11/08/2005 | K5ZD *** My 29th consecutive year of SS CW with over 1000 QSOs! ***

Wasn't mentally or physically ready for this one. Have had back problems for past 6 weeks and didn't think I could make it through the whole contest. Wanted to see if I could last long enough to get over the 1K QSO mark.

Conditions seemed OK at the start, but activity was off. I had no problem finding and holding frequencies on 40m all Sat night. That's not normal at all.

Lots of static and QSB on Sat night. Made copying some of the low power and QRP stations a challenge. I'm sure my Log Check Report will have a higher than usual number of busted exchanges because of the poor conditions.

When I compared to my last year's rate sheet, I was over 150 QSOs behind when I went to bed.

Again on Sunday, conditions were OK, but activity was not. I managed to catch up with some of the jack rabbits out West, but not enough. At one point N2NT was 100 ahead of me. Finally made it to 1000 QSOs at 1800z (about 3 hours later than expectd).

Have never wanted to quit a contest so bad. My back was hurting on and off. Decided that I would regret it if I quit and found later I could have won the Division or something. Also, once you are 18+ hours into the masochism that is SS CW on Sunday, might as well stick it out.

I thought the caliber of operating was better than ever this year. Almost everyone would provide the correct fills and seemed to know what "PR?" meant.

The QRP crowd is awesome. They don't send the fastest, but they do a great job of making QSOs.

My last section was VY1JA in NT. Next to last was WB0CW in ND. That was the only time I heard either of those the whole weekend! Nice to get the sweep and be able to concentrate only on making QSOs. -- K5ZD