WQ6X Wiggles-thru another Wonky WAE Radiosport ConTesT

It seems that for years now the WAE Cw contest weekend always opens full of implied hope
of numbers being larger than they actually turn out by the time it is over.  Then again, it can't be
worse than last year's run when the EU path got blind-sided by a CME blast, "tearing the ionosphere to shreds".   Previously in 2o24, with a Solar-FLUX of 303 we managed 30-QSOs + 30-QTCs more than this year, however as it turns out we found 30 more multipliers than in 2o24, resulting in a slightly higher score.

For 2o26, the event opened with activity on 15, 20 & 40 meters.  When 40 died in Europe, 20-meters quite open for several hours.  It can't get much better than that, so I took a sleep break.   Starting up Saturday morning, there was a reasonable opening to Europe on 15-meters altho 10-was a no-show all weekend.  As morning became afternoon, 15-meters slowly (but quickly) faded into oblivion, never to return - not even on Sunday.

In reviewing WQ6X WAE entries since 2o16, while some of the scores were indeed quite higher,
they were made running high power (HP) - usually around 1-KW.  This year's WAE was the 1st low power (LP) GiG ever run from WA6TQT (in Anza) that actually manifested a purposefully organized EU contest progression.

There are of course variables.  Last year, a CME all but obliterated the LP WAE run from Ramona. 
This year the SFI was down considerably to a Cycle-25 downward low of 94.  Altho the A/K-Indexes started off low, by mid-Saturday they had risen noticeably.  Additionally, Space-WX numbers do not take into account earth-WX, in particular - lightning storms.

In contests involving distance communication (Ex: So. Calif. to EU) my operating preference
is to start high (in frequency) and move lower.  Amazingly, at the start of the contest 15-meters
gave up 3 central EU stations (LY5W, OU2W & RU1A) before quickly fading into oblivion.  Moving down to 20-meters, the band brought us a wall of EU stations, interspersed with even LOUDer statesiders calling CQ WAE.

It didn't take long to determine that the "WQ6" prefix might be a desirable commodity. 
As it turns out, 2/3's of the OP-time was spent running frequencies - an important benefit 
being that the more-aggressive EU stations asking "QTC?".  (Late in the contest, I had to
"Go shopping" for stations to redeem the leftover QTC's.).

While 20-meters was reasonably hopping, by 02:06z it was timer to duplicate this success on 40-meters, with a different set of stacked yagis.  With stacked yagis available on 40 to 10 meters, pointing the stacks toward EU once in the beginning is all that was needed.  For working 0-Azimuth (over the pole into Eastern Europe), there is a KT-36 for the high bands and a 40-meter Stepp-IR.

Keeping an eye on the greyline screen encouraged S&P'ing and calling CQ until it was clear that EU had moved from the greyline into full daylight.  Returning to 20-meters (03:00z), the frenzy was continued until 09:20z when nothing was left to work.  After a sleep break 15-meters was not reliable into So. California until 16:00z.  

Openings to EU on Saturday were sporadic at best.  Only 24 more 15-meter QSOs made it to the log before the band faded into oblivion and could not be resurrected the rest of the weekend.  This was all a function of the SFI and A/K Indexes.  Comparing the Space-WX from 2o24 to this year's event was quite striking.  The major difference of course is the SFI of 303 in 2o24 versus a mere 94 during this August 2o26 weekend.

Bottom-line is Sunday was spent entirely
on 20-meters.  Occasionally switching to 10
and 15 meters to call CQ was pointless - with
only one USA spot, the MUF on Sunday afternoon must've been well below 20-Mhz.  

For the rest of the day, WQ6X called CQ,
went on last-minute S&P journeys and dumped
the last of the QTC traffic: de WQ6X HV QTC - we were stuck with that final QTC message.

Sunday afternoon in the WAE contest always presents a desperate flurry of stations looking to move QTC traffic they have not sent for far-too-long.  This year, rather than get stuck with books of undelivered messages, after running a frequency and unloading 5+ QTC books, the rest were unloaded gradually throughout the contest.

When it was all over, it would seem that WQ6X took 15th-place
worldwide, 6th-place for USA and 1st-place for W6 (Left Coast).

DiD YOU work the Worked All Europe (WAE) contest?

HoW many QTC Books DiD YOU send?