|
|
According to George: "The contest started off well and the rates were good but during the 0000 UTC hour they took off - the band opened to a huge area of the country and the rate went through the roof. It peaked out with 238 qsos in one 60 minute period from 0036 UTC - 0136 UTC. The pileups were 10 to 20 deep many times and it was shear fun. One of the things about Es is that you just never know when it will open and how long it will last. I am glad it hung in there for some really good rates.
"Having made it to 1000+ QSOs several times from W5KFT over the years I have always felt that given the right conditions it would be possible to make over 2000 contacts on six meters. One year at W5KFT, we made almost 1400 contacts and that year we finished out the first 12 hours of the contest with 470 contacts on six meters - by the first 12 hours of this year's contest we already had almost 1100 contacts on the band. I was in shock. When I went to bed Saturday night, I knew that 2000 qsos was in reach if the band conditions would just let us keep a good steady rate of contacts going.
"Sunday came and went and when the contest was over we would see that we only had two hours that were higher than 10 contacts/hour - and most of them were in the 2 to 3 contact range. As the slow hours dragged by on Sunday it was sad watching so few contacts going into the log.
"The high bands were very flat all weekend - with lower than normal rover activity around the state. We did manage to work one Es contact on two meters by working DN01. Thunderstorms were the big concern for us - in that I was afraid we would get a good Es opening and have to shut down due to lighting - as it turns out we did have to get off the air but not until 1:00 AM local time, and six meters had died down to almost nothing by then anyway. Another storm kept us off the air until after 7:00 AM sunday morning, but I do not think we missed too much. So the storms turned out not to be a factor.
"KG5U came over from Houston for his first VHF contest. He was here both days and got a taste of the great conditions. KE5C showed up on Sunday and got to grind out a lot of unanswered CQs on six meters. But I sure am glad we had help - last year it was just WM5R and I, and it was very hard to keep going when the bands are dead. WM5R came out again and did a great job on the high bands this year.
"I am always hopeful for better conditions next year or the next. I will keep working on the station and we will be ready."
| Band | QSOs | Grids |
|---|---|---|
| Totals | 1314 | 311 |
| Claimed score | 426,070 |
|---|
Contest Logging was done with TR LOG contest logging software. The following reports and log were created using TR LOG's post-contest processor.
| 50 MHz | 144 MHz | 222 MHz | 432 MHz |
|---|---|---|---|
| 
| 
| 
|
|
Last Updated 26 June 2020 wm5r@wm5r.org |