Ken Harker WM5R
2011 ARRL 10 Meter Contest - Phone Only K5TR (WM5R, op. )

This is the 11th ARRL 10 Meter Contest in a row that I have operated from the K5TR contest station in Blanco County, Texas. I have now operated this contest across a complete solar cycle. George added a new Yagi to his complement of 10 meter antennas this year - six elements on a 26 foot (8 meter) long boom. He put it on the same mast as his high 40 meter Yagi at 115 feet (35 meters) or so above ground. There were definitely times when I think it heard better than the lower antennas, but the difference was never as big as I would have anticipated. The best benefit was having the flexibility of another rotatable Yagi in the mix.

This was only the fourth-highest QSO total I've made in the past 11 years, but it was a second-best multiplier total for me. That was a bit of a surprise, given that I worked only a single Mexican station this weekend. Last year, I worked 40 XE stations in 21 states. That is 20 fewer multipliers from Mexico that I missed out on this year. Comparing notes from other stations in Texas, it seems that either activity was well down in Mexico this year, or we simply didn't have propagation. I did, however, manage to work all US states, the District of Columbia, and all Canadian multipliers except VE0, VO1, and VO2. I even worked three stations in the Northwest Territories.

Propagation to Europe and Japan was the best we've had in this contest since 2002. Last year, I did not work a single station in Japan - this year, over 100 made it into the log. I worked stations all over Europe, but missed a few multipliers including OM, LA, LX, YL, ES, and EU. Some exciting multipliers that did make it into my log included EA9, ST, VP8, ZK2, and a BV station I worked on long path on Sunday morning.

I had some really big rates during the contest. My best 10 minute rate was 264 QSOs/hour, which was much higher than last year, when I couldn't break 200 QSOs/hour even for a 10 minute period of time. My best minute was 7 QSOs. Maybe next year I can do 8.

Contest Logging was done with TR LOG contest logging software. The following reports and log were created using TR LOG's post-contest processor.

• CBS report
• Continental Distribution
• Multiplier Distribution