12/21/2008 | K0VH It's nice to see the results varied from the many others who posted (I forgot to post this last weekend), perhaps QSO count is related to latitude and ability to miss ice & snow storms that seem prominent in the US this December.

Other than Field Day the 10m event continues to be one of my favorite events and after many years of trying it mixed mode I finally went only SSB 8 years ago - I am not much of a high speed CW op - and have had much more fun at it. Since that time of course conditions have cratered taking me from almost 1000 Qs in the Dec 2000 event to 311 in 05, 200(running W0IBM single op here in Rochester MN 2006), 87 last year and only 68 this year. I run a IC746 with a SB220 to a TA33 @ 40 feet, modest but good enough for fun if 10 opens.
Which it did not at all on Saturday 1500-2100z when we had to QRT for a holiday event. Sunday was a little better up here in the northwoods with a little eskip taking us from CT to NM, but barely a FL and only 3 DX: 2 Caribbean and 1 Argentina (I think it's been 4 years now since we worked CA on this contest). Let's hope next year we get back up to 2-3X this QSO count, I'd do handstands just to hear Western Europe or JAs at this point. -- K0VH