Sunspots During Contest

It has been too long since my last post.  Many other activities have diverted my attention away from ham radio this year.  I have been able to work some DX, but have not had a much time for contesting or for that matter, time to post on this site.

This past weekend I finally was able to spend some time operating in the CQ Worldwide SSB contest.  It was fun to be able to spend a few hours working stations from around the world.  The bands were not as good as a couple of years ago, but 10m and 15m were both open some during the contest.  The sunspot index was in the 120s during the contest.  If I recall correctly, the Sunspot index was nearly 200 a couple of years ago.  I’m hoping the current sunspot cycle does not fade out too soon, because the last down cycle was a real downer!

My equipment worked flawlessly during the contest.  The time I spent tweaking the setup this summer must have paid off.

Here is a summary of my score:

 Score : 749,744

I operated about 17 hours doing Search and Pounce.

Fred