04/04/2006 | P40A I arrived in Aruba a few days before the contest and I quickly set up my station. I had not been there since November and I was happy to find that everything was still working. I had time to enjoy the beach for two days and I also had a nice pre-contest dinner with P40W. I started the contest on 20m and after 40 minutes the band quickly went dead forcing me to go to 40m earlier than I would have liked to. The low bands were very quiet so I stayed up all night switching between 40m, 80m and 160m averaging a little over 100 contacts and hour. When the sun came up I switched to 20m where I enjoyed faster runs. About an hour later I switched to 15m, where I stayed most of the day. I knew that getting multipliers on 10m would be challenging so I kept my second radio tuned to that band. Finally around 19:00Z I heard P49MR working stations on this band so I switched bands and called CQ. I got some responses, but the rates were horrible. I didnt know if the opening would get better or worse so I toughed it out, although I did make a few jumps to 20m at times just for some rate excitement. Finally at 2145Z I left 10m and cycled between 15m and 20m working stations at a somewhat rapid rate until 20m closed around 0050Z. I had less success on the low bands during the second night, probably because I worked so many of the bigger stations during the first night. Eventually, I could not stay awake with these slow rates so I took a long four hour nap, hoping that things would pick up when the sun came out. On Sunday I again alternated between 20m and 15m and kept one ear on 10m. 15m was in fantastic shape on both days and I received excellent signal reports and pretty good rates, however P40W who is further inland apparently did not have the same success on this band for some strange reason. I switched to 10m around 2000Z and the band was open to different areas than on Saturday, which helped me with some missing multipliers. On 10m, signals were not strong and many times I had to repeat my exchange several times, however finding new multipliers near the end of the contest was exciting. I finished up the contest on a very crowded 20m band. I never had any super fast rates, my best 60 minutes occurred on 15m Saturday morning when I worked 234 stations. I was not close to K9PGs (WP3R) 6,028,056 point record that he set two years ago, however at this point in the sun spot cycle I am happy with the outcome and I had a lot of fun. P43JB had a nice post contest party at his home where many local and visiting hams attended. After the contest, it was time to work on the station and house. Fortunately, my QSL manager, WD9DZV / P40D, volunteered to fly to Aruba and help for a week. We removed most of the antennas and installed a new 40m 2 element beam and then reinstalled the 20m beam after doing some maintenance on it. We also installed the base and first three sections of a second tower and made a few repairs around the house before going back home. Thanks to everyone for the QSOs, especially the 43 stations who worked me on all six bands. QSL via WD9DZV.

73,
John KK9A / P40A

p40a@iguanavilla.com -- KK9A