Arrived at the station Friday afternoon at 16:00 local time: 10 m closed, 12 m closed, 15 m closed — great. 🙁 Still decided on SOSB10, had been looking forward to it, and as you know, I’m a big 10 m fan and enjoy it even under tough conditions. 😉
Saturday, up at 5 z, band still closed, went back to bed. At 6 z, two loud signals on the band … Japanese stations! Wow, didn’t expect that. Band slowly opening, but rate still low. From 9 z significantly better. Surprise calls: H44MS on my CQ and KL7RA over the North Pole, very loud — wow, didn’t expect that with these conditions! Interestingly, hardly any backscatter in the morning, but it was enough for over 110 Japanese stations.
In the afternoon South America and Africa were so-so, sometimes like under a curtain. Nothing from the Caribbean here although it was open in southern and western Germany. North America? Nada. Later in the afternoon, SA opened a bit more, and some backscatter appeared. At 15 z NG3R called via skewed path toward SA, antenna rotated, but direct path had no signal, so back to skewed path. Later two more Americans via the same path, and that was it. Overall, two and a half forced breaks of about 30 min each due to static rain, only noise at S9+. 🙁
With 480 QSOs in the log, the band closed here Saturday at 18:30 z. Somehow more than expected given the conditions, but of course much less than hoped for based on the excellent conditions in recent weeks.
Sunday morning, started at 6 z, band already fairly full but few new ones. From 7 z signals loud. Another 40 Japanese and surprisingly many BYs, YBs & VUs. At 11 z the first Caribbean stations (V2/KP4), giving some hope that NA might open after all. At 12:40 z the first American via skewed path, 20 min later open via direct path until about 18 z. No real runs; 80% of the signals had to be pulled out of the noise with many repeats, but it was good for over 170 W/VE QSOs.
Until the NA opening, I held up quite well compared to the European competition — S50C well behind me, slowly catching up to 9A3XV, eventually overtook him, but with the Americans in, both of them used their southern advantage and quickly pulled away.
Surprisingly many South Americans ended up in the log, including excellent activity from Brazilian novices (PU calls). Late March is of course perfect TEP time, which helps on the southern lines, and it probably helped for SA that NA didn’t open Saturday, so my antenna was mostly pointing 240°; otherwise it’s rather 300°, and with the side lobes the small stations are often not audible. In numbers: over 250 PY/LU/CX/CE QSOs. Skip consistently long, whereas usually many EA stations come over F2, this time few and mostly via backscatter. Surprise call on Sunday: DPØPOL/mm, really loud. Also nice to catch CYØS, at least a new band point. 🙂
19 z band closed, no more signals on the waterfall. At 20 z suddenly a single loud signal: PJ2T. Then XE and the US East Coast appeared again, 2× W4 still new in the log, the rest already worked. Half an hour later, that opening was over, too.
Finally, a quick ~70 QSOs in 20 min on 80 m for a little adrenaline in the evening and to perhaps give the DH8 multi to a few more. At QSO number 1212, officially done.
In total, Sunday on 10 m was clearly better than Saturday. Didn’t expect to reach 1000 QSOs, ended up over 1100 and 1.8 million points. Perseverance pays off! 😉
CQWW WPX Contest, SSB - 2023 Call: DH8BQA Class: SOSB10 HP QTH: JO73ce Operating Time (hrs): 26 Summary: Band QSOs ------------ 80: (68) 10: 1144 ------------ Total: 1113 Prefixes = 657 Total Score = 1,821,681 Club: Bavarian Contest Club Comments: FLEX-6600, PA + 6 ele OWA Yagi @60ft.