01/06/2009 | AB0RX George, AB0RX and Joe K0BX joined forces again this year for another entry in the Multi Operator High Power category. Our club station recently received two ICOM 756 PRO-3s and we gave one of them a really good break-in.
The lack of sunspots was certainly observed as band conditions were not as good as last year. The 15 Meter band was hardly open on Saturday. Sunday was a little better. The 20 Meter band was open but the openings to Europe and Asia were not as long as last year. We listened on 10 Meters once, heard nothing and never went back. Thunderstorms were predicted for Sat night threatening the low band portion of the effort but we were fortunate and 80 meters was a good as ever.
Participation from all parts of the US was excellent. Worked All States was easily achieved with every state worked multiple times. In fact we almost worked WAS on three bands:
20M - 46 states,
40M - 45 states,
80M 46 states,
VE participation was good too but we missed LB, YT, NU and NWT. We made 113 QSOs with VE stations. DX participation was excellent as well as 299 DX QSOs were made despite the poor band conditions.
Our log was loaded into LOTW shortly after the contest and within an hour we had over 400 QSOs confirmed. After 48 hours, over 700 QSOs have been confirmed and WAS has been confirmed.
Thanks for working us again this year.
73 DE AB0RX and K0BX -- AB0RX