WQ6X Wangles King-of-Spain GiG into another Training Exercise

In anticipation of a major equipment reorganization at the W7AYT QTH, the 3rd weekend in may was perfect for troubleshooting a number of the audio connections that make up the WQ6X operation in Concord.  I've been annotating what works and what could be improved.  The only HF contest on the WA7BNM Calendar was the King-of-Spain Cw GiG.  Until last year, I made only a handful of QSOs
in the KoS event.  I decided this year will take things to the next level.

What made the difference in this year's score was camping out on RUN frequencies and calling "CQ KOS" or "CQ EA ".  The amazing thing was receiving calls from several EA stations, making the CQ's worthwhile.  South American participation was quite noticeable during the K-o-S contest.  Altho non-EA QSOs are single-pointers, new countries add to the multiplier list making it worth turning the antennas to 120-Degrees.

What amazed me was the number of callers who thought this was a QSO party or something as they would send me their state. If I couldn't coax a number out of them, I randomly assigned one, on the assumption they wouldn't submit a log so it doesn't matter what value I put in there.

As it turns out, this event was the LAST contest operation from the Fallbrook location.  After a dozen years, we our moving our entire operation to the Super Station site in ANZA; overall an improvement.

Because this was a 24-hour contest, the opportunity for intentional QRM was reduced considerably.  Unfortunately this GiG's QRM came in the form of a "Woodpecker" signal @13;10z which was tracked down to 6841.45.  While tuning around, I encountered some sort of a traffic handling station calling "NR5U B5 NR5D45" and "NR5U 7A NR5DD 33" - HuH?  Broadcast stations were also heard on 6850.05 and 6865.05.  Later on Saturday, RTTY marking was heard on 14003.93 @23:09z and then full-blown RTTY on 14007.97 @07:23z - HuH?

Russian beacon-wise, the "F" and "K" beacons were AWOL, while the "M" beacon was unusually weak, altho Asian stations were being copied during this time period.  There was a time when I bitched about having military beacons invading our 40-meter Cw band; now I lament their disappearance.

When it was ALL OVER, according to 3830 Scores, WQ6X was 35th worldwide, 13th in USA
and 1st-place for California; other Californians were worked, yet evidently they never posted a score (and therefore presumably never submitted a LoG).

DiD YOU work the King-of-Spain contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?