I was expecting better propagation, also less noise in the station.

Making some work days before the contest  repairing  and installing a fixed 4 elements yagi at 60ft  and checking all the possible problems  before the contest, all was showing  good signs for the weekend, but the problem start to show up Thursday morning when making a new electrical installation, check the voltage in the shack  because I was in the idea to lose one or two volts in the new longer cable, but the power company (CFE) was ahead of me and was delivering 132 VAC to the meter and 131.3 VAC in the shack, the 240 was 261VAC and that change my plan.
Reporting  this kind of problems to the Unique Power Company in Mexico is like scream in the desert, made 2 calls reporting the problem, case number and all the good support  they give, but  next day calling again they  report that the team "do not found" the address, for that reason  I made plan B,

For the Computer, radio's Power supply  the use of one power stabilizer was needed  to deliver a good 115 VAC  but the amp will be in 130VAC for that reason select my very dependable SB-220  delivering only 500w and asking to survive the weekend under those circunstances and yes it did.

My very enthusiastic goal was  around the 2500 Q's  for the weekend because I will be only SSB  not changing modes, the idea was run the most and S&P for multipliers when  gray line or the openings to some areas.

Starting the contest  few seconds later my antenna beaming JA, a strong line noise show up  making very hard to copy  stations, moving  the antenna help but was hard, the start was bad and  very  disappointing, but that case is not rare in Mexican cities, saturday provide  a not long opening to EU from my location  and  good runs,  sunday was very short opening to EU, just a few   some very loud but most very light station in my noise, my goal was not reached  and later checking my log show up that contact I made more  EU  stations than JA's first time ever   with something over 30 Q's  that was to make more weird the contest, for last the  very notorious absence of XE multipliers,  7 for me, that was bad, but why?  propagation? few stations? no time for contesting or  who knows but is clear not many show up.

I will try again next year to reach this past year goal  maybe with an extra pair of better antennas  like the LFA's or OP-DES  to reduce my noise, wishing better propagation and more luck

CU in the Next

Hector XE2K     BAC MX