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K7XC Radio Central - June 2007 VHF Contest |
K7XC Radio Central - 144/222/432 Amplifier Rack |
My Microwave Rack, 903 -> 5ghz |
Fn12 |
I broke two personal records for the JUNE contest. I have a new high score and a new high number of QSO's. My previous best was 29k points In June 2006 with this June being 40k!
All bands were operational except 6m which I found out in the field has a bad cable. 432 was worse than normal. 5ghz did not get many points either but I did make a 249 mile contact on that band.
Interesting Saturday night right after sunset. The bands started to get noisy and I could not work W2SZ on 432, 903 and 1296 but I could on 2 and 3ghz? I went on to K1TEO right after that and worked him on all those bands. When I turned my beam north to N2PA the noise came way up and I heard 7 & 8 callsigns on CW! Directional conditions? I do not have a cw key on the Icom 706. This is the second time I needed one. Someday I will do it.
Early Sunday there was an enhancement of some sort for 6m from FN12 into EN10. That was probably about 1,000 miles! This one guy was so strong I worked him on my bum feed line and a halo! This band amazes me yet I never put much effort in to it.
Sunday morning I damaged my LOG periodic beam. A tree had crashed during the thunderstorms Friday night and this one was laying suspended across a dirt road in FN11. I almost had enough room to get under it but when I tried I triggered a crash and the tree came down on my van. I don't care about my van but my beam suffered some damage. I need to figure out if I can straighten one of the aluminum elements. . FN12 I met the farmer leasing the land for hay. He did not have a problem with me using the land and let me drive into his field. He did ask me later to move to one side of the path in the middle of my W3CCX sched. That messed up alot in FN12 for me. Most of my grids went pretty smoothly and I enjoyed the GREAT weather.
I worked another Rover K2QO/R up to 2gigs and found at least 3 new groups running 903 and even 1.2ghz or higher! Who ever said the contest was loosing hams? I seem to be finding contesters that are upgrading and new hams every contest. I worked W3CCX on ALL my bands (thru 5ghz) and I worked K3YTL even on 2.3ghz. KA1ZE now has 903 and 1.2ghz. These were just a few surprises. My only problem is the elusive K8GP? I heard they were on the air but I never found them this year. I normally at least hear them on 144 mhz. Come to think of it I did not work many stations to my south? Again I think there was something odd in the conditions.
One of my biggest problems is that my FN00 site is getting turned into a housing development! Yea, no more FN00!
See you in September!
73 all!
,,,Tim KE3HT/R
9200 feet up on Sedgwick Peak DN42, Wow what a location, fabulous view and snow covered peaks. John Wilson K0IP invited me to come out and visit him and help with the contest. We loaded the AWD Astro van and headed up the 10 mile unimproved boulder strewn path up the mountain. Lucky we were almost at the top before we had the right rear tire blew out. Even with that delay we set up our 6, 2 and 432 Yagis and were ready for the pile ups, sorry to say the propagation was not very good. We did have an enjoyable time making State wide Qs with a few short sporadic openings to California, Utah and Texas. Here are a few pictures. 73 Bruce W4OV
Loaded down Van |
Our operating site and antennas with John K0IP |
Bruce W4OV at the 6 meter position |
The second shift of Operators ready to take over. |
W4OV checking out the nice weather |
Antennas |
Operated as WA7JTM from DM53, 9333 ft ASL, in the White Mountains of Eastern Arizona. Contest operators were Pete (WA7JTM), Tom (N7AMA), and Morgan (WW7B).
Supposed they held a VHF contest and no ES showed up.
The June Contest this year was really, really, really, sloooooow. We only had a few small openings on 6m. Couldn't even make 100 Q's on six. Two and 432 conditions seemed improved over last year, most likely due to a new location in DM53. Every station we ran with we worked on 432, a big improvement over last year.
If it weren’t for the fishing we did before the contest this outing would have been a bust. We had 100 MPH winds before the contest that even made fishing impossible. Did I mention the falling trees all around our camp? Nothing like hearing a tree crashing down around your tent at 3 AM!
The good news is that we set a new VHF contest record! The bad news is that it was for a record "low" score.
Oh well, I guarantee that next years contest will be better as we can only go up from here.
