~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: 4A2S Class: M/S HP Total Score = 4,839,663 Absolutely no 10 meter opening. Needed NL for sweep on 20 meters. Thanks for all of the Q's. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: 4U1ITU Class: M/S LP Total Score = 13,200 We returned from a week of vacation in Barcelona and only returned to Geneva at 9PM on Saturday night, so my original plan to enter single-op was toast. So instead, I used this contest as an opportunity to show two of my sons how a major SSB contest worked - Kody (14, K3ODY) and Aidan (11, KB3SPI). They had both gotten their licenses last year, but had not shown much interest in on-air operating since. We spent 99% of our time listening and S&P'ing. However we had terrible problems on 20M with RFI and feedback in our audio circuits and many stations we worked told us we were basically unintelligible. Also we were only able to make 1 QSO on 80-meters (K3LR) and only a handful on 40-meters. This location does not play well on 40M and 80M to the US, expecially when running only 100W. But the highlight was a quick run of 30 stations in 9-minutes from 1731-1739Z at Geneva sunset hour on Sunday on 21.400 - absolutely magical and made all the earlier frustrations worthwhile. Kody's conclusion: he thought this was basically 'a lot of yelling' and told me he had more fun at the High Speed Telegraphy championships last year in Bulgaria. I guess a DVK would have helped - need to get one for next year. Actually Kody thought the idea of a '100% digital' voice contest (with pre-recorded WAV files) would have been the coolest solution, and would have saved our voices. I guess it's a generational thing - I actually had fun handing out the '4U1' multiplier to many of the people whose callsigns I recognized. Maybe I'll try the NCCC sprints next, and see if that's a bigger hit with the boys. Thanks for all the QSOs, and see you in the next one. Ken KE3X ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: 5H3EE Class: SOAB QRP Total Score = 2,520 K3 5watts, spiderbeam @11m Due to some family commitments I was just testing the ears of some big guns... Never tried QRP before... Amazing, what you can work with a few watts. I was not always on 5 Watts, sometimes 2-3 watts. Best contact: K2AX on 15m with 1watt and first call! Men, big ears!! Thanks to all for digging me out of the noise. 73 Mike ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: 6Y9V Class: SOAB HP Total Score = 6,852,000 Well, that was certainly fun. My second effort SOAB from non-USA (first was PJ2T in 2008) and a slightly better score. I wish I could have arrived on the island sooner, but due to an important event for my wife, I couldn't come to the island until around 24 hours before the start of the contest. Fortunately, the station is nearly turn-key, ready to operate upon arrival. I did have to replace the 80M 4-square phasing box and dummy load (due to water damage) and change the loading coils on the 80M tower verticals, but that was the extent of the antenna work. Most of the work had to do with changing the M/2 station into a SO2R setup. Dragging the heavy IC-7800s closer together, getting all the switchboxes within reach, and getting my USB soundcard voice-keying working and sounding good was much bigger of a challenge than at home. Actually, the setup was SO2R+1R...I had a third IC-7800 set up just so I could watch the band scope on the 10M stack and with a flick of the switch move the stack back to the other radios/amps. It was nearly a waste of time. Ten meters never happened this far North. I CQ'd for hours on 10M on both days with never an answer. My 8 Qs came from hearing K6NA calling D4C. D4C I guess wasn't hearing him, so I dumped in my call and got Glenn's attention immediately. I QSYed a few kHz and called CQ and got 7 more answers, only CA, AZ, ID, WA. Evidence that I was too close to the states if I was only getting these far away states. I knew that going into the contest, the only way I had a shot at winning was if Tom/8P5A, Jerry/PJ2T and I ALL had 10M, or NONE of us had 10M. Neither happened. Both Tom and Jerry got a fair opening, generating a lot of multipliers that I couldn't make up with raw QSOs. I had set a goal of 8500 QSOs, if 10M would have opened, but I failed on my 10M line as well as 40 and 80M. Not sure why I was short of my goal on 80M, other than too much sleep, but 40M was just a struggle to get a frequency. I wanted to operate in the general portion above 7175, but below the broadcast at 7200, which doesn't leave much room. Speaking of sleep, I was very surprised that I was able to take a nap before the start of the contest. I've NEVER been able to do this, EVER. I'm always too nervous or anxious to do so, and usually playing around with the radios. This time it was a little easier, as we lost power for an extended period of time before the start of the contest. The local helpers were great...they pulled out the diesel generator, fired it up, ran the extension cord, and verified that the station could run on the generator. After the power didn't come back for a while, I thought to myself, well, I could enter the contest low power, running off the generator. The station doesn't have a 240V extension cord, so while the 6500W generator could handle one of the Acom amps, there's no way to