2003 ARRL 10 Meter Contest

EA6TU -- Jun 4, 2004 03:10 ET

Finally this year I have everything ready for the 10 meter contest: 1st. class license, station & hollidays during the contest, the conditions are very low on this area, the band was just open for some hours each day, but anyway I enjoy it. Hope to cacht you on the next year's edition. 73's de Pep ea6tu@ure.es -- EA6TU

WB6IYM -- May 2, 2004 21:08 ET

My QSL Card!

My second effort in the 10-meter event. Although my antenna system continues to be less than adequate, to say the least, I had a lot of fun fooling around. Conditions were no where near as good as last year, but still managed to work my share of DX.

Hope to CU all again next year.

73's and GL to all my fellow contesters,

Charles -- WB6IYM

K8NMU -- Mar 4, 2004 00:40 ET

Tough sledding with a tri-bander at 15 feet and low power from Upper Michigan. Lot's of aurora, snow, wind, and most of all..... fun! -- K8NMU

DU1EV -- Jan 19, 2004 01:24 ET

Very poor propagation this year. Good thing we had another amateur activity lined up--- we held an ARRL VE exam session during the same day. Do we get some points for this?? Just kidding ;) -- DU1EV

JA6WFM/HI8 -- Jan 3, 2004 14:33 ET

Thank you for the many QSO at the ARRL10M contest from Republica Dominicana.I made contacto over 900 with quater wave vertical. 2004 I will try again with big antena from HI8 hi.73 Hiro NAKAMURA -- JA6WFM

TI2KAC -- Dec 30, 2003 14:11 ET

Nice Contest,So Hard with 5 watts. The Best Propagation in 10 meters since 3 years in Costa Rica. Thanks to all for playing. 73 Carlos -- TI2KAC

N8II -- Jan 3, 2004 11:22 ET

What a difference a year makes! Openings to Eu were spotty and short. It was pretty impossible to catch all of the mults available in Eu on both modes. I only worked as far East as OK and OE direct path plus RW1ZA in the noise on a polar opening. The NE and SE USA had much better condx. My only good Eu run was on CW for about 25 mins around 1430Z Sunday, mainly working G's. To the west USA was also a struggle with the 8's (in OH/MI), 9's and NE/SE USA having a decided edge. The band was seldom open to more than a small area well at one time. Either AZ/CA was loud and no Pacific NW or vice-versa. It even took a while to work OR on both modes. VE6 was loud for only a few minutes here and there and VE5ZX was in the noise, never hearing me. I kept pluggung away and the frequent Es openings filled in a lot of otherwise tough states, but not good for a lot of volume. This test is too close to Christmas; it won't be worth a full-time effort next year with probably worse condx. Thanks for the Q's and pulling me out of the noise. -- N8II

VK4JSR -- Dec 28, 2003 15:35 ET

Another great contest.... although my time in the shack was limited! 10m held it's head high, when the band should have been dead condx between VK and W were fantastic. 10m stayed open to W for at least 10 hours each day. I missed the EU short path window when Joe GJ0NYD dropped in for a visit on Sat night! Large thunder storms both Sat and Sun nights shut activities down earlier than expected. Best DX of the weekend was certainly A61 longpath while working a W pileup... a real buzz. See you all next year. Scott -- VK4JSR

W1JQ -- Dec 29, 2003 08:56 ET

Lots of fun, even for an on-again, off-again entry. Nice (though short) opening to Europe Saturday AM; the solar numbers made me hope that Sunday would be better, but it wasn't. On the whole, conditions were poor.

I wasn't particularly well set up for this contest; I didn't put up my wire yagi facing S, and my main antenna was partially lowered because of storms. Still, managed to scrape together an even 500 Qs. -- W1JQ

YP3A -- Dec 20, 2003 07:30 ET

Whuff! So hard conditions, sunday more bad... JA's? Where were they? Not only one in the whole weekend as multiplier? W's? I know that in an ARRL Contest they are hundreds of them! This time only 40 in CW (due to an 30min opening on saturday afternoon) and 10 in SSB (lucky to catch them sunday to make 6 states!!!). Whith the southern emisphere the condx were better, whit good sigs from SA stations, even at 22-23 local time!!! Both days, in the morning the propagation started from OC, but never coming to JA. It was like a borderline there, working DU, YB, HS, but not only a signal from JA, HL, 9V, UA0 passing to this side. Some UA9 and eastern EU came in with weak sigs, but was OK with the EU west coast (strong sigs even from the QRP stations from EA, CT, G, sometimes F). Central EU only time-to-time. Saturday afternoon I was expecting better condx, but only a single opening to the NA gave me the permission to work 12 states on the East Coast for the multiplier. That borderline was also to the west passing to the centre of NA!!! I was very frustrated to see that the west EU's are working NA stations (especially CT's) wich I couldn't hear, but they are closer to NA so the opening was larger and they got Central NA. Didn't hear someone working W6! With the Central America the propagation was flutting, with up and down sigs. Saturday evening central and west EU started to come in so the rates were going up (finally, after such a hard day) but only few new mults (like 3A; I missed T77C, couldn't find him anywhere). NA and EU sides were working on the same band with no passing signals. In the late evening some skew path openings to SA. I expected also to NA, but never coming :( so I ended the first day with 680 QSO's, almost like UU7J and LZ9W, one of my objectives :) Sunday - DISASTER!!! I could see how the QSO number of the opponents is getting up and mine was blocked around 700, with very slow rates of 5-10 QSO/h so my hopes were down, also the top 10 dream! There were moments when no one cold be heard anywhere in the band. In the morning, for the JA's I tried also long path, with no result. An opening to OC with good sigs from 3-4 VK's made me believe that we'll have a better day. In the afternoon I focused to SSB hoping to catch another NA opening(like sunday) to make the multiplier, but only few big guns worked (more of them from FLA). The strangest thing in this contest was that sunday afternoon, about 12z, I could hear just ONE station in the SSB band CQ'ing, and that was WP4EDD/QRP, peaking sometimes S8! WOW!!! Could't believe my ears! How was that possible? "What a crazy band!" I said to me! Results: 868 QSO's, 178mults(160+18), score - 479,532 Thank you all the weak sigs guys for the patience, and also to all those who QSY for me. Thanks also to KP2/K2ZZ for the schedule, but at 17z couldn't hear him anymore. I enjoyed this contest as usual. "Merry Christmas!" and "A Happy New Year!" to all of you, and see ya in the ARRL CW 2004! (hope in better condx!)

73! Tibi -- YO9GZU

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