3830 Comments:

Many thanks to a great team of ops for another successful weekend at PJ2T. For those of us on the DX side, this contest came down to two critical elements: VE4 and 10 meters. The margins between winning and losing in ARRL DX CW are always very thin. This year, our inability to find VE4 on 160 and 10 were controlling factors. 10 meters was THE key, however. On Saturday 10 opened briefly, very tenuously, and we struggled to make 26 QSOs and 11 multipliers with signals near the ESP level. On Sunday we were watching the real time MUF map and knew that a significant 10 meter opening was coming, so we were really primed for it. Between 1617Z and 1713Z we made a piddly 10 QSOs, waiting and waiting for a real opening. Then we returned to 10 at 1731Z and the band crashed open shortly thereafter. I (W0CG) happened to be in that chair at that time and had the most fun I've ever had in ham radio, pushing the rate meter above 330 at times with 40 dB signals and huge pileups following the first few PJ2T spots. W8AV also took a turn on 10 during the opening. Sadly, though, the band was stone dead by 2101Z and we were unable to make any more Qs or work the last six needed mults. Frustrated, we listened to TI5N continuing to run 10 at good rates for quite awhile thereafter, working stations we could not hear at all. Geography is that powerful down here in the Caribbean. Sincere congrats to the TI5N crew for a superb operation -- loud signals, great operating technique, and a completely deserved success in M/2.

We had intended to be a M/2 entry but managed to horribly foul up our logs because of some poor recoveries we made from five Writelog crashes we had during the contest. We have over 5000 QSOs in the log that have no Station "A" / Station "B" identifiers. Rather than try to scrub this up, we're submitting in M/M on the expectation that ARRL would have surely reclassified our messed up log into M/M anyway. Ironically, the log mess may benefit us in the race for a plaque. We (the CCC club) have never made a category hop before, and don't intend to make a regular practice of it, but our log disaster imposes it on us in this case. Thanks to our entire team, but most of all to my XYL, Cindy, who fed a HUGE group of people like kings, allowed us to overrun her house for a week, and tolerated 48 hours of contesting noise over the weekend, barely able to get any sleep. How many of you have an XYL who would do THAT??!! All credit for any of PJ2T's successes go to Cindy.

73 from Curacao, and see you in ARRL SSB! W0CG (PJ2DX) for the PJ2T Crew