 Nick Farlow, KB0YHT - operated the 2m station. |
 Randy (N0LD) - operated the 70cm station. Jim (KC0QIE) - operated the 6m station. |
1. FT-847 on 70 cm at 105 feet up - with a 29 element M2 antenna. 25 watts.
2. FT-100 on 2m at 110 feet up - with a 13 element Cushcraft. 100 watts.
3. ICOM 756 PRO III on 6m at 25 feet up - with a 3 element Cushcraft. 50 watts.
We operated from the N0LD shack in rural Rose Hill, KS in EM17. 6m was a real disappointment... we were right on the edge of a major 6m opening at least 3 times... but never seemed to catch the full E-skip opening... just the edges. I believe we needed a better 6m antenna higher up... Perhaps a 7 element 6m antenna is in the offing? 3 elements at 25 ft. serves the e-skip - but NOT the weak signal contacts. We could hear a lot better than we could work - so I think "more power" would have helped us on 70cm and 6m, too. All things we can work on in the future.
Being so near KB0HH (Oklahoma EM06) has its good and bad points - we were able to make contacts by working them after KB0HH worked them - but frequently they didn't come back to 2m after working KB0HH on all the bands they had...
We look forward to the contest results...
KC0QIE (Jim Enix), KB0YHT (Nick Farlow), and N0LD (Randy Wing)
It was one of the better weather weekends for us in the several seasons we've been mountaintopping. The test offered abit of the better tropo of this year and as always 6m was in its usual june form. It was nice to hear so many stations with MW capacity this year and I only wished we could have taken the 5.7 and 10ghz equipment. Yet we were able to concentrate on 903 and 1296 more this year and that was indeed worth the effort. Thanks for all the contacts, and we hope it will spur (pun not intended) to get more activity on the higher bands. Keep inmind the need to wait on band conditions....a changing as they are!
Bill (WB4WEN)
Bunky (K4EJQ)
The K0NR/R rover operation was really two mountaintop portable ops disguised as a two grid rover operation (DM77, DM78). Actually, it was three grids since I worked a few stations after I arrived back home in DM79. My roving partner was Ken Wyatt WA6TTY, who supplied the camping trailer and snagged most of the 6M contacts. Ken also performed emergency, "Be Prepared" Boy Scout duty by lashing together the 432 MHz yagi when the hardware rattled loose on the drive up the mountain. (See photo.)
We had three objectives:
1. Work all the Colorado grids on 2M
2. Work lots of stations on 6M
3. Have some fun in the Colorado mountains
We did quite well with the first and third objectives....that 6M thing didn't work out so well. 50 MHz propagation was surprisingly poor for June.
On Saturday, we intended to operate from Greenhorn Mountain DM77 but the US Forest Service advised that the road was still closed due to snow. June really is a bit early for mountaintiopping in the Colorado high country. Our second choice was Cordova Pass, about 11,000 feet in elevation, also in DM77, accessible but not as good from a radio perspective. From DM77, we had to work a bit for contacts on 2M and 70 cm, making sure we were pointed in the right direction and often flipping over to CW to make the contact.
On the second day, we operated from Pikes Peak (DM78) ....high elevation with line of sight to the front range cities. Lots of contacts, lots of QRM, too many stations on 144.200 MHz. We also noted that our cognitive skills degraded at 14,000 feet...getting the call and exchange right just takes longer when your brain is short on oxygen. (At least, That's Our Story and We are Sticking to It!) The funny thing on Pikes was using the 222 MHz handheld (rubber duck antenna) to work 3 grids on FM.
We did work 14 of the 16 Colorado grids on 2M, missing only DN50 and DM57 (the NW and SW corners). DN50 was apparently not activated while DM57 had Johnny KD5LWU on the air but not having much luck. Sorry we missed you Johnny....we really did point west a lot looking for the western stations.
Thanks to all of the stations that participated in The Great Colorado Grid Run.
See http://www.k0nr.com/blog/2007/06/work-all-colorado-on-vhf.html We had 15 of the 16 grids activated which is super. Perhaps next year we can make it all 16 !!! I'll drive to DN50 if I have to.
