Stupid solar flare! The bands were ruined. A = 20, K = 4 and SFI = 99. I knew on Friday that this contest would not be very entertaining. How right I was! So not much to say. My target was 2000 QSO. Somehow I managed to keep the average rate above 100 for the first 8 hours. Then it went down. Deeply. Not to come up again. Only 4 hours of +100. The second hour (1300 > 1400 utc) was the best: an 157 clock hour on 20m.
Past halfway point I got very tired but I didn’t go to bed. Things were slow with only 50 QSO/hr. It got better when the sun came up but with the absence of propagation it wasn’t a big success. I fell asleep for some seconds during a bunch of QSO. My legs and butt got sore. I din’t want to give up. End result is 200 QSO less and 1 meg less than 2012 which I don’t really remember as having great propagation either.
I tried aggressive SO2R for a better score and to keep busy to stay awake. Only 77 QSO on radio #2. I thought it was more. Barefoot and a vertical, not really what you need in this kind of conditions. A second amplifier almost becomes a must for successful SO2R.
If the propagation doesn’t return to normal or preferrably better by next week, there is no way I’m going to be active in an SSB contest (WPX). I had vague plans for an all bander but after this weekend: thanks, but no thanks!
4 replies on “RDXC 2012”
You were about the loudest station on the band here when I worked you on 20m!
The weather was too nice (20+C) and the band condx too crummy, so I did not spend much time on the radio this weekend. Even with RUDX, CQ-IR, BARTG RTTY, several US state QSO parties at the same time – bands still weren’t very crowded. I hope Sol treats us to at least one more year of good conditions before the slope downwards into the next trough…
73 John K3TN
“You were about the loudest station on the band”
This means I have the yagi with the lowest F/B ratio 🙂
Hmmm, I guess if you were aiming at UA, you are right! I actually never heard a single UA on from here, never got an Oblast exchange or heard one being sent.
If that was the back of your beam, if you ever turn it towards W3, I’m sure the RX overload protection will kick in on my K3…
I can’t remember at any time my yagi was NOT pointing to Russia when I was running. I only turned it for the occasional mutliplier from SA or AF that I could not work on the vertical with 100W (after a few trials).
Since I only have 3 elements on a 6m boom for 20m, the tribander’s F/B isn’t that great. Which I consider an advantage.
I have a great location for USA. When I’m sitting on my couch in the living room, my eyes are levelled with the top of our local church tower which is about 50m high and about 2 km away in the direction of the USA. Free sight and downward sloping ground hundred wavelengths far.
It’s even better on 15 where the yagi is relatively higher. And it kills on ten (5 elements there). IF and only IF there is some form of propagation, that is 😕
When we arrived here in 2003, I put up a fishing pole with some wire and an SG-230 SmartTuner and was amazed how I could easily work USA. And how Japan was out of reach.
There are modest hills towards AF, JA and SA. When the tower is winched up, I can overcome these. With the tower down and the yagi only 9m high, it’s a ‘no go’.