04/01/2007 | P40A I arrived at my home in Aruba several days before the contest. The 10m through 40m antennas are permanently installed at my station, however there are no transceivers or low band antennas set up. So, I spent two days laying down ground radial wires for the vertical, putting up small RX antennas and setting up two transceivers with automatic bandpass filters and automatic antenna switching. It is amazing how many wires are needed for wireless communication. Fortunately everything worked perfectly and I had some free time to do to do a few minor household projects as well as relax on the beach before the contest. I planned on starting on 20m, however the band appeared to be in poor shape so I started on 40m. After 1 1/2 minutes of calling CQ and not working anyone I realized this was a mistake and I switched back to 20m. I immediately had a huge pileup, which lasted for over an hour. Signals were not particularly strong, however I did work 321 QSOs per hour so I am glad that I changed bands. When I switched to 40m at 0120z I had much better success at running than earlier in the contest. At 0200z, I switched 160m to try and work a few multipliers. Usually top band is noisy in Aruba and stations have trouble hearing me and I have trouble hearing them from my small property. This time I felt like I was back on 20m and I easily worked many stations and I had to recheck my VFO to make sure that I was indeed on 1.8MHz. After working 111 stations in 1/2 hour on top band I went to 80m which was also in great shape and produced similar rates. This was by far the best low band conditions I have ever experienced from Aruba. I stayed up all night jumping between 40m, 80m and 160m. Finding a clear spot on 80m was now very easy thanks to the new U.S. phone band allocations, however many U.S. stations seemed to be avoiding the new segments. I guess old habits are hard to break. In the morning I went to 20m and then 15m. It appeared that most of the US could not work Europe on 15m, but they could work the Caribbean so rates were fantastic all day long. I kept one transceiver on 10m waiting for some opening, but I heard very little from the U.S. and I only made two contacts on that band during the first day and both stations were in Florida. The second night was a repeat of the first, except with slower rates and a dinner and nap break. The rates slowed down considerably the second morning and with only one multiplier on 10m I knew I had to really work hard on that band. I could hear South American stations running on 10m, however I could not hear the stations that they were working. While running stations on 15m, around 1740z, KB5TX urged me to try to work him on 10m. I had my second radio on 10m all day and never hear a U.S. station, but I tried anyway. Surprisingly he was quite loud and we easily made contact. This was exciting as he was a new multiplier and also the first station that I worked on all six bands. I then switched to 10m and started to work stations at a slow pace. Unfortunately conditions only appeared to be good toward Texas. Apparently I was spotted on packet and I eventually worked some of the very big stations around the country. W6LD / P40L, who had commitments preventing him for operating this contest from Aruba, made a great effort to give me my only 10m California contact. Working every new multiplier on this almost dead band was definitely exciting. I alternated between 10m and 15m many times hoping that the signal would peak to other areas of the country on 10m, however this did not occur. I tried to finish the contest on 20m however rates got really slow and I switched to 40m for the final ten minutes. This was a fun contest with fantastic low band conditions and if 10m were just a little bit better I may have been able to challenge K9PG's (WP3R) LP record. I would like to thank everyone who worked me, especially the 12 stations that really toughed it out to log me on all six bands. It was also great to work the many newly upgraded hams. They did a great job of properly making a contest contact and I hope that they will enjoy HF contesting for many years. I spent most of the following day dismantling the station before heading back home. Please QSL via WD9DZV.
john@p40a.com

73,
-- P40A -- KK9A