Terry or any other hams out there

I'm not a contester but I'll participate in them when I'm home.
This weekend's cq worldwide dx contest seemed unusual to me. I only worked 15 and 10 meters as I had time to respond to cq's. I heard a lot of stations calling cq repeatedly with no response. I'd pick up the mic and get right through to them. Normally there would be pileups but not today. From Japan to Alaska and over to Europe and Africa it seemed everyone was parked and few of us were hunting.
I've only been licensed for 5 years and don't have much time for hf, but this weekend was much different than anything I've experienced so far.

That is weird! I've never heard a contest without major pileups. I been so busy lately I haven't fired up my rig in months.

Terry

This was Sunday afternoon only, so maybe things were winding down by then.

This was Sunday afternoon only, so maybe things were winding down by then.

Was the contest over with ? I know I have heard that before, where it goes from pileups and bands full of signals to nothing just like that.

This was Sunday afternoon only, so maybe things were winding down by then.

Was the contest over with ? I know I have heard that before, where it goes from pileups and bands full of signals to nothing just like that.

No, but ot was getting close to midnight Zulu time. Probably the last three hours of the  contest.

This was Sunday afternoon only, so maybe things were winding down by then.

Was the contest over with ? I know I have heard that before, where it goes from pileups and bands full of signals to nothing just like that.

No, but ot was getting close to midnight Zulu time. Probably the last three hours of the  contest.

Dang. Kinda hard to believe they weren't hammering the last three hours out. If I wasn't otherwise occupied I'd have tried it but for some reason my weekends are always spoken for from someone else besides me. Oh well. Not to mention a dead scope still occupies my workspace. One day I'll pull the finger out and order the parts to fix it. Still trying to decide which series of caps to replace the old 672D Sprague caps with. Thinking Nichicon UHW and UPW. Also need to replace an optoisolator I probably fried. SOC123A which is impossible to find data on. I've been told two alternative part numbers to go with but those are also obsolete, so trying to find a parametric equivalent, but so many part numbers seem to be so close on some values. Not sure which values I have to worry about though. So it's left me really scratching my head. Been sitting on it for a month now. Time to crap or get off the pot.

This was Sunday afternoon only, so maybe things were winding down by then.

Was the contest over with ? I know I have heard that before, where it goes from pileups and bands full of signals to nothing just like that.

No, but ot was getting close to midnight Zulu time. Probably the last three hours of the  contest.

Dang. Kinda hard to believe they weren't hammering the last three hours out. If I wasn't otherwise occupied I'd have tried it but for some reason my weekends are always spoken for from someone else besides me. Oh well. Not to mention a dead scope still occupies my workspace. One day I'll pull the finger out and order the parts to fix it. Still trying to decide which series of caps to replace the old 672D Sprague caps with. Thinking Nichicon UHW and UPW. Also need to replace an optoisolator I probably fried. SOC123A which is impossible to find data on. I've been told two alternative part numbers to go with but those are also obsolete, so trying to find a parametric equivalent, but so many part numbers seem to be so close on some values. Not sure which values I have to worry about though. So it's left me really scratching my head. Been sitting on it for a month now. Time to crap or get off the pot.

That's way beyond my comprehension.  I'm what is known as an appliance operator.

This was Sunday afternoon only, so maybe things were winding down by then.

Was the contest over with ? I know I have heard that before, where it goes from pileups and bands full of signals to nothing just like that.

No, but ot was getting close to midnight Zulu time. Probably the last three hours of the  contest.

Dang. Kinda hard to believe they weren't hammering the last three hours out. If I wasn't otherwise occupied I'd have tried it but for some reason my weekends are always spoken for from someone else besides me. Oh well. Not to mention a dead scope still occupies my workspace. One day I'll pull the finger out and order the parts to fix it. Still trying to decide which series of caps to replace the old 672D Sprague caps with. Thinking Nichicon UHW and UPW. Also need to replace an optoisolator I probably fried. SOC123A which is impossible to find data on. I've been told two alternative part numbers to go with but those are also obsolete, so trying to find a parametric equivalent, but so many part numbers seem to be so close on some values. Not sure which values I have to worry about though. So it's left me really scratching my head. Been sitting on it for a month now. Time to crap or get off the pot.

That's way beyond my comprehension.  I'm what is known as an appliance operator.

Lol, I'm an appliance operator that is trying to jump into stuff that makes my brain hurt. It's definitely not easy to figure out. I'm sure someone who actually knows what they're doing would say "why are you overthinking it, get this and that and one of those and be done". Throw a couple of algebra equations around and have me fixed up. I dropped out before I could get good with algebra and that was almost 27 years ago. So no algebra for me. Unfortunately there seems to be a LOT of algebra involved with electronics...