Condx not very good so did not plan to put in a full effort and had some other weekend duties, too. Spent some time Saturday morning but except a few UA9’s there was nothing to be worked on the north-eastern path, no hope for JA and not even China in the log! VK’s/ZL’s on the other hand produced some nice signals but the path is much more south, i.e. almost exactly east from here.
Spent another few hours Saturday afternoon. Good to work good old friends Carol, N2MM, and Mike, VE9AA, around 14:15z when the band opened slightly to North America via skewed path. Signals were ESP level only but glad to see both active and alive. 🙂 After 14:30z ten even opened direct path into the U.S. for an hour with some good signals so could grab a few more states and provinces. But it was never good enough to get a run going, only the big ones audible. And almost exclusively east coast, except 2 x W8, 1 x W9 and 1 x WØ. After the NA opening there were a few more SA guys to be worked until the band dropped out completely around 16z overhere.
Sunday morning provided even better signals from VK & ZL but unfortunately activity down there is very limited so no big gain. Always glad about every station in the log from Down Under! 😉 Condx eastwards helped for a few more backscatter QSOs with Europe otherwise it was rather boring. Picked up a few Caribbean mults early afternoon but signals were much weaker than Saturday. So I did not expect 10 m to open to the U.S. again. Well, I was wrong, it did open again for 1.5 hours but only skewed path via the Caribbean and 95% of the signal were only ESP level making it hard work most times. At least I worked a few more 9’s & Ø’s for new mults as well as a few 5’s. Band abruptly closed 16:30z again.
Due to the bad condx I had decided to do CW only right from the beginning. A wise decision as it turned out. Cannot imagine how difficult it would have been to work all these guys on sideband with these weak signals. Managed to work 71 DXCCs overall & 34 states/provinces from 80 W/VE QSOs …
ARRL 10-Meter Contest Call: DH8BQA Class: SO CW Unlimited HP QTH: JO73ce Operating Time (hrs): 10:30 Summary: Band QSOs Mults ------------------- CW: 294 105 SSB: 0 0 ------------------- Total: 294 105 Total Score = 123,480 Comments: Elecraft K3, KPA500 + 6 ele OWA Yagi