Special thanks goes to all of the rovers we worked (N0IO, N0QE, WY0X, W3DHJ, KR5J, KR0VER, KC0TLW) with special appreciation for K0KHZ/R (John) who helped fill our log when we were down in DM77. If you helped activate Colorado, send in your log to receive the Great Colorado Grid Run certificate, see http://www.rmvhf.org/Great_Grid.html
Except for 6M conditions, it was a fine contest.
73, Bob K0NR
Cordova Pass DM77 camping and radio spot |
Emergency lash up due to missing hardware |
Sunset in the Rocky Mountains |
The road up Pikes Peak (snow in June) |
I was expecting good propagation to the Caribbean on this June 2007 VHF QSO party, but the gods of propagation were not by my side. I only found few locals in 50 Mhz and lucky to work KR7O Robert who was in St Croix in FK77 who was rover there and got him in 6 and 2 mtrs .I also worked HI0C who was on Isla de Cabra IOTA NA-122 at Dominican Republic. One week later I had over 192 QSO's with stations in North America,Europe and Carib. and more than 83 diferent grids.Thanks to the stations I was able to work. Looking forward to do better next time. 73 and good Dx.
Julio
VUCC Award Mgr. ARRL
San Juan P.R.
My daughter and I had planned on roving from New Orleans to Memphis and back south again through Alabama to activate some grids for the contest. Had a hitch mount fabricated, set up the radio with battery, MFJ Intelli-tuner, switches, and spent some time and effort to get the engine noise out, But our old friend Mr. Murphy stuck his hand into our plans.
I got a transfer from Mississippi to Texas and had to go house hunting on my only "free" weekend. We loaded up the kids and went to Texas to look for a house. Had to drop the kids off at ther Grandparents house for a Texas summer school session since all their credits did not transfer. We had three hams in the car for the trip. We were popular with the contesters. The kids had a blast activating each grid on the way. The lucky contester picked up three "rover/mobile" calls in multiple grids as we travelled.
Too bad there is not an exception to the rules for "family" rovers, my wife could have joined in and we would have been giving out 4 rovers per grid! We since the rules don't allow multiple hams in the rover catagory, we just handed out grids and contacts without worrying about submitting a contest log. Maybe next year there will be a family rover catagory and the whole family will go rovering! The youngest should have her ticket before the next contest. But that will be a north/south trip because the grids change a lot more frequently that going east to west.
73 de KD5IKG and family
This contest was a blast! I operated KC8JPZ/R with Jim, KC8JPZ. I took all the pictures so I figured I would post some up here on the soapbox for everyone.
This contest was our first running the Vantenna as a team. We ran 6m, 2m, and 70cm. Our 6m rig was Jim's FT-857D at 100w and a 3 element beam up 30'. Our 2m and 70cm rig was my TS-2000, Teletec bricks (175w on 2m and 150w on 70cm), and 13ele on 2m at 30' and 21ele on 70cm at 25'. We ran off of a 2200w generator. It held up pretty well throughout the weekend, but when I would key up on 2m CW you could hear it chugging away with the code HI (roughly 35a - 25 brick and 10 rig).
The first place we went was Gary, W8GTS's farm on a ridge top in EM89. Our elevation was about 1100', I forget exactly. We operated here from about 2000 sat to 0800 sun. Then we hit the sack.
The second place we went to was Mike, KB8GHW's ranch in EN80. Again, the elevation was about 1100' even though we were well north of the hills. We operated here from about 1400 sun to about 0030 mon.
We would like to thank all those that made our expidition possible: Gary, W8GTS, for his wonderful location on the ridge and the great experience on the farm. Mike, KB8GHW, for his location, food, and great time. Steve, KA1VHF, for his generosity in letting us use the amps. Last but not least - all the stations we worked on the bands!
We are looking forward to operating in the September VHF contest as well.
Jim, KC8JPZ (gray shirt) and myself (black shirt) getting ready to set up at W8GTS's farm, EM89. |
Our signals have begun to radiate! |
Operating positions inside the Vantenna. Jim, KC8JPZ foreground on 6m and Steve, KC8QVO background on 2m/70cm. |
No explination needed. Great shot of the antennas, stars, and last of daylight. |
Up and running at KB8GHW's ranch. |
Some beasts we ran into at KB8GHW's. We dont get to see horses much. |
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