12/12/2008 | N9TF Still did not get my inverted L up for this years contest. Worked the contest with my low hanging Alpha Delta DX-LB at a 35-foot apex. One leg to the ENE was tied off into a tree at about 30 feet and the other leg sloped down along my roofline, laying on it in places, towards the SW at 10 feet of the ground at the end.
I heard and worked a bunch of east cost and VE3. Conditions to the west were pretty light compared to past years with similar antenna. West of CO signals really dropped off. I pulled the plug early Saturday night Sunday morning to get up fresh around 5AM Sunday morning in the hopes of catching some good sigs from the west and PAC. Very disappointing, as the band was pretty quite to that direction, and no PAC heard. The light snow that fell Friday night into Saturday morning did not seem to increase noise level too much and worked everything I heard, well except for PAC! Did work a few DX, P4, ZF2 and XE.
Bettered my score from last year, in part due to finally breaking from 100% S&P to diving into running. Thats always been a big handicap for me as Im a hunt and peck on the keyboard. Makes for a difficult time logging and running. I did get the hang of it, finally, and probably added about 150 Qs to the log I would not have gotten with just S&P.
Always a fun contest, and the one I most look forward to each year.
I really hope to have antenna improvements for next year. CU all in Stew Perry and CQWW 160.

Station conditions: TS-2000 100 watts to Alpha Delta DX-LB at 35 feet

73 Gene N9TF -- N9TF