Band  QSOs  Mults
-------------------
   6:   183    72
   2:    46     9
 222:    26     5
 432:   32     7
-------------------
Total:  345    93  Total Score = 34,845

Thanks to the Sunday evening Es, I had the best contest here in several years. Having just returned from a 7 week/7000 mile road trip I decided to take it easy and just do a limited rove with the easy DM64/DM65/DM74/DM75 Moriarty convergence the first day and a more ambitious westerly rove the second day if I felt up to it, which I did. I did not operate in motion as I didn’t even try to convince Ginger to come along. 

The contest started with a brief, two QSO, Es opening, but it was mostly locals the first day, but they were plentiful and I ended the day a bit better than I expected for a no Es contest. Made a couple of nice long haul QSOes though, several with K5LA in El Paso and W9RM up in Olathe CO. Particularly nice were the SSB QSOs with Keith from DM74. It was encouraging to hear all the local activity, especially on the higher bands and I was encouraged to hear two new rovers, W0AMT/r and WA6BJH/r. AA5PR was also out, but I don’t think we connected. 

I felt OK the second day, so I set off for the more ambitious westerly route
consisting of DM54/DM64/DM55/DM56/DM66. The westerly route gave me a chance to work N1AV and WA7XX in AZ which was nice. The day started pretty much like the first day, although there was a small Es opening in the morning, but I think I missed most of it while in motion and trying to connect with the AZ guys.

I was using APRS, and my map from Sunday is attached. 

The contest was really made for me on Sunday evening when 6M opened to everywhere and I was in DM66, a rather rare grid in the contest. I had 130 6M QSOs the last hour and a half and a max hour in that time span with 102 QSOs. I was about 3 hours from home in DM66, so I pulled up stakes and left with 45 minutes left in the contest, but the band appeared to be dying with few responses to my CQs and no new stations on the band. And the prospect of a three hour drive home along NM550 seemed daunting.

James Duffey KK6MC

Cedar Crest NM