ARRL 10-Meter Contest - 2020
Call: K2DRH
Operator(s): K2DRH
Station: K2DRH
Class: SO SSB Unlimited LP
QTH: IL
Operating Time (hrs):
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW: 0 0
SSB: 950 72
-------------------
Total: 950 72 Total Score = 136,800
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
Well, that was one was all over the map! Friday night started slow but by the
end of the first hour Es ruled the evening. No DX but the domestic rates were
pretty decent and the hops were such that the low 10M antenna really had its
chance to shine especially to the NE and Mid Atlantic with some bursts from the
west. Went to bed with well over 400 Qs in the log … more than I’ve done
for some whole 10M ‘tests in recent years!
The domestic openings weren’t nearly as good on Saturday, but it did opened
fairly early to South America and stayed open most of the day. No Eu but V51CH
was nice surprise. A little Es kept it interesting most of the day but in the
late afternoon it got really slow. The Caribbean and Central America were in
and out while Mexico and Canada were underrepresented. By night fall it was all
but dead. At this point of the solar cycle no worries getting enough off time
in this test!
Some of the SA’s had trouble with my low power and a few didn’t hear me at
all as evidenced by them CQing in my face, so I missed a couple of mults. Saw
very little classic Ms activity despite the lead up to the Geminids since the
shower set pretty early in the morning when it was already open on other prop
modes and didn’t rise again until after dark when everyone had given up on the
otherwise dead band.
Sunday started really slow and the Geminids rox were about all there was at
first. But around 1400Z I started seeing some sustained loud signals on the
waterfall and surprised some folks when a 2 call gave them Illinois instead of
NY or NJ. It opened on Es again, not as intense as the night before and pretty
much to the same areas so the rates weren’t as hot.
Sprinkled in were some more Africans but again no Eu. Luckily it simmered at a
pretty even level for several hours and lots of Qs went into the log. SA was in
and out again and a few actually called me in my pileups, including FY4KE a mult
I’d chased the day before. I held 28.400 for a nice long run until two big SA
stations decided they both wanted it. Same as Saturday the Caribbean and
Central America were spotty and many cluster spots for them were just not there
for me.
Just before 1900Z it opened to the west for a while and Ross ZL1WN called me
with an S7 (gave me an S3 and a single digit number), but no luck on any HI or
other Oceania Stations. Rates tapered off steadily until 2100Z when they
dropped to almost nothing. I did hear E51JD calling CQ around 2230 but he was
really weak and my low power wasn’t enough to get through. I called him out
on the cluster anyway hoping some of the SMC big guns would catch on, but never
heard any station work him and he soon gave up calling. I missed two lower 48
states (SD and MI) AK and HI (never saw either one in the ssb cluster callout
list) two thirds of the Canadian provinces and only worked 3 Mexican states.
The contest ended with a mind numbing dead band thud and my last QSO was at
2313Z, after a 45 minute gap of unanswered CQs!
73 de Bob
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