KC9BQA

I’ll update this post from time to time today.

Beautiful morning.  Actually got down to 63, after a high of 89 y’day.  Sleep was way too short.  It’s already 7-something in the Eastern time zone so better get going.
Problem is I still have an S5 noise level from 90-130 degrees.  For me, that hits the southern half of Lower MI, plus southwest VE-3, and the northern half of OH.  I feel mostly useless calling CQ, knowing it’s going to take someone with a good station pointed right at me to get thru.  This is new noise that I never had before.  It’s worst on 144, not much better on 50, and even affects 222 a little bit.   The noise was there all the time yesterday, and it means I really haven’t worked anyone more than 60-80 miles off to my E or SE.  Usually I have dozens of contacts all thru MI and OH.
Oh well, gotta keep trying for a while longer.  No point in looking around in the central time zone when it’s this early (unless there’s a major band opening, which I don’t think there is)

3:45pm Sunday
Boy have my bands gotten noisy today in a lot of different directions.  Currently trying to look toward MO/IA/MN on/near 144.195 and 50.127 and just buried with S3-5 steady noise.   It is hot, dry and windy, so I’m sure that’s doing no favors.  One little treat is that W9RM has now built up on 6m from his DM58 QTH, and I just got him in the log.  Jay said it was the first opening he’s had this weekend to the Upper Midwest.
6m was good this morning to the south.   South seems to be my quietest direction.  Other activity was good, too.  Even with this loathsome noise, I’m pretty pleased with how things are going.   I’m giving this ‘test a real good effort.
Again, I’m paper logging so I won’t even guess at a score.  Believe it or not, I don’t get worried about a score.  My whole thing is way more about working everyone who is out there.  I do have about 400 total Q’s, and I’m guessing at least 75% of them have been on 6.
In fact, 6 is opening up again to the south and southwest at 4pm.   Hopefully this will hold for a while.

I can’t believe the way this noise is building on 50 and 144, from basically all around the compass.   I’d be real surprised if I make it to the end of this contest.  20-23 hours of this will be enough.

9pm –
I’m hanging it up.  It’s been a great several hours on 6.  I’m a little loopy from lack of sleep, but I know I have DO’s, CM’s, CN’s, DM’s, DN’s, EM’s from late this afternoon and early evening and then it seemed like the FN’s took over about an hour or two ago, so I went with that.  I’ve been on 6 since 2020Z.
The rough paper log shows 540-550 contacts give or take a few inevitable dupes.  At least 80% of that has to be on 6.  No idea how many grids I worked; I did a little cherry-picking for unusual grids, but honestly, I’m just as happy with a busy pileup of whomever from wherever.   And I had several periods this contest where I was very busy, so it was another great June contest.   Hope everyone had a great time and got in on the action.   Thanks everyone for getting on.  Next contest is the CQ WW VHF on July 21-22  – 6m and 2m only.  In some ways, I enjoy that contest more than any other.   http://www.cqww-vhf.com/

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 10th, 2012 at 11:39 am and is filed under Blog Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.