ARRL 10m contest is in the books

The areas I worked in the contest

Another contest in the books and I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the radio, software and antenna worked great for me. This is the first time for me to enter the ARRL 10 meter contest as in the past 10m was not open. I was shocked at the amount of action on the waterfall and how most of the time 10m is void of signals. It goes to prove that the band should not be overlooked. 


In this contest, I operated CW only, low power (100 watts) and no spotting assistance. I always avoid using spotting assistance as it hinders my goal of improving my CW. I found in the mornings I had a good path into the EU and as that closed down in the early afternoon the U.S. opened up.  By late afternoon South America was open to me. One of the highlight contacts was getting into Hawaii and I was also able to make numerous contacts into South America. 


Once it started to get dark the band for me closed down. In this contest, I did try running (calling CQ contest) but I found I was able to get better numbers with search and pounce. In most contests for me holding a frequency and calling CQ contest would always give me a good return but not in this contest. The 10m propagation for me had deep QSB and one moment a station was calling CQ and all of a sudden gone!

The final score


Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

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