Thanks for those that could and did get on for the contest. A busy time for as all as we are starting to see our summer days becoming fewer and fewer.

 

  A little hard to know with the small sample size, but I think conditions in general were not too bad. Exceptions were my failure to work KM0T on 432 and failure on all bands with K2YAZ.

 

  I had a total of 39 Qs and 30 of those were in the first 4 hours of the contest. Mel and Carol were weak at 295miles while in EN33xa and EN32xx and only on 432. They were MUCH better in the last 10min of the contest in EN43aa about the same distance with 222 be SSB with some margin and 432 CW with no margin at all. Thank You Mel and Carol for being out there.

 

  N0UK and K0HAK - Chris and Holly were fun to work at their new QTH on 222, 432 and 10GHz tropo. Justin K9MU had GREAT CW signals as soon as he got home from work and we worked with ease on 222,432,902 and 1296. We both think perhaps the best signals we have had. Swept my 5 bands with Gary GHZ all on SSB. Surprising strong SSB signals even on 10GHz!  Worked Barry VE4MA through the forest and hills on 222,432,902,1296 using Q65 as well as VA3ECO on 432. Horrid paths with terrain and the forest. Eddie was GREAT copy on 222 Sunday morning on 222 CW. His 432 antenna as issues and we could not try there. Three bands with Jon W0ZQ and Jim K0KFC were worked as well.

 

  Those are the highlights.

 

222 – 12 Qs and 8 grids

432 – 15 Qs and 9 grids

902 – 3 Qs and 3 grids

1296 – 5 Qs and 4 grids

10GHz – 4 Qs and 2 grids (all tropo)

 

Contest program calculated points 24,426

 

Not horrid, but less by nearly 10,000pts and 10 or 15 fewer contacts than the previous 2 years.

 

73  Bill K0AWU