…first of all a thing to be said….this has been the first contest since I became a “Doctor” 
as I received the formal communication on Friday evening that I earned my degree…
It has been a tough thing.
The most feared solar flare didn’t create many issues during the contest…we were blessed with the most outstanding conditions I’ve ever experienced since I have been licensed.
The contest started low as always as here in Europe we start the CQWWs on the low bands because its night. I don’t currently have antennas for 160 and on 80 my ant is much of a dummy load so I tried to get the most out of 40m but it was a zoo. Worked the entire first night with the 20dB attenuator switched on only to gain something like 20Qs and getting frustrated. Hopefully from 06.00UTC the higher bands started giving some opportunities and my second radio has been put in use by picking up some sweet mults on 20m (3V7A before the EU zoo found it and spotted it). The main radio QSYed then straight to 10m. Yes, I should have been on 15 first to get some JA during our sunrise but that was the first of a series of errors I did. Well, back to 10m I found some activity with nice signals coming in from middle Asia and especially from Africa. The second radio was somehow parked on 20m (yes, should have been on 15).
When I finally moved to 15m the JAs were almost faded and managed to work only 2 of them while the band was getting crowded of Russians signals that gave me some nice 2 points QSOs (but they were not 3 points QSOs). Tried something new and found a clear frequency trying to call CQ on the main radio on 15m while S&Ping on 10m. Actually it was like I used only 10 as on 15 I couldn’t get a single QSO running…maybe I was splattered or I simply didn’t made it anywhere. Being assisted I could have a clue of the callsigns of the stations that were not IDing that often but, always, once a mult was spotted, I had to wait to call him because the entire “Cluster-people” were zero beat on him. Honestly 90 percent of the QSOs were made the old fashoned way, by tuning the bands.
10m and 15m kept me busy the entire first day (I feared conditions would decline the second day and wanted to get the most mult out of them) deciding to keep the second radio on 20m and get some QSOs in that band only with that radio…I would have had tons of time to spend on 20 the second day if conditions had dropped. Unfortunately at 18.00 UTC I had to stop and leave the shack due to pre-scheduled duties that kept me out of home and the shack till 03.00. Once home at that time I was simply too tired to sit at the operating position and keep contesting and decided to go to bed and take some hours of sleep.
Woke up too late on Sunday morning (wait, when I went to bed it was already sunday morning eheh) and missed some QSOs on 40m that would have meant more mults. At 07.00 when I got back on the air I found that 10 and 15 were still good and many more mults were spotted in those two bands. The whole strategy I planned till that time couldn’t hold anymore. Had to keep up with the opening on 15 and 10 and, at the same time, get something on 20m that had been a “forgotten” band for me till that time.
Second radio on 10m and 15m and the main one on 20m. This would have been a nice idea if only 20m were packed up like 10 and 15. Ended up having a slower rate that having a single radio on 21-28MHz. When I realized that more than an hour had passed so I revered the thing and concentrated more on the two bottom bands. Radio 1 on 10 and radio 2 on 15. USA stations started to pick up on 10 before than on 15. Frustration with Oceanian stations was incredible. Could hear at a real S9+20dB some VKs and YE2R but, even if they were not busy, I couldn’t get my signal to reach their attention. African stations were mostly fine with the exception of ZD8O, heard both days on the high bands at wonderful signals but never ever managed to get him. Completely different situation with carribean stations. Most of the time I didn’t need more than a couple of calls to break PJ2T, 8P5A pileups. After the 10m madness with US stations things slowed down and by 16.00 UTC the band got less and less packed up. Time to work those last mults and finally switch my entire attention to 20m (too late guys, too late). YN5Z and TI8M were the last two mults worked on 10 before QSYing with the main radio on 20 and the second radio on 15 and that happened exactly at 16.15UTC when I also managed to get to my target, the New Italian record was setted (of course before the log checking so it doesn’t really mean a lot).
Sleep deprivation started to kick once again and I swear I saw the frequency in my log moving on its own (and that’s obviously impossible) while I was fixed in a frequency trying to guess who was the QRG holder as well as I managed to keep scanning 15m with the second radio till 23MHz wondering why the band had all of those weired signals that were obviously not SSB (Jeeee I know we stop at 21.450MHz).
Finally decided to abandon the second radio and focus only on the main one (thanks whoever made me do that or I would have gone crazy probably) and started focusing mayinly on 20m trying to cover the gap I created during the last 40 hours (really??? are we really at 8 hours from the end?). Hopefully most of the EUs had already shifted to the low bands and made me work on some Caribbean multipliers. FM5FJ and FM5AN were like beacons here but they couldn’t really copy me. The best I could get out of them is : “Victor Radio again?” “Ending Radio?” and then they kept calling CQ worthlessly. I mean, not only because you were a mult for me but, if you kept working on that little signal that was reaching your antennas instead of calling with no replies it may have been better for both.
Anyway finally decided to move on 40m and work a few Europeans stations by getting the last voice out of my body as well. At 21.30 I decided I had enough (mostly, my body decided he had enough) and switched the radio off, unplugged the headphones and went straight to bed.
Here the final result…more or less goal reached. Now its all up to the log checking process. SH5 and further “after math” of the contest in a next post (too tired to do it now).
