Minnesota QSO Party 2010

This is one of My favorite Contests and I've participated for the last several Years. Its a rather low key event and a good contest to get your feet wet. I always operate in the "Single Operator low power phone only" category from a fixed location. This is a County hunting contest and We are lucky to have many Mobile stations filling in for Counties where no Operation would normally occur. It is also very popular from out of state Contesters who also can Win Plaques ,certificates and even a cannister of Minnesota Wild Rice!
This contest runs from 1400 to 2400 UTC February 6th, so a nice doable 10 hours. My first QSO was on 80m at 1431 UTC so not too far from the start. I stayed on 80m for a short time and then switched to 40m and started a fairly successful run. Eventually I needed to concentrate on some outside chores but was pleased so far towards My goal of 200 QSO's.

When I finally made it back to the contest, 40m was not as productive and couldn't start a run so tried 20m and eventually settled back to 80m. During the course of the day managed to have single contacts on 15m and 20m but not much activity although it did seem like 15m should be open but no amount of CQing started a run. Time was fast winding down and with only S &P the Q's were not adding up very fast! 80m did start to produce again towards the end but I needed to pull the plug before the end of the contest.

Later I found out that some solar activity might have affected My results but not as much as just not enough operating time! I did have a fun time as always with this contest, My one run on 40m gave Me a confidence boost for the next time. I ended with 103 QSO's , 51 multipliers for a total of 5253 points.