2008 ARRL 10 Meter Contest
12/15/2008 |
WK5X
In 2007, Texas was the place to be in the 10 Meter Contest. In 2008, I'd bet that the Florida stations ran up the highest scores. Things started slowly for me here in Virginia on Friday evening. For the first 100 minutes, I worked a handful of VA, MD, and PA stations on groundwave. At 0145, things opened up with some shorter-than-usual sporadic-E openings to eastern and Middle Tennessee. Northern Alabama and Mississippi (my home state) soon followed. Then what sounded like meteor scatter began; I worked NY at 0328, and then took a break to tend to domestic responsibilities. I came back to the shack for a few minutes at 0522 and worked K5ZD and N4PN on what had to be meteor scatter. I heard many other stations at this time, but the bursts were usually too short to complete the QSOs. At half past midnight, with the band still open, I went to bed.
I made it back into the chair at 1445 on Saturday morning. The band was open to FL/GA as it would continue to be for almost the entire duration of the contest. There was also a long opening to the Maritime Provinces of Canada for hours, and for even longer on Sunday. I ended up with 16 QSOs from the Maritime Provinces. On Saturday evening, the band was wide open to Florida for hour after hour. I worked a total of 39 Floridians in the contest. K1TO was especially loud. I worked my last station of the night (N4EK FL)at0428. A half hour later, at midnight local, the band was dead at last.
Back in the chair at 1330 the next morning, the Maritimes were blasting in. VE9DX was incredibly loud. So were many Floridians that I had already worked. After four hours of domestic responsibilities from 1500-1900, I returned to find a different, but still wide open band. After a smattering of midwest QSOs, the sporadic-E disappeared, and all that was left was the best long haul F-2 propagation of the contest. I picked up Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina; CA and AZ were also worked on F-2.
My total number of QSOs was 139 and 44 multipliers on Mixed, Low Power. I was using a dipole at 53 feet. That is 40 more QSOs than last year using a similar setup. There was definitely more propagation this year than last year.
Last year, my biggest one-state total came from Texas. I didn't even hear Texas this year. -- WK5X
I made it back into the chair at 1445 on Saturday morning. The band was open to FL/GA as it would continue to be for almost the entire duration of the contest. There was also a long opening to the Maritime Provinces of Canada for hours, and for even longer on Sunday. I ended up with 16 QSOs from the Maritime Provinces. On Saturday evening, the band was wide open to Florida for hour after hour. I worked a total of 39 Floridians in the contest. K1TO was especially loud. I worked my last station of the night (N4EK FL)at0428. A half hour later, at midnight local, the band was dead at last.
Back in the chair at 1330 the next morning, the Maritimes were blasting in. VE9DX was incredibly loud. So were many Floridians that I had already worked. After four hours of domestic responsibilities from 1500-1900, I returned to find a different, but still wide open band. After a smattering of midwest QSOs, the sporadic-E disappeared, and all that was left was the best long haul F-2 propagation of the contest. I picked up Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina; CA and AZ were also worked on F-2.
My total number of QSOs was 139 and 44 multipliers on Mixed, Low Power. I was using a dipole at 53 feet. That is 40 more QSOs than last year using a similar setup. There was definitely more propagation this year than last year.
Last year, my biggest one-state total came from Texas. I didn't even hear Texas this year. -- WK5X
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