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"It took me about three years to work my first 100 DXCC entities on 10 meters since moving to Colorado, using all three modes," said Jim Reisert AD1C. "This past weekend I did it again using only SSB, and in just three days!"
That was a common theme in post-contest comments on 3830, as contesters from every corner of the world enjoyed wide open conditions on 10 meters that had not been enjoyed since 2003.
"I was blown away by the conditions even in a remote place like Mongolia," said Ken Claerbout K4ZW, who operated from the JT5DX multi-op.
"Two hours into the contest I went to 10 and it was 200 plus Q's an hour until the band closed," Claerbout told radio-sport.net. "Kept wondering where are all these people coming from."
JT5DX ended with over 2100 Q's on 10 meters.
That was a story repeated all over the world.
"10M was great," said Jim Sullivan W7EJ, who for now holds the best single operator score in the world with 19.3 million points.
"I've seen only one 10 meters opening in my lifetime," said Kris ES7GM, who operated as ES5G.
"But back then I was only 10 years old and not so excited about it. But now? I think I'm not the only one cheering."
"I missed the last solar cycle so I haven't heard 10 meters "wall to wall" in a very long time," said Hunter K3IE. "What a weekend."
"All I can say is "WOW," said Steve Hawley K4EU. "No way could I leave 10m -- Wall-to-wall big signals world-wide both days 28.300 to 28.999..... Don't think I've ever heard 10m like this."
Even far north up in Zone 2, 10 meters was the top producer for Yuri Onipko VE3DZ, who ran VE2IM to 14.6 million points, with 2304 contacts on 10 meters.
"On Saturday, 10 Meters was so much fun that it enticed me into a more serious effort," said Dave Hachadorian K6LL.
Down Under, the 10 meter bug clearly got Paul Richards VK4MA, as he posted the top score so far in the 10 meters Assisted category with 2.7 million points.
"This was my first ever serious shot at CQWW after 30 previous years of simply chasing DX in the contest," he said on 3830.
"The highlight for me was working the boys in FP land (country number 321 for me on 10 metres)and the first FP heard on 10 metres in over 30 years of activity," the Aussie contester added.
That kind of story was repeated many other places, like Kev Hawort M0TNX from England:
"First ever major contest, an amazing experieence to WAZ and gain DXCC on one band in 24Hrs," he wrote on 3830 about his single band effort on 10 meters.
In recent years, propagation has been terrible on the low bands, while it has been excellent at times on 40, 80 and 160 meters.
But months of higher sunspot numbers clearly made an impact, as 80 and 160 almost became an afterthought for some of the big contesters, who were maxing out on 40-20-15-10.
Robert Wood W5AJ/P40P, who has the top Low Power Assisted score in the world at this point, only made 352 QSO's on 40-80-160, compared to almost 4,000 on 20-15-10.
"160 was not good," said W5AJ, who wrote on 3830 that he "was not able to pick up zone 3 or 7 on 160," noting that "many of the carribean stations must ditched 160 for weekend."
"160M was the worst I have seen it," said Ed Sawyer N1UR, who owns the top USA low power score. "One EU QSO the whole weekend and Carib activity seemed light."
Sawyer's score was not only tops in the US in low power, but also in the top few scores worldwide, trailing EA8ZS (OE2VEL) and 3V8SS (KF5EYY).
One good example of the change in propagation came with the band summary for Team P33W on Cyprus, which had the following numbers for 2011 and then 2010 with QSO's/CQ Zones/DXCC Countries:
As you can see P33W had over 2300 more contacts on 10 meters in 2011 and about 500 more on 15 meters.
That made up for the smaller numbers on the four other bands - down 119 on 160 meters, down 850 on 80 meters, down another 850 on 40 meters and 400+ on 20 meters.
Overall, the contact numbers were about the same in 2011 and 2010 - but the bands contesters were on had changed.
Once again, "there's no meters like 10 meters."
Check back this week for even more updates on scores from the 2011 CQ WW SSB Contest from radio-sport.net.
This is Team YT2T, with YT2T, YT2B, YT1BX, YU2EA, YU2A and YU8NU.