Call     Op       Station   Category         QSOs   Mults     Score
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KG5U     KG5U     KG5U      SOAB QP           177     96     50,976
N5AW     N5AW     N5AW      SOAB LP          1135    322  1,095,444
AD0K     AD0K     AD0K      SOAB LP            46     45      9,090
N3BB     N3BB     N3BB      SOAB HP          1861    318  1,742,004
K5NA     K5NA     K5NA      SOAB HP          1664    356  1,741,908
K5YA     K5YA     K5YA      SOAB HP A        1791    351  1,881,711
K5NZ     K5NZ     K5NZ      SOAB HP A         222    104     69,264
ZF1A     W5ASP    ZF1A      SOSB/80          1621     59    270,456
V31TP    many     V31TP     M/S              4667    288  4,021,920
W5KFT    many     W5KFT     M/2              1658    310  1,508,460

V31TP ops: WC0W, K5PI
W5KFT ops: KU5B, W5TA, N1XS

"This HAS to be the bottom of the solar cycle. These were the poorest conditions I've ever heard on 10 meters from Texas in this contest. And if that weren't bad enough, local thunderstorms from Friday afternoon until early Sunday morning virtually wiped out 160 meters and severely impacted 80 meters. With all this, it was a struggle to break 1 million points. Of course, I think back to the peak of solar cycle 22 in 1989 when three of us became the first ever low power W/VE stations to score over 1 million. How things have changed! In 1989, I used a quad at 48 feet above ground, a multiband vertical, one radio, and manual logging. I never thought I'd have the set up I have today." - N5AW

"This was a pretty good contest for me. This weekend, I used what I have learned about SO2R as effectively as I have ever done. But, I still have a long ways to go to be really good at it. I was hoping that the cold front would move on through quickly, but it didn't happen. On Saturday afternoon I had to shut down, remove coaxes, and disconnect cables for the thunderstorms that were passing through the area. I lost about an hour and 40 minutes of operating because of that. I had a pizza bet on this contest with my buddy, N3BB, who is also in the Austin area. We ended the contest in almost a dead heat with him beating me by less than one QSO. I have already bought him his pizza at a contest wrap-up and discussion gathering. If the log checking reverses our order of finish, then he will owe me two pizzas back. No problem since more pizza is always better than no pizza." - K5NA

"I concentrated on working DXCC entities I still needed, so I ran S&P the entire time. I ran 100 watts into a low (12 foot high) dipole. I managed to get 22 new entities added to my totals. The band conditions on 40 meters were never good, especially during thunderstorm activity on Saturday evening, although I managed a few 80 meter QSOs then. 20 meters and 15 meters were generally good, with Sunday being better conditions than Saturday. I never heard any openings on 10 meters. This just shows that barefoot power and low antennas can manage to snag DX." - AD0K

"We had a major power failure that cost us about four hours of prime time on Saturday morning and some resetting time once everything was restored! Despite this, we enjoyed some good runs. High points of the weekend included working VP6DX on six bands, and HZ and 7X answering our CQ in the last five minutes for new multipliers." - N1XS (@ W5KFT)

"I listened on 10 meters frequently, but for all that I only ever heard K5GO calling some station I couldn't hear. Elsewhere, conditions and sigs were there, but I just couldn't make things happen. Signal strengths seemed to be way down. I never could get a CQ run going anywhere." -KG5U

"We lost a little over an hour of operation due to a power failure mid-day on Sunday and an amplifier transplant, but just about everything worked great. This is a something of a Field Day setup, with antennas on an old pool deck. We had a TA-33JR, 40/80 meter inverted vee, and a modified Butternut HF2 for 160 meters. We set up a 400 foot long Beverage antenna that worked great, and also put together a 10 meter dipole so we could keep an ear on the band with an Icom IC-706. Setup went quickly, and we had a great time seeing the sites -- caves, rivers, rain forests, etc. What a great place!" - K5PI (@ V31TP)

"An amazing experience as always. We had a big weather front approaching, with all sorts of dire forecasts ranging from tornado possibilities to a 100% probability of rain and winds on Saturday as a cold front swept through central Texas. Friday night was not too noisy on the LF bands, although I could hear the noise in the atmosphere from the west. The front crept in as the contest started, but the really bad storms were forecasted to hit on Saturday afternoon and evening. Fortunately the weather at my home was simply rain and noisy bands plus some winds. The bad weather was to the east, and shut down K5NA for several hours. We got very noisy LF bands, but I never got the rain static on any of the antennas. The Beverages helped a little." - N3BB