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All of the Bad Contesting God's Mojo dissipated in June of 2005 ...
Somehow, the Propagation God's were grinning widely upon Southern California Saturday Afternoon shortly after the Contest started and stayed that way past 1800 local time.
All of the frustration from January was wiped away (see the January 2005 Soapbox entry), roughly 210 contacts and 67 grid squares on 6 meters alone made the scoring higher than I thought would ever be possible from this corner of the States. Other bands were virtually dead locally while everyone was taking full advantage of the band opening on 6 meters.
At about 1800 local time as things were winding down, activity up the coast and in to mid-California started to pick up - as did new bands and grid square multipliers.
Sunday was a complete wipe-out on 6 meters, with most local operators reporting the same S7 to S9 static and noise levels in all eastern directions from Southern California. Other bands were better, there was a fair amount of workable traffic and stations east in to Nevada and Arizona, then later in the day, to Mid and Northern California on 144/220/432 and higher.
Interesting trends - for the past two years, a relatively constant volume of traffic is FM, not SSB. This usually works out to be 20 to 30% of my total scoring. This year, almost NONE of the score was FM, for reasons unknown. Another was stations that operated with Vertical Polarization (yes, even with SSB) - that too was down, resulting in a small part of my score this time around (yes, I run vertical omni's for all bands up to 2304 in addition to yagi's or loops).
It looks like at least two new Section Records were set for San Diego in '05, looking for final data to see if others were able to enjoy the six meter opening on Saturday in efforts to push other records as well ....
'73 -
How it all gets done : (I took the time as requested by many local folks to "photo-sequence" how the mobile station all goes together... couldn't have picked a better event to do so ....) The arrival at the site .... |
How it all gets done : About 20 minutes later - unpacked and staged for setup ... |
How it all gets done : Another 20 minutes later - The 220/432/1296 Stack ready to go up ... |
How it all gets done : ... and about 5 minutes later, it is ! |
How it all gets done : Another 20 minutes later ... the 50/144 Yagi's ready to stand up .... |
How it all gets done : ...and 5 minutes after, it is also up ! |
Five Bands worth of Yagi's - Done and Ready to Go ! - Various verticals for bands up to 2304 are on the roof ... Note the "handy" Nissan Coaxial Cable Pass-Thru (aka, back passenger window), and yes, I run 1/2 and 7/8 Heliax mobile ! |
Be it ever so humble - there's nothing else that can replace the back set Operations Center ..... |
The view from the Operating Position (also the "resting" as well as the "eating" and later, the "sleeping" position) - yes, I know the old-schooler's grumble about having to get out and "armstrong" the antennas .... but those were the same folks that think I'm contesting from home - which is never true... I always contest "mobile" ! |
One of the best features from this location is the Sunrise and Sunset Views - in this pic you can actually see the "peak" of the mountain to the East, as the Sun is going down in the West ..... 73 to All ! |
Ok, better late than never... I'll always remember the June contest as "much sound and fury signifying nothing" for all the antenna work that I did vs. how very few contacts I made. To wit:
Friday night, while a friend babysat my kids and my wife was out of town, I got out the camping lantern and some tools, took down the VHF antenna mast, and removed the 6 element 2 meter yagi. Then I stuck another 5' of mast up and installed the new 10 element 2 meter yagi, and topped it all off with a 19 element 70 cm yagi. Got the feedlines all hooked up (running 60' of LMR400 into that tiny little passthru into the house was a CHORE let me tell you!) and started to hoist the mast up. That's when the trouble started.
In retrospect I'd have had a much easier time of it if I had waited until morning to do this, so I could have seen what I was doing. The mast went up and back down again three or four times as that long 2 meter beam kept snagging on branches. I finally got the bright idea to rotate the mast 90deg so the antennas would clear. Most of the way back to vertical, and hanging right on the edge of the roof, that's when I discovered that I did not as previously estimated have 30' of clear space - the 70cm beam slammed into a BIG branch and hung there. After much wiggling, turning, sliding and invective, I finally got the fool thing unstuck, laid the mast back down on the roof, and scooted the 70cm antenna down from 30' to 27', just above the 2m yagi. Back up it goes.... aw nuts the VHF beam snagged again... FINALLY it's up again.
And after all that work, my total for the QSO Party was ONE QSO. JUST ONE. Ah well... I consoled myself with "there's always September", but of course, come August we bought a new house and moved, so all those antennas had to come down. Isn't this a crazy fun hobby?
