#10m ARRL contest review

 

While writing this the contest is still going on. But for us here in Europe the 10m is closed right now.

It was a great experience this weekend with interesting contacts. There was very good propagation which was noticeable from the atmosphere on the noise especially in the morning. The strange thing is that the propagation was between us and uninhabited parts of the world. Those moments I heard stations from Brazil over the longpath but unfortunatly they didn't hear me.

Last year I did more CW compared to SSB, it was all about propagation. This year I did more SSB because it was fun and there were a lot of SSB stations active. However I did chase some DX on CW as well. At first I chased fellow blogger VE9KK, I could just hear him between a lot of CW signals and to me it was difficult to make the QSO. But it seems Mike had a better receive as me. We did make the contact though. I also worked fellow blogger N4KGL on CW which was the first time I think. 

red=CW green=SSB

I have to confess that I didn't have enough self-confidence at the start of the contest to not use the computer decoding CW. The speed of most CW transmissions was overwhelming and so I used CW skimmer at the start. At Sunday I finally had the confidence that I could do without the computer decoder since most of a QSO I did without it. I even did run a couple of times on 20wpm. And most stations came back at the same speed which is controllable for me. It is still difficult to decode a call the first time but most of the time the second or third time did the trick. I had the idea most stations understood and had the patience to complete the QSO. It was a lot of fun.

I probably made some mistakes because of course I didn't work Spratly Island. Will have to check the log before uploading.  However I did work some nice DX. I missed a lot of DX as well. Most of the contacts, like always, are with the USA. 

I had one very strange encounter with a station from India with the SES call AT2025. I had to listen for it a few times and decided to make the contact. I was asked if I could tell something about the difference between summer and winter conditions. From QRZ I read that this station is studying winter propagation and monitor solar cycle activity. So if you ever hear him give him a shout and tell him what you think about it.

I would have liked to spend more time on this great contest. But time is always limited because I have other things to do as well. As a HAM you always have to balance your time between the hobby and other things. That's life. Overall it seems I was contesting for about 15 hours this weekend. Best DX was with VK4DX not surprisingly it was on CW.

I certainly look out for the next 10m contest in 2025. It is one of my favorits. I hope to do even more CW next year.