Hi, all.

 

It's getting late here, and tomorrow is going to be a rather busy Easter
Sunday, so I thought I'd give you a quick report on my Michigan QSO Party
effort.

 

First of all, band conditions on 40 were extremely poor, especially at the
beginning of the contest.  I'd say that, for the first two hours of the
contest, I only heard a few Michigan stations, which was very unlike the
situation last year.

 

The band did improve as the afternoon went on, but it did take a while.

 

80 was in better shape tonight, but even then, there were substantially
fewer people on the band than I recall being the case in previous years.

 

After a little more than 9 hours of operating, I put 255 contacts into the
log.  I'd estimate that almost half of those contacts were "out of state"
contacts.

 

I did mostly CQing, and probably spent equal time on SSB and CW.
Interestingly, I got a much greater number of CW contacts than SSB contacts
this time around.

 

I did manage to work WD9GUT (Jim in Minesota), and a blind ham named Scott
from a county in the southern part of the state.  His call was W8CUB, and I
believe Lou knows him rather well.  I also worked Paul (N4PN) from Georgia
several times, which is always a neat bonus in any contest.

 

I think that another reason for the lower than usual number of participants
was that this year's contest fell on Easter week-end, which is really
unfortunate.

 

Anyway, if anyone tried to work me, and I missed you, I truly do apologize.

 

This was just one of those days when the HF gods simply were not completely
on our side.

 

Tom Behler: KB8TYJ