Station used in contest. |
KAKE TV "Viper 3D Radar" Sunday afternoon. |
Lou N9KC humming "on the road again" |
This contest not only proved to be a lot of fun, but ended up being the best contest score I have had since I started to keep score. Things around here were slow and steady from the "starting gun". Since we had almost no 6m Es, I feared for a while that perhaps the end result was going to be below previous June contests. Then the Sunday afternoon AU popped in and I had a BLAST! The AU was not as localized as Es often is, and allowed great variety in grids. In raw numbers, 33% of my contacts could be traced back to the AU, all on 2 and 6 meters. (90Qs out of 267 total). The real highlight for me was not only a personal high total score, but also the a contest high number of 2m contacts and grids (85-41).
Thanks to all that looked north into EN37ed for the contest.
Bill EN37ed
During the installation of my 6M 7ele @ 146ft (yes. i'm this guy) |
C U Next year
HECTOR GARCIA
I had very limited time to work this contest as I was on call. Single OP Portable with 5 watts resulted in working my own grid and five others on 6 meters for a score of 36. Total on the air time was about 1 hour, and fortunately some signals from Colorado were coming through. This was my first time using the web template to submit an entry--definitely a cool tool which hopefully will encourage more of the causal ops to submit a log.
73, Jim N3AWS
EM50
I was on Miquelon Island (population 600) for two weeks hoping for some good 6M conditions to celebrate being licensed for 50 years (KN4DRO at age 12). All QSOs, except two scatter contacts, in the contest were via Aurora. This was my first VHF Aurora experience – home QTH in SF is generally too far south. Pictures show the 41 foot boom M2 travel antenna, the station (Icom 756ProIII with Alpha 76A converted to 6M).
Turning the beam. 74 meter hill to the West in the background. |
Looking down on Miquelon Village from the hill to the West. Hotel QTH to left. |
Looking down on Miquelon Village from Cape Miquelon, the north tip of Miquelon Island |
The FP/N6RA station. Accompanying luggage on trip was nearly 300 pounds! |
Our little group decided to contest from a location we felt would be somewhat unique in more ways than one. We found the US Forestry Service to be very friendly to deal with in getting permission to contest from one of their old lookout towers. Hardest thing was getting things up to the top and back down. 8-10 times up and down those flights of stairs each day wasn't easy.
Spent Friday night in the tower. We avoided the black bears that way. Was very windy all night and COOL. That is very unusual for Arkansas in June. Made contacts on 6m, 2m, & 430. Brought the 220 mobile but had no luck on it(unfortunately)
The tower is 60' tall on top of Rich Mountain, AR (EM24). Mountain elevation is 2681' above sea level. We were probably operating at the highest location in the State of Arkansas. Mt. Magazine (el. 2753') is the state's tallest peak but has a monument area at the peak and camping would be difficult (if even allowed). There are designated camping areas about 150' short of the peak.
It was also the weekend that the U.S. Forestry Service celebrated their 100th anniversary. The local forestry folks from Mena, AR had tours and snacks for guests who wanted to see the tower. We also talked up Ham radio to those same folks and hopefully "sparked" (no pun intended) an interest in Amateur Radio. Smokey Bear made a cameo appearance as his "fur" kept him quite hot during the day. We did see a Black Bear on Saturday a.m. but he was more interested in raiding the roadside trash cans than actually paying us a visit.
Equipment used. 6m IC-756 w/ cushcraft 5 element yagi. 2m & 430 MHz IC-821 into 11 element yagi and stacked 22 ele yagi on 430. 220MHz was an Alinco DR 235 into a 4 ele 220 yagi.
This was a lot of work to get set up and to take down, but was a lot of fun. Many thanks to all who came out to contest, help out, and just enjoy the beauty of this area.
I'm glad I don't have to climb that tower everyday!!! |
KD5CCG shows that he's "Bear friendly!" |
The antennas were easier to put up than they were to take down. The wind on take down was difficult at best to deal with. Only a few bent elements and a few flesh wounds. We all lived to contest another day!!! |
We even got Smokey Bear interested in Ham Radio!! It was hot during the day and he didn't hang around long. |
Our contest crew. Front row L. to R. WB5ONE, K5KDX, KD5CCG Rear L. to R. W5JNL, N5DRB, W5ATW, WA5OK. We hope to contest from this location again and hope to get you in the log book! |
This is one of the spectacular views from the tower. These are the Ouachita(washitaw) Mountains and they are beautiful. We were about 50 miles South of Ft. Smith, AR and about 120 miles west of Little Rock, AR |
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