WQ6X Wanders thru a WONKY IOTA ConTesT WeeKend

The RSGB Islands on the Air (IOTA) contest is in a category all by itself, even tho it isn't.  As contest exchanges go, in IOTA we send 5NN and a contact serial #.  Islands stations additionally send us their numbered island designator.  EX: JR2PMT sends 5NN 247 AS007 (one of seve3ral island designators for Japan).

Starting at 12:00z (noontime in England), requires that I wake @4:45am, brew a pot of black
coffee and in the chair by 5:05.  Prior to the contest weekend the Solar Flux Index (SFI) moved
on up to ~148 with a relatively low K-index.  Amazing for So. California, 15-meters opened early
to EU and remained open much of the day.  Ironically, shortly after EU faded into oblivion, 15-meters was gone - there was virtually no afternoon opening to Asia - Bummer Dewd.

The Island designator system is unique to IOTA.  After much searching, the list of designators
was finally located.  ([CLICK HERE] to see the list - which is broken down by continent).  In the IOTA contest, multipliers are accumulated on each band for each island designator added to the log - each new band enables "starting over" with mult collection on that band.  While mults ASRE important, even MORE important is the fact that contacts with island stations are worth 15-pointsa per log entry, whereas contacts w/non-island stations are worth only 2-points each.

Running Low Power (LP - 93-watts), the decision was made to call CQ a LoT.  It was gratifying 
that many island stations called in to the run frequencies.  Using the Stereo-CW method made
running frequencies much easier.  Unfortunately, this method cannot overcome internet "jitter"
which creates momentary dropouts in reception.  Having dealt with this problem in recent weeks
has required me to develop the ability to anticipate and read Cw between the dropouts.  Operators with S9+ signals would be frustrated when I ask for repeats - it wasn't weak signals or QRM/QRN that was the problem, it was internet dropouts.

After the IOTA contest was over, I was surprised to discover that over 18-hours of OP time had been logged.  Submitting the log as a 12-hour entry would've cut off some of the juiciest multipliers which occurred in the final hours of the contest GiG.

When it was all over, it would seem that WQ6X's Cw-only entry took a 3rd-place overall and 1st-place for USA/North America.  Ironically, the 1st-place station (JA6GCE) was one of only a few JA stations actually participating in the contest.  While 40 and 20-meters were littered with JA callsigns in the 
bandmap, most were operating in some domestic JA competition, not the IOTA GiG - GO Figure.

DiD YOU work the RSGB IOTA Contest?

How many Islands did you work from the IOTA List?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?