Looking Back at PACC 2014

Looking back at the PACC 2014 makes me smile....
I never did a full 24 hour contest before as last year i was a bit ill and skipped the whole evening.
Looking at my points i now know how important the evening is as well :)

I spent a lot of time in my shack.... well, shack, the last 2 to 3 hours it felt more like a jail cell to me as i was exhausted.

and , again, like last year i ran into some known people.... which made me smile

• PE4BAS, Completely in style like last year Bas did not recognize my call, i dis recognize his, but as we were in contest, and more people were calling, i did not mention it.
• PA6W - PA3GNZ PA7TWO, Tjeerd(PA3GNZ) was contesting in PA6W, and i don't know if it was him who i spoke to or one of his fellow crew members, but they immediately replied with my name instead of my call....
  Now this could be because one of the crew, a good ham friend of mine, Kees, PA7TWO, told him who i was.....
  Later on, when i was scanning 80 or 40m , i don't remember, Kees called out with his own call instead of the PA6W call.... the coincidence....
• PA6NH - PA3FUN, This call, PA6NH, i actually monitored on the dxcluster....
  As 2 of the people i talk to almost daily worked this contest station. And i actually worked them.
  PA3FUN was operating at the time when i called out for them on 80m.
  As my 80m antenna is not that great, and their antenna's were more pointed to the US, it was just above noise level that i talked to Christiaan(PA3FUN), who was as amazed as me that the contact could be made.

The conditions to me felt less then last year. Also lately there has been a lot of activity on 10M, but that was very low as well. The nice contact i made last year to Australia on 20 was definitely not going to happen.

So what was the most memorable contact for me then..... well, that was not hard....

A certain "small" station was calling at 10... KC1XX
So i called back , and made the contact.... not surprised as i have a fairly decent 10 meter antenna....

So then i ran into them at 15.... and made the QSO there.... still not  surprised....

On 20m i ran into them again , well pleased to work them on 3 bands, this contact was made and logged as well.

Now here comes what made this memorable for me..... Later in the evening.... i was scanning 40m and making a lot of dutch/European contacts. As usual... as i have a end fed wire antenna for 40.
All of a sudden i hear KC1XX calling... and OMFG (excuse my language) they were LOUD!

Against better judgement, thinking i would never make it over the "big pond", i pushed my footswitch down and gave my call twice..... my set shouted through my headset "PA1SBM, you are 59776...."

I almost fell of my chair and gave them my, now known to them, 59FL back....

As soon as the QSO was logged, i jumped up and did a little dance and cheer behind my desk.....

This is/was my first contact to the US on 40 ever!! 

I am not thinking this has anything to do with my station... its 100% them having awesome antennas....

All and all i had a really good time....it is just a big big BIG mental exhaustion to do this all alone....

I did go to bed a little while (UTC) 12:00 to 06:00 and 5 minutes after i woke up i was cq'ing again.

Next year i am so going to do this again......

Till next year ! 59FL from me, good luck in the contest!!

Alex

PA1SBM