power it. With the generator squared away and not much else to worry about, I went off to bed. After a bit of a nap, I woke up to find the electricity recently restored, as well as my intention of using the amplifiers. I quickly made myself a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sat down on 20M a few minutes before the start and proceeded to go with fellow Sultan Mikey K9NW finding me instantly before the start of the contest and getting Q #1. Roughly 200 QSOs and 40 minutes later, a QSY to 40M. Pleased with my 275 first hour, I was hopeful for a good contest. Good rates continued, with >200/hr rates for the first five hours, then a 166, then another 200+ hour. I know it was early, but I was nearly on the pace I set for myself. It was hard to leave >100/hr rates, but knew I wanted a short (well, short for me) nap before the high bands opened, so I took a 1.5 hour snooze. Weirdest thing ever...I awoke completely shivering, shaking, teeth chattering cold. I had to put my Wisconsin winter coat on and begin operating, with teeth chattering. It took an hour or two to shake it and take off my winter coat. (Slight contrast to a 90 degree shack, huh, Jerry?) Upon waking, it was to 20M for around an hour, and found I was able to run 15M slightly earlier than expected. I did four 200+ hours, but not high 200s, so I was a little disappointed with the rate. To make matters worse, 15M kinda dried up when it really should have gotten better as the sun set in Europe during the 18z and 19z hours. It was so bad I went back to 20M waiting to see what was going on with 15. Two hours later, at 20z, 15M picked back up and I did a couple high 200 hours. Sometime in the 23z hour, I decided that, even though 15 was going well, I've still not spent much time on 20M. Then the flood gates opened. Signals were huge, not much QRM, and I worked the best hour of the contest, a 368 hour. A little more time on 20 then it was time to timeshare on 40/80/160. Again, finding a spot to CQ seemed even more difficult than the day before. Even 160 was crowded with stations packed between 1820 and 1870. Rates were fair in the low 100's but then i decided to take another planned nap, this one being a doozy of 3 hours. 3 hours came, my alarm went off and just like last time, I overslept. This time by only one hour instead of two. Again upon awaking, I was frozen and teeth chattering. Again the winter coat went on as I sat down at the radios. Now I know that the rates on Sunday are never as good as Saturday, but I never expected rates to be this bad. They were worse that Sweepstakes Sunday!!! I had 3 prime 15M hours (13-16z) that were sub-100 rates! My 15z hour was 68!!! This completely dashed a high final QSO total, besides the lack of 10M. Finally 15M picked up, but only to the low 100's. Despite such a terrible day on 15M, I was at my 15M goal and noticing that my 20M line was very, very short of my goal, I QSYed to 20M at 21z and finished the contest with three 200+ hours, boosting my line up to my goal. Still can't operate anywhere near 48 hours, but still pleased with my 42 hour effort, which was 1 hour more than last time. And, I was so "rested" at the end of the contest, I was running a 30 CW pile 40 minutes after the contest ended followed by some 60M action. But the next day I think I slept until noon. Thanks for the competition and congrats to Tom 8P5A for another fine show, as well as my SMC brother Jerry at PJ2T. A MAJOR thank you to my host Krassy K1LZ. What a fine, fine station....just too far North for this year. Lastly, thanks to all for calling, and to my QSL manager Tim, WD9DZV. Without the callers and my QSL manager, this contesting hobby would be much less enjoyable! ;-) 73, Chad WE9V / 6Y9V http://www.we9v.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: 8P5A Class: SOAB HP Total Score = 7,999,872 It has been a long time since I wrote a full story following a contest, and a number of people have asked why. Mostly it has been a lack of time, but also the stories had been a bit repetitive and, since I changed broadband suppliers, I no longer have my website. However, after one of the strangest contest trips in memory, I thought I would append this to the posting. I was looking forward to this year's ARRL contest since I had missed both modes last year, for the first time in nearly a decade. It was the first time in a while that I had a realistic chance to win, and conditions for the CW weekend were so good, some outstanding scores would be possible. In addition, I had no major projects planned so, barring any unexpected maintenance, pre-contest setup would be modest. My wife Kathleen has had health issues for the last year, and this could be a relaxing week, at least by contest trip standards. The trip was uneventful and we were among the first five people through immigration and our two bags were among the first ten off of the plane. The late afternoon traffic was surprisingly light and we got to the station around 4PM Tuesday with about two hours before sundown. The immediate project was to install the receive 4-square in the field north of the station. With that done, I brought up the station and Kathleen assembled the tarp canopy that we use to shield the shack door from rain and direct sunlight. When I set up the station each time, I remark at how complicated it