Monday 12 December 2011

ARRL 10m Contest

Another good weekend on the contesting scene is now behind us. This years ARRL 10m Contest was a pretty good time, with lots of activity on the band during the day.

I decided to do this contest strictly as an SSB QRP station, and I used my IC-703. The receiver on the 703 is pretty good, and basically if I could hear them, I could work them. It was amazing what I managed to work. The furthest east I managed to work was LZ5R in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The furthest south was LP1H in Cordoba, Argentina, and to the west I worked a pile of Californians.

By the time the band died here around 1700L on Sunday I had managed to work 100 stations with 43 multipliers, giving me a total of 8600 points. Not too sure how that will stack up to the rest of the entries, but I had fun doing it.

The lack of Canadian stations was noteworthy, and several DX stations commented on that fact. No idea why, except it may be have been due to Christmas shopping, and everyone was out buying their XYL an expensive gift…..like a new FT-950.

Behavior on the band was pretty good for the most part, but I did hear a couple of altercations over “who owns the frequency”…..some people just never learn it seems.

AND.....once again the ever elusive VA3QV managed to elude me on the bands, I even searched for him!!  I did hear however that he was out and about on his "chick magnet" scooter as the weather was so good.  Maybe this coming Friday night Bob, during the RAC Winter Contest.....up on 40m????

2 comments:

  1. Glad to see you had fun in the 10m contest. I gave out a few contacts but could not get into it due to other commnitments

    Will be looking for you on the Canada Winter Contest... 80m and 40m should be no problems given the band conditions recently.

    I will be running the ft 450 at 100w and the s9 vertical

    Hopefully CU on Friday evening so I can get the rare Ontario Multi from you

    73bob

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  2. Good morning, I was one of those shoppers in the mall and not on the radio. Believe me I would trade the rig for the mall any day. With the contest written off it was off to do some kit building instead. The contest this up coming weekend I hope to get my 5 watts out there and do some damage. Great score and yes it is nice to see the bands opened up. I never get down into South America for some reason but in the CQ WW CW I had not troubles.
    Mike
    VE3WDM

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