WAE SSB Early Report

[N1API]

Well at the start of the contest 20 meters is dead to Europe and so is 15. We had an X-Class Flare yesterday, a couple M Class Flares and a number of C Class Flares today. This weekend may be a wash out if these conditions continue.

Well here is where I wish I had 40 meters. I just looked at the spots and all the European Stations are down there and even on the 20 meter beam I can hear many of them.

I expect 20 meters during the day to be tough Europe going by past experience. I was hearing a few Europeans but they weren't that strong. 15 meters may be the money band if it opens. If not then I may struggle to break 150 contacts.

We'll see time will tell. I'll know by Sunday evening and you'll see the results here.

-73-

[K1RCT]

I didn't start until Saturday afternoon. 15, 20 & 40 meters were kind. Many QSO's on 15M. Evenings are where I got multipliers.

Sunday was good on 10, 12, 15 and 17. Evenings I spent makings contacts and revisiting previous WAE QSL's with QTC - those Germans were quite appreciative when I recontacted them with QTC! Spent a lot of time trying to make W6x contacts for a Full Sweep, missed by two (WTF was W6F & W6L?).

Ended up with 115 WAE QSL's, giving 10 sets of QTC. Had a decent pipeline to Deutschland entire weekend. Some Italy and Eastern Russia.

[N1API]

I didn't start until Saturday afternoon. 15, 20 & 40 meters were kind. Many QSO's on 15M. Evenings are where I got multipliers.

Sunday was good on 10, 12, 15 and 17. Evenings I spent makings contacts and revisiting previous WAE QSL's with QTC - those Germans were quite appreciative when I recontacted them with QTC! Spent a lot of time trying to make W6x contacts for a Full Sweep, missed by two (WTF was W6F & W6L?).

Ended up with 115 WAE QSL's, giving 10 sets of QTC. Had a decent pipeline to Deutschland entire weekend. Some Italy and Eastern Russia.

Let me talk a little about the QTC part of this contest here. I can relate it to the current efforts of the club to try and develop members who are interested in EOC and traffic handling. For anyone who has worked this contest and worked more than 10 contacts you've probably been ask "Do you have any QTC for me?" This is where you can gain actual practice in sending traffic to another station. If you run one of the contest program, the computer does generate the Traffic. In CW and RTTY it also sends it for you, (unless in CW you are using a key of some sort where you need to send it your self if you are not hooked up to the radio for CW with your logging program). The same for RTTY though most likely 99% of the operators are totally computer dependent in RTTY.

SSB is different though you need to be able to read the Time, Call and Number Received from the station and be able to pass it back to the person who you are sending QTC to. Sometimes harder than is sounds depending on band conditions, QRM and QRN and even possible language barriers. All traffic is not formal written.

So if you are looking for real time practice in Traffic this contest is a opportunity to practice your skills.

-73-

Al