has become. Besides the usual radios and amps, I have a lot of custom gear for master station control (antenna, Beverage, filter, headphone and CW switching), computer rotor control, wattmeter, filters, and an antenna switching matrix. The station came up well and the antennas and rotors all looked fine. We were definitely off to a good start. We picked up some food and headed off to the house we rent. Upon arriving at the house, the owner?s caretaker was on a ladder trying to get the AC unit in our bedroom to work. We further found that the broadband was not working and the DirecTV in our bedroom could only receive a few channels when the one in the living room worked normally. After unsuccessfully trying to make progress, Kathleen decided to go to bed after the long red-eye flight and I headed back to the station to make some QSO's to test out the radios and amps. Upon arriving at the shack, I found that the 40 meter yagi now had a high SWR, which it did not have a couple of hours earlier. I made some Q?s on 80 and 160 and took a look at the 40. I had been having problems last year when the antenna was wet that I could make go away with the application of power. I took down the driven element in October, made some changes, and the problem was not present for either weekend of the CQWW. Just for the sake of experiment, I applied power this time and the SWR again would decline to normal. Over a span of minutes, it would again start to creep back up. It was dark so any work would have to wait until the morning. I decided to take a look at the Force12 shortened dipole as my alternate antenna. It is installed at about 60 feet but I have not used it in years. W2GD helped me with a guy wire project last summer and he spent hours on the tower trying to get a decent match on this antenna. Just out of curiosity, I applied power to this antenna and the SWR also changed, which explains the confounding results John and I struggled with last summer using the antenna analyzer. Somewhat remarkably, the SWR bandwidth was roughly 7.1 to 7.25 Mhz, nearly perfect for an ARRL SSB contest. Unfortunately, it too would degrade as it sat idle and I headed back to the house with lots of concern. I never sleep the night I arrive at the station and now I had a good reason. I was up a sunrise to start the work. Kathleen stayed behind for a while to call the Internet provider and let in the AC repair people. I could not take down the 40 meter driven element alone so I did the other antenna setup project, the 160 meter inverted L. Actually, the vertical itself is already strung between two towers and I just needed to put up the raised radials. While this antenna has worked great, the radials have always been ad hoc and never measured electrically. I brought down my new AIM470 to sweep the radial pairs for resonance. It turns out they were too long and, interestingly, they were now within a foot of what the original modeling suggested before I lengthened them some time back. This project, even alone, only took about 90 minutes but Kathleen was not done yet so I tuned the bands and made a few QSO's. The highlight was 10 meters where I had a huge pileup of US and EU stations. I was now getting very excited about the contest but, with the potential of a big score, I knew I had to get the 40 meter beam fixed. While I was working, Kathleen got the Internet turned back on and the repairmen replaced the AC unit. I went back to the house and we both went to the ministry office to get my local license renewed. The recording process at the ministry is a bit archaic, but they are very professional and I renewed for three more years. I now have been issued 8P5A rather than having 8P9JG and requesting permission for 8P5A before every contest. It was now mid afternoon on Wednesday and we commenced taking down the driven element of the 40 meter beam. It comes apart in two halves with the traditional Hy-Gain clamshell bracket in the middle. This antenna utilizes aluminum linear loading wires along the boom and has a design flaw that causes the wires to fatigue and break where they connect to the element. Many years ago I attempted to add some fault tolerance to the design by clamping a separate wire to the linear loading wire that would make a second connection to the element. Should the linear loading wire break near the element, the parallel wire would still maintain the connection. When we took down the elements, I used an ohmmeter to measure the continuity of the linear loading wires. One element was normal but the other one measured around 2.1 ohms. I eventually localized the problem to the element connection and we proceeded to cut away the liquid electrical tape that protected the joint. As it turns out, the loading wire was broken and the additional wire was providing the connection. However, the lug on the end of the additional wire was black and corroded. We cleaned the connections, replaced the broken wire, and reinstalled the driven elements. The SWR was now as expected. I made a number of contacts with full power and, satisfied with the results, we went to dinner. After dinner, I returned to the shack to find that the 40 meter beam once again had a high SWR and, once again, repair would have to wait until morning. We arrived shortly after sunrise on Thursday to take down the driven element