Wow!!!! FRI night, lots of SAT, and most of Sunday, and even afterwards in to MON, it's been the best AM Rally for me thus far. 2 1/2 pages of contacts on three bands, 75M, 40M, and even 15M. Too much SSB on 20M, seen 10M 29MHz active, using the 'lil Xiegu rig as a dedicated 10M rig, but didn't work them, when I was working the other bands at the same. Heard some on 1885AM, 160M, I heard ops say that they were going to try 6M, 50.4MHz, but heard nothing there. Heard nothing on 2M AM, and even called CQ on 144.300MHz, with the beam due North. And, I'm not used to this, where everyone seemed to hear me, better than I was hearing them. (That's a 1st...) On 75M, I was running an 80W carrier, with a 3-tube AL-811A amp, with about 11W from a Kenwood TS-2000X, with EXT 5-band EQ / COMP set at 4:1 COMP, and Heil HMM dynamic Mic. Also used MFJ-989D tuner, to match-up the home-brew Windom, with 4:1 Voltage Balun. So, it all came together to work properly this time. I've actually had this setup for over 5 years now. The difference was the opinions received in constant fine-tweaking, power, EQ, and audio, levels. On 40M, and 15M, I just ran 20W barefoot, and everyone still heard me. At 5PM EST, my time, the 40M SW broadcasters would get in there and squash everyone for a couple hours . The Superbowl must of helped to keep some potential ops away, making adjacent +/- 5kHz rejection better on 3885kHz SUN night. And, never heard W1AW this year anywhere. However, in the past, when they were on, it was a moshpit of stations trying to work them. Everything pretty much wound-down around 12:40AM EST Monday. Anyway, great to catch back up with many ops, and even heard & worked new ones to me. Let's hope next year will be this good. Will I get QSL requests from SWL'ers? I have in the past. So, looking forwards to next year.
