The October WES begins Saturday the 7th at 1200Z (8:00 AM EDT). The bonus this time is for working the same station on different bands and increases exponentially -- 2 bands = 50 points, 2 bands = 150 points, 3 bands = 500 points, 4 bands = 1000 points.  

Rules here

Hope to be there for a lot of this one.

It hasn't rained in 3 weeks so naturally a storm front is forecast to move in Saturday afternoon.

Hasn't rained in a month here, and as soon as I schedule to have my house painted.....it rains.  They are painting the hell out of it right now, but it's supposed to rain later this afternoon, and tonight.  We'll see what happens.

I've screwed up my shoulder, so I have to take some breaks when sending CW, but I should be able to get a fair amount of time in. I'm starting to sound like one of the old guys complaining about his ailments.

That's a pretty darn good excuse reason to get a bug!  

Sometime I think about getting a bug, just for the sake of nostalgia.  But I think it would screw me up so bad with a paddle that I'm not sure I want to go down that trail. For now, I'll just take a few more breaks.

The shoulders have been a problem for 10 years, now, but I really over did it a few weeks ago and they began to hurt a lot.  I finally broke down last week and went for an MRI.  Turns out I've torn the tendons in three out of the four muscle groups in the right shoulder.  Classic rotator cuff injury.  In the worst offender, the tendons have retracted a lot, so it's been there a long time, and surgery is not real likely to help.  But they are feeling  better as time goes on, and I think in a few months I'll be back to where I was a few weeks ago.  Didn't do an MRI on the left shoulder, but I have no doubt there is injury there, too.  It's much less severe than the right, though.

Not too big of a deal really.  Just another annoying speed bump on the road of life.  

Sounds like I have a new reason to attempt a160m loaded vertical.  Thing's have been pretty good here propagation wise,  even worked an AZ Station on 40m, and I usually can't get further west than Dallas.

Well S&P isn't too bad, but calling CQ is a pain (literally) because I'm on the key so long.  Maybe a bug is not such a bad idea after all.

I use a bug almost exclusively now, except for Field Day and Sweepstakes. It me takes about 10 minutes practice to make the switch.

I had a good run on 40 this morning. Going out to dinner in a few minutes, disconnecting the antenna because of possible thunderboomers tonight. I may give 80 a shot later if weather remains clear.

Managed a couple dozen QSO's, including one on 80m.  I'll have another go at it, tomorrow.  

According to the Reverse Beacon, I'm getting out pretty good, even on 40m (10 watts on the random wire).

Well, that's probably the best run I'll ever have in the WES.  It looked like things were slowing down when I got to around 30 QSOs, but then they picked up again on Sunday afternoon.

Contest station or not, I still don't see how anyone logs 440 QSOs in a contest like this.  That is 18+ hand sent, CW QSOs/hour, over a 24 hour operating period.

You really racked up!  

I had a couple of commitments Saturday, and the weather was stormy Sunday, but managed to get in a couple of hours.

I've managed ~25 stations an hour for a couple of hours, but my wrist is shot afterwards, even using the bug some of the time.

There's a point where it ceases being fun and becomes a chore.

I have to take a break every hour or so, just to stretch my legs.  Sometimes for a few minutes, and sometimes I'll take an hour off.  I have a nice chair now, but I still can't sit there for hours on end.

I used the Junker for the entire WES, this time.  It's a nice key.   I'm still thinking about a getting a bug, but I like to check out used stuff before I buy, and there aren't any good places to do that around here. On the "big auction site" everything seems to be overpriced, or a pile of corroded junk...or both.   Haven't seen much of anything on QRZ or eHam.  I don't know.  I probably don't need another key anyway.  

Oh, and the NAQCC sprint is tomorrow night.