halves again. The elements still measured fine with the ohmmeter. The plan was to open up all of the loading wire to element connections. Each of the joints had a fair amount of aluminum oxide buildup but all the loading wires looked intact except for one that was about to crack so I eventually replaced that section. In reassembling the connections, I decided to connect the separate wires first and then add the loading wire. With just the separate wires connected, there was no conductivity around the linear loading path. It turns out that another linear loading wire had broken before the redundant wire connection. We replaced the broken wire and put the elements back up and the antenna once again looked fine. I spent the next couple of hours painting the tall tower and we went out for dinner. Upon returning to the station, I was shocked to find that the 40 meter beam SWR had gone bad yet again. A pattern was starting to emerge, the antenna looked fine during the day, but would fail after the sun went down. In any event, it was now the night before the contest, and I had not yet fixed the 40, although the SWR would still return to normal if I applied full power. My only thought was to run guys for a while with the hope that the high power would either fix it permanently or break it permanently. Should it break, at least I would be able to chase a persistent problem. Unfortunately, nothing changed. I decided to head back to the house early and contemplate what to do next. As I saw it, I could just leave it and hope that I could keep it working by applying power, or I could take it down again and attempt another fix. I had never done tower work on the day of the contest, but I felt that I needed to try to find root cause. We decided that the plan would be to get up at 5:30 AM so I would be on the tower by sunrise to take the element halves down yet again. We would try a short list of items and, if that did not work, we would put the antenna back up. In addition, we would make a 40 meter inverted V to hang from the tower in case both intermittent 40 meter antennas failed. As was the plan, I started climbing the tower at sunrise. At the top, I disconnected the wires to the DXEngineering balun and measured the SWR of the antenna alone with my Autek analyzer. It was clearly bad and it ruled out the feedline. I also tried shaking the antenna elements and beta tubes with the analyzer connected to detect any rapid SWR changes, but none were found. I that point I just lowered the element halves one last time. On the ground we opened up all the split bolt connections that joined the spare wire to the loading wires. There was a fair amount of corrosion but everything looked intact. I had a time limit for this exercise which expired and just put the antenna back together. Once again, upon reassembly, the SWR was fine. We then made a 40 meter inverted V out of spare parts and hung it from about 55 feet. We managed to get a decent match after just one adjustment. It was now 10 AM and I was just going to have to use the antennas as they were. We went back to the house and I took a nap and Kathleen went food shopping. I had little success sleeping as the antenna problems had me worried. Around 2PM we headed back to the station to do a final checkout and finish the last minor setup items, marking the amps, loading the SCP, etc. This took longer than expected and I returned to the house around 4PM to try to actually get some sleep, but once again it was a struggle. We had dinner at 6:30 and returned to the station at 7:15. Despite the sun only being down for an hour, the 40 meter beam was already exhibiting the high SWR. I would have to depend on being able to fix it by transmitting into it. With the days of hard work, the lack of sleep, and the concern over the antennas, I could not remember being more tired, or in a worse frame of mind to start a contest than I was at this time. I had brought with me my rate sheet from 2007 and 2004. The major difference between the contests was 10 meters where I had made 250 and 2000 Q's respectively. Over all, I had made 8075 and 8880 in those years and would be my comparisons. My plan was to start on 20 and go for as long as I could get answers and then QSY to 40. As I was warming up before the contest started, I could feel the band degrading right up to the start of the contest and I knew I was in trouble. The band was marginal and I only managed 50Q's in the first 14 minutes. I decided to move to 40 but it was brutal trying to find a frequency and then blow a hole in the QRM. I did not make my next QSO for five minutes. After moving again, I finally started to get some answers. I finished the first hour with 164, probably the worst first hour ever operating from this station, maybe on either mode. I was already about 130 behind the lesser of the two rate sheets. I kept plugging away at the low bands the best I could, but I could only close the gap by about 30 Q's by daybreak (10Z). I found it hard to get any solid rate going on 15 and 20 until about 16Z and I was now substantially behind 2007. I really had no explanation why I could not maintain the 2007 rate on the high bands and I eventually fell over 400 Q?s behind the pace. It was a very frustrating afternoon. I had been listening to 10 all day hoping for an opening. I had heard W5PR calling CQ once, but made the mistake of not calling him. I heard him calling CQ again about an hour later and gave a call. I tried a CQ on the band and managed about 15 more Q?s in the southern US. After going to 20, I heard another W on 10 so I tried another CQ with the beam pointing due west along the equator. The band broke wide open and I worked 300 guys in 45 minutes until the sun went down. It was an exhilarating, but short, run that was clearly the highlight of what had been a difficult weekend. Somewhat rejuvenated, I committed to grinding it out through the night hours. Once again, 20 closed not long after 0Z and it was time for the low bands. 160 was very noisy the second night but 40 and 80 were OK. Over the course of the evening I was able to get the QSO differential to 2007 to less than 300 Q's. I took a single 15 minute break around 230AM local. Before the 15 minute nap I was struggling to stay awake. After I woke up, I felt like a new person and had QSO's in the log within a minute. I was able to make up ground to 2007 during the slow night time hours The daylight hours were as expected and I was maintaining pace with the 2007, but was still about 150 behind. At 1830, more than an hour before the Saturday 10 meter opening, I called CQ on 10 and the band once again broke open, this time with a direct path beam heading. I once again worked about 300 stations in less than an hour. At times I was running as fast as I could and, after operating for over 40 hours, I had my highest burst rates of the contest. Once again reinvigorated and I set my sights on 8000 Q?s, about 75 less than 2007, but with more mults. I was making good progress but I could feel 20 meters fade in the 23Z hour. I also had made an earlier sked with K1VSJ in Rhode Island for 2355Z. I did indeed pass 8000 with a few minutes to spare. I quickly QSY'd and K1VSJ was already there and I was back on 20 in about 20 seconds. I just pushed as hard as I could for the final minutes and eventually passed my 2007 score after a miserable start and a difficult first 20 hours. While I mostly felt OK all weekend, I could not wait for this to end and could not wait to get home to go to bed. I had been saying that 48 hours is getting easier, but I really put it to the test this weekend. The contest had a poor start but was generally fun, with the highlight being the two 10 meter hours I got. In the end, the 40 meter antennas worked OK all weekend. When the SWR crept up, a few seconds of full power carrier made them operational. I need to regroup on a repair plan and I am open to suggestions. Since it is fine during the day and changes at night, my only thoughts are thermal expansion/contraction or moisture. In either case, the possible impact of nightfall is very small since it only takes an hour or two to make a difference. I do not know if I did prevail in this contest but, after expecting an easy week and getting the opposite, it felt good in the end. When the contest was over, I felt the reward of perseverance. Thanks to everybody for the Q's and thanks to Kathleen who worked very hard and kept me (reasonably) sane all week. QSL via NN1N or LOTW. 73, Tom ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: 9A2EU Class: SOAB HP Total Score = 169,059 Only QRV on Sunday for 8 hours off and on. Nice openings to West coast on 20, but poor on 15. 20 was overcrowded from bottom to end of the band. At times 3-4 stations calling CQ in just 1 kHz, amazing. I had 2 hours of good run 100+ QSOs on 20 meters. Worked 13 QSOs on 80 but it was very noisy. Cu in Russian DX contest in 2 weeks. 73 Zlatko, 9A2EU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: 9A4D Class: SOSB/40 HP Total Score = 202,806 Missed SD, ND, VE5 and usualy VY1, VO2 No beverage for this one, I apologize to the ones that did not hear because of QRM !! EQIPMENT: FT2000 4 el. KLM OM2500 73 de Ved, 9A7DX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: 9A8M Class: SOSB/20 QRP Total Score = 27 Something went wrong with the only antenna on the roof. But did not figure that out on time :( ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: A7/M0FGA Class: SOAB LP Total Score = 126 Condx not as good as during the CW weekend and my opportunities to be on the air didn't really match the openings to W/VE. Heard a lot of guys who couldn't pull me out of the QRM. K1TO was the easiest guy to work. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AA1K Class: SOAB HP Total Score = 3,108,000 Now I can put away the microphone until October. 2nd radio just low power, made about 90 QSOs with it, mostly on 15 and 10. Station: K3/Alpha 89 main rig. FT1000MP for 2nd station. Antenna details at www.aa1k.us. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AA4LR Class: SOAB LP Total Score = 25,704 Antennas: Cushcraft A3S/A743 at 15m (40-10m) Trap dipole at 12m (80m, 40m) Equipment: Elecraft K2/100 w/ KAT100 Comments: Contest started with my radio in pieces on my desk. I had gotten the VCO stability mod as well as the second KPA100 update kit. While I had it all open, I also did a couple of modes to the audio section and one to the KNB2. After that, I had to do a CAL PLL as well as CAL FIL to re-align all the filters. By late Saturday, I got on 80m briefly and worked a few stations. Managed to get on for the last three hours of the contest. Conditions seemed to be modestly good. Great propagation to central and south america late in the day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AA4V Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 787,023 Part-time operation but much fun. 15M was my go-to band (it was better on Saturday morning than Sunday morning). 