd straight appearance while KB5ZFO made his 5th visit. K5GN was a first time op here in the 10m contest and although he was only able to be here Saturday he made a fine contribution to the effort.
We certainly appreciate everyones patience in waiting for us to pull out the weak signals. I think there were only a few that we finally had to give up on.
2005? Well, we have been at it for 8 years in a row and have done well each year. Worse conditions next year? Probably! Will we give this thing another run? Probably! -- NX5M