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According to PSKReporter, I missed some needed DX on 40m last night:

QRV 9.5 hours out of the 10 hours permitted for single-op class, all search & pounce. Started about 45 minutes late and took 3 breaks. By contest’s end at midnight I was pretty exhausted, not sure how people do single-op in the 48-hour tests.

Worked 20m for about 40 min, then switched to 15m for about 30 min to see if the band was open (not so much, only 4 Qs). Spent the next 3h 45m bouncing between 20m and 40m, then took a 30 min break. Came back on 40 for an hour, took another 45 min break, worked 40m for another 15 min. Took a final 30 min break to run to the QuikiMart for contest supplies (cigarettes, donuts, bottled water for coffee, important stuff like that…), then spent the remaining 3h 15m of the test on 80m.

That last stint on 80 was the most enjoyable contest experience I’ve had since… well, since the last time I worked 80m with a sense of purpose. That would have been back in New Jersey in the late 90’s when I had a dipole and 600 watts; now I run 100 watts to an 12′ mobile screwdriver antenna that doesn’t tune better than 3.0:1. Little pistol station? Hell, it isn’t even a .22 target gun! Yet I had a blast. The guys I worked were great and very patient as I repeated my call and exchange countless times. And some QSOs were so easy I almost forgot I was on 80m.

I hit the triple crown five times, working K7RL (WA), N6ML (CA), NC4KW (NC) and NK7U (OR) on 20/40/80, and K4SSU (GA) on 15/20/40.

I’m still not ready to make the big leap to flat-out contesting (trying to work every station I can hear, rack up as many points as I can, sit at the mic/key/computer for the duration, etc.). I’m still in it mostly for the QSLs and ulterior award-chasing motives so I still skip a lot of possible QSOs if the station is in a state already confirmed. But I gotta tell you, each time I play in one of these tests I get sucked in a little… bit…. more…

Having grown tired of 20m, I’ve been monitoring 17m during the daylight hours over the past week or so. I’ve largely ignored 17m, even back in the old days — there are only 6 DX countries in the log from New Jersey, and no US or Canadian QSOs. This must change!

The band is mostly quiet but with spurts of activity when the waterfall will light up for a minute or two before resuming room temperature. Since November I’ve logged digital QSOs with 8 DX countries and 16 states. So far all the DX has been from the south and east — EA8, F, KP4, OM, ON, PJ2, PZ, TI.

A half-hearted effort, 7 hours in two shifts (1000-1500 & 2200-2400). Made 82 QSOs, (51 on 40m, 30 on 20m, and 1 on 80m). I just wasn’t as focused as I could have been this time, was doing some work on the Mac while calling CQ on the Dell, doing my best Rick Wakeman impersonation…

Not much luck with DX but nabbed LA (Norway, a new one from Texas) and a few other Europeans (G, I, OK, PA, SP), plus EA8, FM, HI, JA, KH6, KP4, P4, VE and XE. Stateside, I managed three new states on 40m (HI, RI and WY).

And with little fanfare I made my return to the HF bands in 2009. This, in keeping with the tradition I seem to have of always coming back to HF near the absolute ass end of a sunspot cycle after a prolonged absence during the peaks. The last time this happened was October 1995 when I went QRV at the tail end of Cycle 22 after being off the air for almost 6 years. Now I’m just in time to experience Cycle 24 which some predict will be the least active solar cycle in the history of this universe and all others, or some such. My lucky stars!

How long has it been this time? My logbook shows that other than sporadic activity (9 QSOs) between January 2001 and March 2002, I’ve been out of the game for over 10 years — my last contest from Closter, NJ was CQ WPX Phone in March 1999. Before that, my last spurt of activity lasted for 42 months (Oct. 95 to Mar. 99) during which time I worked a lot of mobile HF; discovered the joy of computerized logging during contests; discovered the further joy of losing copious amounts of computerized log data to the fickle whims of that third-rate, so-called “operating system” known as Windows (Win98, I believe it was that did my logs in….); I worked some CW contests for the first time; and got a new call, relegating that godawful N2HIE to the trash heap of bad-CW-call history. I was tanned, rested and ready for Cycle 23.

Then I got distracted — work took up more of my time, I got married, moved 4 times around northern New Jersey, got sidetracked by other hobbies (astronomy, photography, a brief and futile affair with model trains), spent 2+ years gutting and remodeling my mom’s house, then finally made the big move to Texas in August 2008.

Yet all during this time I never really let ham radio drift too far away. I may not have put a signal on the air but I had some or all of my radios set up at both my Bergenfield (2001) and Lake Wallkill (2002-2008) QTHs and did quite a bit of listening. Even had an FT-817 in my car for a spell and used to listen to 20m and 40m during my commute. I picked up a few key elements of my current station like a second NRD-515 receiver, a NCS Multi-RX audio mixer and a Heil Classic 5 mic; put an FT-7800 dual-bander in my Jeep; ordered and built my KX1 QRP transceiver; and got a new HF rig, the insanely great K3, in January 2008.

The only missing piece was an antenna and that came in June of this year in the unlikely form of a Tarheel screwdriver antenna (a hex beam or phased verticals being out of the question at the current QTH). And with that, on June 16th, WW2PT was back on HF. By the end of 2009 I had:

…and just over 6 months later I had worked all 50 states, 78 DXCC countries and 25 CQ zones — that’s a whopping 103 DX Marathon points! (tnx AE5X for the reminder…) QSLs have been trickling in, too, giving me 47 countries and all states confirmed in 2009. The final tallies for the year (as of 31-Dec-09) are…

Bring on Cycle 24.