Not a good weekend for contests!

Almost as soon as the first World Wide Digi DX Contest started yesterday, the geomagnetic field had ideas of its own about propagation.

A picture (Z component, east Greenland station) speaks a thousand words:

Image: Tromso Geophysical Observatory.

Image: NOAA/SWPC.

Not that the rough conditions made any difference to me.  Being a 'digi' modes contest peculiarly limited to the Joe Taylor modes of FT8 and FT4(Taylor even called me twice, but he couldn't hear), this was a particularly mindless and manic points-gathering exercise.  It took me 20 minutes to decide this really wasn't a contest for me - at all.  For those who do want to take it seriously, propagation is really very tough.

Luckily, all the FT mode stuff kept the contesters that might otherwise be on RTTY, obliterating WSPR, at bay.  In terms of reception, it was practically dead; the whole night can be shown in one, small table:

In terms of stations hearing me, it was the same - except for TF4M and TF1VHF - who provided enough data to show a nice peak as the Z component bounced back from a southerly deviation: