I had an obligation on Friday evening at the start of the contest so I got on the air a couple hours after the start and was on for just over 1 hour before I turned the radio off. 20m had no activity when I got on so I went to 40m and made some contacts before heading to 80m. I made a total of 28 contacts in that hour with all but 2 being North American contacts. The weather on Friday was rainy and unseasonably cold and that was for the forecast for the entire weekend.
Saturday morning, after dropping off my oldest daughter to take her PSATs (poor kid) I fired up the rig on 20m at 1200z. At least there’s some DX active on 20m that I can hear and they can hear me. Made a bunch of contacts in S&P mode and as I moved up the band I heard E21YDP in Thailand calling CQ with no one coming back to him. I had heard him for a short time last weekend during the Makrothen RTTY contest but couldn’t get through before I could no longer hear him. I put out my call and he immediately came back to me. After sending my info he confirmed the exchanged and I just logged my first contact of any kind with Thailand! I then watched him make a few more contacts with 100% copy on my screen before moving on. 20m was fine but 15m seemed empty every time I popped over to see if I could get any mults. Right around 2100z both days the JA stations came onto 20m and I think I worked each one I heard/saw spotted for a total of 8 JA contacts over the weekend. I am sure there were more then 8 JA stations but I didn’t hear any others. I also worked Barry in South Africa – same as last year. 40m ws so-so late on Saturday and 80m wasn’t so hot. I made ten NY QSO Party contacts on SSB and 2 on RTTY when it was real slow in the evening.
On Sunday I started out in the morning on 20m and made DX contacts until late in the morning and the US stations on the western half were awake when I made more US contacts. I continued to work stations until around 1700z when football started. It wasn’t a good game but I watched most of it. I got back on the radio, but it was harder to find stations I hadn’t worked. 15m was still quiet, at least for me. When I went into run mode, it wasn’t as productive as S&Ping as I could call for 10 mins and get just a few stations coming back to me. It was probably the contest that was easiest to find a spot to call CQ as it wasn’t wall to wall. Late in the day there was again some activity on 40m but not what I would have expected and 80m had no one on it.
Maybe it was the multiple QSO Parties and the Worked all Germany contest that occupied folks that go on the air this weekend or maybe it was the upcoming CQ WW SSB contest and folks were resting up, but it seemed less active then I would have expected. Once all the results are in, I guess I might be able to compare the overall activity. Comparing my score to last year I was down 37 contacts and 6,709 points.
2009 JARTS RTTY Score Summary:
Band QSOs Pts Cty Sec 3.5 34 69 1 11 7 54 118 10 14 14 258 664 43 17 21 2 5 1 1 Total 348 856 55 43 Score : 83,888
73,
K2DSL