CQ WW 160m Contest 2010

I always enjoy the "CQ" contests and this is one of them I've participated in for several Years. The objective is to contact as many Amateurs as possible on the 160 meter band. This is the SSB part and conditions before the contest sounded favorable. I was even hearing some DX stations on My cloud burner antenna Thursday night before the start.


As always , things change and Friday Night conditions were noisy for Me and only made a few contacts before the Olympics and the couch called Me! Saturday Night conditions seemed better and I started after supper but it was soon apparent even though I was hearing most stations S9+ they were not hearing Me. Many repeats and breaks from the Radio to watch the Olympics kept My totals low. Finally after 10:00 pm stations started to hear ME!! I think the noise levels must have dropped for many stations because the number of repeats dropped dramatically, even had one station in Maryland comment about my "nice signal" so now the hunt for stations was on!
It is always fun when a station returns on the first call and now two out of three seemed to be doing just that. The bands were absolutely packed from 1.8 to 2.0 and I had mentally made a note to not go below 1.840 unless DX was operating in the 1.830 window. Well sad to admit this but some of the better contacts had picked the low end to operate so I was forced to make several forays down there in My search and pounce mode. I decided to only S & P since trying to hold a run frequency with My little station didn't seem worth the effort. I also am realizing My Yaesu 857 needs a better SSB filter with stations so close or I need to finally make an interface for My Kenwood 850 for CAT control.
Eventually I was tired and decided to go to bed, I had beat last Years QSO count and score, but no where near My goal . I really needed Friday night to increase the QSO count. Maybe next Year. Final was 62 QSO's, 33 mults for a score of 4488. Total operating time according to My logging program was 4 hours. I always enjoy this contest and again this Year was no exception!!
73- Tim