10/12/2005 | K1WHS I try to get a few hours in on the 10 GHz contests. I operate from a home station, which seems somewhat rare on 10 GHz. A few people do it, but a mountain top or a large expanse of sea water sure helps with the contacts. This year, I managed 5 hours of fun on the second weekend only. Of course, the bands were stinko for the most part from my home location. Saturday seeemd to be slightly better than Sunday, but I was only active for slightly less than one hour. On Saturday, my best DX was K2DH near Rochester, NY for a new grid on 10 GHz. On Sunday, I tried with W3HMS in FM08US to no avail. He was barely audible on 144 with my huge 4 long yagi array at 136 ft. That makes a very nice liason antenna by the way!! Only after sunset did things seem to improve, and I could finally work K2TXB in FM29PT. I missed with other stations earlier in the day in places that I have worked in the past, so the band was down for sure. I never heard any rain scatter while I was QRV. With only 5 hours of operation, I am not surprised. I missed much! Rig is a 36" dish at about 115 ft. with 20 watts rf output and mounted on the back of the dish. I ended up making 26 contacts from home. That adds up to about 5 per hour! Quite a rate!! -- K1WHS