20M was wall-to-wall here and was almost all S&P. I got a few runs going on 15M but again mostly S&P. The K3 was outstanding as usual...the SteppIR yagi worked flawlessly. Verticals on the low bands next to the sea?....what can I say. 40M was excellent but very crowded. 80M and 160M were in and out when I was around. 10M was spotty at best with a tiny N-S opening on Sunday afternoon. No Europeans heard on 10 here. Lots of operators very near the band edges and many, many busted packet calls. Thanks to everyone for the contacts. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AA6K Class: SOAB LP Total Score = 174,104 Working conditions: IC-756PII; 3el SteppIR with 30/40M; Inverted Vee for 80M & 160M. Bands were better than last year! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AB3CX Class: SOAB HP Total Score = 1,197,270 Saturday was better for 15M than Sunday, I heard no signals on 10m Saturday, found a limited opening Sunday. 20M was the boss band and boy was it crowded! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AB5XZ Class: SOAB LP Total Score = 17,976 This was a good contest for me. The new QTH still needs some improvement - better radials, for example, and retune the vertical. The IC 756 Pro 3 continues to impress me. The big gun stations and their ops were a pleasure to work - very professional (for amateurs)! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AB6Z Class: SOAB LP Total Score = 36,105 Working with just 100 watts was very difficult. The speech compressed audio along with accent, made copying callsigns difficult. Contesters were most polite in this contest that I can remember. I had a lot of fun! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AD5VJ Class: SOAB HP Total Score = 200,592 Got started about 18 hours late but enjoyed all the contacts, didnt have a rig until 7:30pmctrl on Friday thanks to FEDEX. But finally got my new TS-850SAT and am loving it. Great contest radio, now to get some filters for it hihi. Band conditions seemed to be good here on all bands at all the right times. EU was an open door this morning and made some great contacts. Thanks to everyone for the great signal reports on the new radio and for all the great contacts. 73 cu in ARRL DX CW (wid filters hihi) Bob AD5VJ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AD7XZ Class: SOAB HP Total Score = 55,458 My goodness the QRM, 20m was money band, spent time on 15m at the start. Bad decision. I had very limited time with family events. I spilled iced tea on the keyboard, not reconmended. It was fun before darkness. My limited antenna capability on the lower bands leave a lot to be desired. It was fun. We'll try for more time next time. I do wish all of Europe would do LoTW. Thanks to the stations and their patience. Joe AD7XZ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AG4W Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 642,372 Had to work alot harder to make the same number of contacts in the phone than the cw contest. 10 and 40 meters was worse than the cw contest. 20 meters was better. I had a great time running europe on Sunday morning for an hour.Noise on 15M was louder than normal on Saturday.Used the Orion 2, SB220 at 600 watts, 3 element quad at 40 feet for 10/15/20 and a delta loop for 40/80/160. Can't wait to do some more antenna farming. The 160M/80M vertical goes up next. Steve AG4W ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AK2D Class: M/S HP Total Score = 110,448 Thanks to AI2N for the use of his station. Was nice to see 10 open for a while. We weren't able to operate as long as we had hoped only managed about 22 hours between the two operators due to some family obligations. But all in all a good time. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AK4I Class: SOAB HP Total Score = 305,136 A great contest. The bands are obviously coming back as I heard many countries that I'd never heard before. I managed to pick up 5 new ones. I'd written a long discussion of my impressions of the contest but when I tried to submit the score the form told me that I'd forgotten to fill in one blank and to click the back key to correct it. Unfortunatly it threw away everything that I'd entered previously. (Clearly a deficiency in the program that should be corrected.) It will take too much time to recreate the previous document. However, in summary, a great contest. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Call: AL9A Class: SO Unlimited HP Total Score = 871,650 My personal best effort ever! Too bad 15M decided not to make an appearance as I could have used the mults to break the 1 million point barrier. Couldn't manage to stay awake late into the night for 80M to get going. Obviously 20M was the money band, but 40M had some good runs too. Great to have some propagation again! All in all a fun outing, but now I have to pay the piper. I think the XYL has been busy adding to my honey do list so it may take me a while to "work off" my indebtedness for her letting me play radio all weekend!