[NLRS] "Contest" report EN37ed

[Bill Davis]

Poorest contest result of any contest since I started keeping records. 52deg this morning when I got up at 5:15am to work the contest. The cold front did not help conditions for sure. Poor conditions and almost no activity resulted with:

222 -- 10 QSOs  7 Grids
432 --  6 QSOs  2 Grids
902 --  2 QSOs  2 Grids
10G --  1 QSO   1 Grid

22 contacts
90 QSO pts
15 Mult

1350pt total


Called a bunch of times toward NT0V, W0PHD, W0ANH, VE3KRP, K0MVJ and not one QSO. W9UD, KA0PQW and W9RPM were worked on 222. These are typically not easy Qs. Matt did require some serious digging on CW, but we made it. RPM and UD were on tropo bubbles and VERY good SSB copy. K2DRH was never heard, even once. Heard Mel once, well, on 222 early Sat evening QSYing with VPJ, tried to catch him before he moved antenna/freq and never heard him again... gone. I did work VPJ/R and IYT/R in EN34. Never worked my own grid, closest grid worked EN34.


K0KFC was more difficult that often, but was worked even on 1296 SSB. Gary W0GHZ has been slaying 10GHz dragons and was worked mid morning Sunday with difficulty. Gary and I normally see signal 15-18db above the noise on 10GHz and today 5db or less was the average just before 10am. Glen and I tried 10GHz last night and nil result. Since Gary was "down" at the time, I don't have a frame of reference. The balance of 10GHz activity was "down town only" and no chance to "test" further.


With the required airport trip and the late start 5:25pm start, I'm not sure what I missed. It was driving me crazy to watch the clock turn 1pm and be headed south toward MSP instead of pressing the foot switch on 432.

As they say .. it can only get better ... I DO hope that is right.

73 Bill K0AWU EN37ed