ARRL 10-Meter Contest - 2023
Call: N8II
Operator(s): N8II
Station: N8II
Class: SO Mixed LP
QTH: WV
Operating Time (hrs): 21:38
Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
CW: 886 120
SSB: 560 108
-------------------
Total: 1446 128 Total Score = 1,063,392
Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club
Comments:
Conditions were not what we had hoped for, but still plenty of 10 meter activity
this year. Following the solar storm a week ago conditions were outstanding
Monday and Tuesday, so we missed by only a few days. The issue was not any
disturbance, but solar flux dropped from around 190 about 2 weeks ago to the mid
120's during the contest. Saturday was not a normal day compared to recent
conditions. 10 closed early to EU and early after sunset to the west. In fact,
most of the East Coast afternoon the band was essentially closed to CA, OR, and
WA, the worst West Coast conditions I can ever remember in this test during a
high SFI year. The usual sunset left coast opening was not there. Sunday it was
great, but activity had waned. The almost entire lack of Es from here made for
very difficult conditions to Eastern Canada and the states East of the
Mississippi. I managed backscatter QSO's with all but MO on CW (heard K0DEQ
quite weak), but missed quite a few on SSB like KY,AL,GA,MS,LA,MO, and AR. This
area is very poor for coverage to the entire Eastern half of the country without
Es help. While trying to work AB3CX in WNY on SSB, he ran off about 7 QSO's
mainly Gulf Coast most of which were inaudible here. N8OO in LA was S8 on
scatter, but working on a big pile up. South FL was briefly loud a couple of
times.
Friday night the band was nearly dead, quite unusual, only 56 QSO's. I squeaked
out QSO's with KS and ME on CW. Saturday morning I started at 1235Z with loud
signals from the Med area of EU. Right around 13Z my run took off with a 132
hour on a clear frequency, 124 Q's in 14Z hour. By 16Z only the western edge of
EU was left and TX and farther west were loud. There was an abnormally high
activity level for WY in particular, ND, and NE. The West Coast was fairly loud
for maybe 30 minutes before we said goodbye for the day. That left TX and OK
(until around 1930Z), NM, 7's east of the coast, and western 0's to work with
only one MN logged on phone Sunday. Thankfully there was good SA activity all
afternoon on SSB with signals peaking in the 21Z and early 22Z hours.
Backscatter was good to Eastern NA until around 19Z.
Sunday was a normal day considering the solar index. There was some opening to
Scandinavia and the Baltic Republics, very marginal to Russia, better to
Ukraine.
I picked up a lot EU mults not logged Saturday especially on SSB. I had a 123
hour on CW at 13Z and 103 mostly SSB at 14Z. Around 1630Z the EU opening was
nearly over, last F worked at 17Z. About 1740Z conditions improved to the West
Coast which died out again around 19Z (no big volume), then back in at
2200-2330Z with some SSB running. The CW activity around 17-19Z was impressive
from NA, scatter and direct signals better than Saturday. I worked a flurry of
mults after sunset on SSB adding KH6, JA (worked just one), FK, JAL, and NV
(yes, first one phone!).
Many thanks to all for the calls and QSO's. Next year the solar flux should be
higher, we hope. Congrats to Lar, K7SV for another huge SOLP CW score and N4RV
MS scoring 2.26M!
73, Jeff
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