P40L-P49Y Contest Summary Information

Comments:

This was my ninth straight RTTY Round-Up from Aruba and I still love it. What a rush ... like a 24-hour sprint! Thanks to everyone who got on, even if it was only for a short time, because that makes the contest fun for all of us. I'm amazed at how many people operate these RTTY contests, noting that they all deal with the paraphernalia that goes along with it!

The Aruba power grid went down four hours prior to the start, but fortunately came back two hours later and was solid throughout the weekend. I had no solution for that, so anxiety was high for a couple hours. Other problems came up in my preparation, but were either solved or lived with. I'm humbled every time I do a major contest here, realizing how many hardware, software and operator details have to all work reliably in order to run the contest successfully. Certainly makes the hobby interesting and challenging.

Leading up the contest, I had written off 10 meters, but then got (falsely) excited late last week as the solar activity soared right up through the forecast. With 821 QSOs on 10 meters last year, I thought the band might be the change agent this year. Not so, as I ended up with just 600 contacts there this year. 15 meters was the money band, with 20 and 40 strong supporters. 80 wasn't as poor as it looks in the summary, given that I was running 50 watts due to inadvertently bypassing the amp. I stayed up an hour later than I expected, due to 40 and 80 maintening good rate the 07z hour. I started up again when 15 and 20 were open enough to run and then moved the 20 radio to 10 when it (sort of) opened. Since I didn't spend any time there on Saturday, I wanted to give it a chance on Sunday. I stayed there until I thought the rate was lower than what was possible on 20 given that I had 600+ 20m contacts already in the log. Based on Saturday's band openings, I figured I would stay on 10 and 20 until my 24 hours ran out. Not quite. With 30 minutes left, both 10 AND 15 died suddenly and I moved to 20 and 40. In retrospect I should have gone 30 minutes earlier.

I hope to be back for WPX RTTY next month followed by ARRL DX CW with W6LD for our third MS. Thanks again to all who called in, especially the multi-banders noted in the detail below. Thanks to John W6LD/P40L and Andy AE6Y/P49Y for sharing their station with me.

73,

Ed - P49X (W0YK)