12/13/2006 | WD4OHD A lot of signals this year barely above the noise floor here at my QTH is southeastern Tennessee. My usual minimal setup: Kenwood TS-570S running 100 watts, this year into a homebrew vertical aluminum dipole. Heard nothing but local stations on Friday evening. The band opened in the late morning both days and closed early, around 4PM EST local. A nice period, however, between about 12:30 and 2:30 PM EST local on Sunday afternoon, with strong signals from California and somewhat weaker ones from other western states. Also during that time some short skip into the Middle Atlantic, mid-West and New England states. I also managed to work New Zealand, South Africa and Tonga during that window. No Europeans heard this year. Mostly stateside, Caribbean and South American stations. Only a few contacts with Canada. About what I would expect from my minimal setup and the doldrums of the sunspot minimum. Even so, the 10M contest is always fun. I've been doing it since about 1980 and run into a lot of the same stations every year. A nice break from my day-to-day High School teaching routine, as the contest falls each year right before exams. I'm looking forward to the DX contests in February and March already.

183 QSOs
40,588 points
-- WD4OHD