2011 North American CW Sprint

I'm guest operating at W6SL for the North American CW Sprint later this afternoon. Hope to see you in the log and looking forward to downloading CW signals off the ionosphere. It's Sprint time!

Contest on.

CQWW 160m

What if Cycle 24 is as good as it gets? What if the legacy days of
epic solar cycles are behind us? What will happen with high frequency
RadioSport? I'm hedging our fun would continue although logging DX may
be a challenge instead of a given.

I can say this weekend was an exceptional challenge both physically
and mentally. The challenge is one's operating chair while sitting in
front of illuminated dials and computer screens. It was not easy but
it was a helluva lot of ham radio fun on the Top Band.

I arrived at the station Friday evening after working a full day. The
night sky was full of stars with the constellation Orion floating
above the antenna farm. I stopped and appreciated the moment before
plugging into our ionosphere.

Power supplies, on. Amplifier, on. Antenna switches, on. Wireless set,
on. Computer, on.

The Top Band was alive with a swarm of signals as I searched and
logged for the first 30 minutes. The full size 160m loop played into
the evening as station after station went into the computer for
scoring and catergorization. I missed WAS on 160m by six states (CT,
VT, DC, LA, MS, and WV). The top three most worked states were CA, AZ,
and WA.

Overall, 446 stations went into the log with 48 state multipliers and
five DXCC counters. Best DX was XE, C6, KH6, and PJ2.

My total score reached above 50k even as I napped between CQs on
Saturday night. Cycle 24 may be as good as it gets and the challenge
is how much RadioSport fun can you have in a weekend? Sleep well,
tonight!

Contest on.