I was lucky enough to find a seat at the WA3EKL station, which is nearby. The team were competing in the WAE SSB contest, but as it’s a M/2 station and they weren’t able to muster enough folks to keep the 2nd station going I was allowed to take it over for the QP.
The only limitation was that the contest crew got first choice of band and that meant that they had 20m pretty much all day. However, I was pleased with how 15m worked. It turns out that 4 elements at 90 feet work better than a dipole in the attic. Who knew?!?
Then when 15m dried up I had to drop to 40m, which was a bit early for EU but still did OK there and then in the last hour I got to 20m when the main contest station wanted 40m.
I’m still not used to starting at 8pm on a Friday evening, so only got going at around 1000EST on Saturday by the time I got to the station and was on the air.
Nevertheless I enjoyed the event immensely. A nice few minute QSO with Mark W4CK made my day, and then I was very pleased also to be able to exchange a few words particularly with both Mike G4RMV and Alan VE3HX. Many other QSOs also brought a smile to my face too.
FOCBWQP Summary Sheet Start Date : 2019-09-18CallSign Used : AD5XI Operator(s) : AD5XIOperator Category : MULTI-ONE Band : ALL Power : HIGH Mode : CW Default Exchange : IAIN 2024 Gridsquare : FM19PD Country : UNITED STATESBand QSOs Pts FOC Pt/Q7 90 90 62 1.014 32 32 24 1.021 45 45 37 1.0Total 167 167 123 1.0