[TVARC] ARRLDX CW K2PS SOSB10 HP

[Pete K2PS]

'Twas a tale of two contest days.  Saturday (including the Friday night
start) was pretty darn good: 751 QSOs, in 78 countries, all single-band 10
meters.  But Sunday was awful.  Added just 241 more, in an additional 13
countries.  The band opened to the European big guns starting at around 620a
Saturday, and 7a when I could start running them.  On Sunday, everything
happened a whole hour later, with signals decidedly weaker.  The same was
true for the late afternoon/evening Asian opening.  While both Friday night
and Saturday night the opening was good enough to be able to call CQ and run
JA/YB, on Sunday night I heard only two weak JA stations, both of which I
had already worked.  Alas, we're finally getting to the tail end of Cycle
25, and it's probably downhill from here.  So, get in your 10-meter and
15-meter contacts now, while you still can.

Back to Saturday - the run rate was excellent for quite a few hours, getting
up over 200/hour a few times (note that N1MM looks at the rate in 10-minute
segments, so these are short bursts).  Best 60-minute rate was 125/hour at
about 10a.  Also, loved getting called by YB, 9J, ZF, 3V (twice!), 9G, DU,
ZS, and P3.  On the other hand, HB9IIX called me FOUR times!  But, as we've
been told to do, I just worked him each time.  I did once have a spate of
dupes, one after the other, so I have to conclude that someone spotted me,
but with the wrong callsign, and everyone thought I was a new, unworked
station.

Sunday also welcomed a visit by Murphy.  Seemed that the COM port
connections to the radio were flaky for some reason.  They controlled the
radio frequency and caused some agonizing pauses in N1MM.  Rebooting,
plugging/unplugging cables, and restarting N1MM got old.  Also had some
popping tones across the band that were quite annoying.  Not sure why any of
this occurred - everything was fine on Saturday - part of the Sunday hex, I
guess.  Could it be that the insidious lack of sunspots affects my PC too?
And caused the latest cold spell?  And my lousy golf game?

Congrats to George, K2DM, for a terrific QRP score!

73, Pete, K2PS

                    ARRL DX Contest, CW - 2026

Call: K2PS
Operator(s): K2PS
Station: K2PS

Class: SOSB10 HP
QTH: FL
Operating Time (hrs): 22

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
  160:           
   80:           
   40:           
   20:           
   15:           
   10:  992    91
-------------------
Total:  992    91  Total Score = 268,359

Club: The Villages Amateur Radio Club

Comments: IC-7610, Elecraft KPA500 amp (500W), rotatable 4-element yagi, up
about 30 feet (coming down tomorrow, <sigh>)




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