Just for the archives, nothing noteworthy in this one.
Although this used to be my annual workout before CQ WW CW, it seems that I have totally missed it in 2015 and 2016. I was fifth in 2014 claiming 1789 contacts. Ah, sweet record year 2014… Fond memories.
I planned to be around this year but I knew that a major score and high rates would be out of reach. Propagation was a bit of a bummer and made for a slow start. OTOH the skimmers seemed to hear me better than the rate would imply. It was a simple one radio band hopping thing with ten meters giving hard times to work something. Then again VK4CT’s skimmer heard me on 28 MHz on Sunday morning. I begin to wonder if that’s at all possible: VK4CT always picks me up on the RBN, from 80 up to 10 (when the band is supposed to be open in some degree of course).
I watched a movie with the XYL Saturday night and played some more afterwards but I went to bed around 0.00z. I refused to set the alarm hoping that ‘80m sunrise anxiety’ would wake me up around 5 AM utc but no… I slept quite well and woke up just before sunrise. Which didn’t offer much new for the log anyway.
I was home alone for the better part of Sunday so I sweat it out and logged 900 QSO. Best hour was 120 on 40m (16 > 17 PM utc). Also the only +100 hour. Nothing spectacular but I’m glad to enjoy a bit of casual contesting, log some unexpected DX multipliers and meet all those friends we’ve never met.