2004 ARRL 10 GHz and Up Contest
03/27/2005 |
W0JT
The 2004 10 GHz and Up Cumulative Contest was different in many respects for me than the two prior years that I had participated. By this time I was using my own transverter-based system with a parabolic dish antenna and 2 watts, instead of a WBFM loaner (2002) or a low-power transverter system with a low-gain horn (2003). Also very different for me was that I finally had the opportunity to make the journey to the North Shore of Lake Superior with the Northern Lights Radio Society ( http://www.nlrs.org ) during the first week of the contest.
That first weekend was a whole lot of fun. Signals ranged from incredibly strong to incredibly weak to non-existent. But the "fun meter" was pegged at full-scale most of the time. My longest contact was only barely made, a CW contact from the Thompson Hill Rest Stop (EN36vr) to W9FZ at Mount Brockway (EN67al), for 332 Km, and was the very last QSO of weekend one. I got lots of practice with my new 10 GHz system, lots of operating time (always in scarce supply for me), saw a beautiful part of Minnesota that I had never visited before (hard to believe I had never been there in the 26 years I've lived in Minnesota), and enjoyed the company of my wife, and of several friends from NLRS.
For the second weekend, that nasty four-letter word (WORK) reared its ugly head, and kept me mostly out of the fun. I managed a couple of hours before work on Saturday and a couple of hours on a long lunch/supper break on Sunday, and made a handful of short-distance QSO's only. Many of my NLRS acquaintances managed a much more enjoyable second weekend. Oh well, I have to leave some room for improvement in next year's score, although the current exponential rise in points (555, 2856, 32001) is certain to stop by then!
For more details on "The Road to 10 GHz, A Superior Experience", please check out http://www.qsl.net/w0jt/2004-08-10GHz/index.htm -- you may need to hit the "refresh" button a few times to get all of the pictures to load. And keep checking back occasionally, it is still very much a work in progress.
See you next year! -- W0JT
That first weekend was a whole lot of fun. Signals ranged from incredibly strong to incredibly weak to non-existent. But the "fun meter" was pegged at full-scale most of the time. My longest contact was only barely made, a CW contact from the Thompson Hill Rest Stop (EN36vr) to W9FZ at Mount Brockway (EN67al), for 332 Km, and was the very last QSO of weekend one. I got lots of practice with my new 10 GHz system, lots of operating time (always in scarce supply for me), saw a beautiful part of Minnesota that I had never visited before (hard to believe I had never been there in the 26 years I've lived in Minnesota), and enjoyed the company of my wife, and of several friends from NLRS.
For the second weekend, that nasty four-letter word (WORK) reared its ugly head, and kept me mostly out of the fun. I managed a couple of hours before work on Saturday and a couple of hours on a long lunch/supper break on Sunday, and made a handful of short-distance QSO's only. Many of my NLRS acquaintances managed a much more enjoyable second weekend. Oh well, I have to leave some room for improvement in next year's score, although the current exponential rise in points (555, 2856, 32001) is certain to stop by then!
For more details on "The Road to 10 GHz, A Superior Experience", please check out http://www.qsl.net/w0jt/2004-08-10GHz/index.htm -- you may need to hit the "refresh" button a few times to get all of the pictures to load. And keep checking back occasionally, it is still very much a work in progress.
See you next year! -- W0JT
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