ARRL 10m Contest 2013 and 2 new ones!

Friday night turned out to be a bust. I didn't even stick around to have contacts with any locals. There was zero DX for Me in the far north but Saturday and Sunday was a different story. I took care of some chores Saturday morning and then had My first QSO logged with OQ4T from Belguim at 15:23 UTC. It was an endless stream of DX on and off till early evening. I would have a nice score if I had stayed constantly on the air but snow removeal chores and other obligations kept Me in and out of the shack. A typical interrupted S & P operation for Me- but a very fun one at that.
I did notice some strange propagation both days- not surpriseingly My Ground mounted vertical did real well with Dx and My Yagi at 20 ft was the clear winner for domestic contacts. I'm not familiar with using a Yagi for HF contesting ( its great!) and maybe this is not unusual but many signals were way stronger broadside. Must be propagation causing this!
I also was able to add two new DXCC's--Corsica and South Africa to bring My total confirmed to 105. ZS4A from south Africa was a neat contact- found Him tuning up so the Beacon networks hadn't spotted him yet. I had zero competion for the contact which was good- He was very lite on the S meter.
I didn't achieve as many QSO's as I wanted but it was the funnest 10m I've participated in. 156 Qs for around 17,000 points!
73---Tim

Nutmeg

Our beloved Cat "Nutmeg" has passed on to kitty Heaven as of December 10th. She was almost 20 years old and had picked Us as Her family by showing up on Our doorstep and never leaving. We eventually decided She needed Us and became a permanent part of the Family. She joined Our other two Cats We had at the time but was always very stand-offish. She considered herself above all the antics I guess. She will be greatly missed but She brought Us lots of smiles during Her twenty Years with Us!
Good-bye Nutmeg! :(
73 all---Tim

Too Much Snow!!!

Weather forcasts first predicted 8-12" of snow over several days but eventually the area received up to 40" farther north from here. We have about 24-30" of wet heavy snow and now the temperatures dropping fast so it will be very hard snow soon. I had many problems with My snowblower so it seems like all i've done in the last four days is snow removeal or fixing the snowblower. I hope to have time next weekend for the 10m contest but will probably depend on the weather!!
73---Tim

Turkey Day and TQSL

Happy Thanksgiving. Hope the holiday finds all in good health. We just finished traveling so decided to celebrate at Home. Nice and relaxing and with the fresh snow walking and enjoying the outdoors has been extra nice. The added bonus of not having to drive with slippery roads made it even better!
  I downloaded the latest version of LOTW TQSL v2.0 and it seems to be another nice improvement over previous versions. Now both the program and certificates are contained in one program. I haven't tried it yet to upload a log but I'm sure it will work just fine.
  73--Tim

An unexpected find!

Its been a very busy Month with no time for contesting or Radio. The bands have been superb from what I've been hearing. I plan to operate during the upcoming ARRL 10m contest so I hope they stay active.
We just returned from a trip to Disney world and imagine My surprise seeing this Yaesu Ft101 at "Animal Kingdom". Slightly used but being put to good use as a prop for listening to clues for a scavenger style hunt for adventurous Vacationers!
Thats all for now!
73---Tim