06/27/2006 | KC7NUP Contest started out slow. Sunspot numbers were a big fat 0, yes Zero. So I did not expect much. As time rolled on thing got busier. Hardly any contact on 15 or 10 meters. I camped for a few hundred contacts on 20 and learned a few new things about holding a frequency. One QRP op just wanted a standard contact. I was enjoying my time with him but as he took time to ragchew on the busy band many other ops would hear a clear spot and start calling CQ FD. This educated me on the need for keeping the QRP op with a very short TX time and for me to continually make my presents known so to avoid confusion. I was very happy to work all states the last two were RI and my own state of NV. After finding NV on the low bands it was time to specifically search out the state of RI on the 20-meter band loaded with signals. He was there just as would be expected, a
weak, in the noise, bottom layer signal, buried by other strong signals. Next was to hunt down PR territory. No dice, I looked and looked. Checking dx clusters on the web showed no only one listing during the whole contest so I do not think there was anything but a spec of PR out there. If you got PR congratulations. No ssb this time. All CW, 582 QSOs, 76 of 80 sections worked.

KC7NUP -- KC7NUP