P40L-P49Y Contest Summary Information

Comments:

We had a lot of fun and are very pleased to have exceeded our 2005 results by over a million points, even though we finished the first night behind the 2005 pace.

The original plan had been to bring together our 2005 CQWW CW team again in an effort to improve on our 2005 efforts. Unfortunately, Rick, N6XI, had to cancel at the last minute due to the recent death of his dad. We were very fortunate that Ed, W0YK, was able to jump in on short notice to round out the team, although Rick's presence was missed.

Conditions on the low bands were good. On Saturday, 10 meters only opened to the USA. Fortunately for the overall multiplier count, it opened to Europe for a couple of hours on Sunday. However, it'll take a lot more sunspots before we'll be able to close the gap with the 10 meter multiplier counts achieved by the teams operating from Northern Africa and Asia.

We used Win-Test for logging due to a number of compelling features it offers, such as the partner mode, for multi-op efforts. We all struggled a bit early in the contest with our relative lack of familiarity with the program, but we made a lot of progress getting up the learning curve before and during the contest. We expect to be able to utilize it even more effectively in future contests.

Outside the contest, we enjoyed dinners and visits with Alex, KU1CW (operating as P40C) and his wife, Natashi, KU1YL, and John, W2GD (operating with his usual call, P40W), as well as Jean-Pierre, P43A, and his wife, Christine, P43C.

Congrats to the many fine efforts in this contest, especially the terrific results by the D4C, P33W and P3F multi-single teams.

Station:
Rigs: Elecraft K3s (2)
Amps: Alpha 86, Ten-Tec Titan 425

Antennas:
C31XR at 43 feet
2 elements 10 meter at 55 feet
5 elements 15 meter at 55 feet
4 elements 20 meter at 68 feet
2 elements 40 meter at 76 feet
1 element 80 meter Sigma 80 at 64 feet
160 meter vertical at 67 feet
Four 500 foot beverages using K9AY switching box/preamp

Logging software: Win-Test on four networked computers
DSL Internet for Packet

As always, thanks for all the contacts!

73, John, W6LD/P40L