10 Meter contest

Well, I didn't get much time last weekend to operate in the 10 Meter contest and my score definitely showed it. I worked less than 3 hours and only made 58 contacts. This was not my best showing. There were a number of things working against me: a very busy schedule with church activities, an appointment with Santa on Saturday morning, sleep, family and propagation. The solar weather was terrible and the band seemed to be constantly shifting. On Sunday afternoon, I did get some trans-equatorial contacts, but they were few. I heard a Hawaiian station, but they could not hear my puny 100 watts. I then lost the Hawaiian in the static and started hearing West Coast stations. I worked a few and then the band shortened and I was able to add Minnesota and other 0 stations. Then the band shortened again and I had a pipeline to Minnesota!!! A couple more stations and then Michigan and Ohio were on the menu. The band got quiet, so I tried running stations and did get my QSO rate up to a respectable 40 QSOs/hour for a few minutes until the band stopped cooperating. After that, all I could hear is the despised bacon frying sound of static. So, it was very depressing. I still have to add the contacts to my logging program and send my entry to the ARRL. Hopefully, I will get this done over the next few days, along with posting my scores here on the blog.