WQ6X challenges the Stew Perry top-band Distance Challenge

This last weekend was a more-or-less quiet weekend radiosport-wise, which is probably a good thing, when you factor-in a number of solar storms littered throughout the weekend.  With a 15:00z starting time (8am PDT), the Stew Perry SP-160 (Top-band Distance Challenge) brings us unique challenges.  At 15:00z, 160-meters has just shut down for the day, which began at 9am with an ARCA radio club meeting presentation about how the ARCA repeater system works.

Altho I setup Anza's STN-2 on Friday evening, it wasn't until 3pm Saturday afternoon (22:00z) that
I heard any signals coming from the east, altho they could not yet hear my calls to them.  The 160-meter antenna @WA6TQT is a 2-element full-size vertical Tri-square (only 2-elements because the
S-E leg of the array is currently non-functional).

Every time I run 160-meters from Anza, I am always amazed at how "early" the band opens
up on the mountain-top in San Bernardino County.   While seemingly slow to open, it suddenly
opens nicely, at which time I immediately went into RUN mode.  The amazing thing was how quickly
I received a call from P40L (around 01:40z), followed shortly by ZF2MZ.  Unfortunately, aside from XE2S, they were the only "south of the border" contacts making it to the WQ6X log.

While the upper bands were savagely assaulted by the effects of the on-again off-again solar storms, 160-meters remained consistently quiet.  Then again, signals on 160 seemed weaker than expected, with quick fading adding to the reception problems.  With a 1,350-watt signal, it seems that other stations heard WQ6X way-easier than they were heard in W6-land.

It was surprising how few actual-W6 stations were actually heard.  While I heard many calls containing a "6", they were all "transplants" to the S/E area of the country.  80% of the op-time
was spent calling CQ, interspersed w/tuning around the bands looking for new Grid-squares.

By 07:30z, stations on the East coast were sound asleep; Asia and the Pacific hadn't yet materialized.  After 3-hours sleep, 10:30z put JA5DQH into the log.  Other signals from the W/N-W were completely dormant; not even KH6 came thru.  Bummer.  At least a 2nd opening to the East coast occurred.  By 13:00z things were largely over so I shut the AMP down and went back to sleep.

After my morning coffee, I I posted the score to the 3830-Scores website and submitted the log,
so I can now forget about it all.  Awhile back I wrote a Blog about how 160-meters is a different
world unto itself.  ([CLICK HERE] to read that.

According to the 3830 scores, it looks like WQ6X took a 3rd place - Amazing

What about YOU?  Do YOU work 160?

DiD you work the SP-160 contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR Log?