09/16/2004 | K4JSI/3 I decided to go Single Operator Portable in the September 04 VHF Contest, given that my home antenna system needs some serious work. It had been 12 years since Id done much on the Ultra Highs, and the contest offered a chance to wring out my FT-817 on 6, 2 and 432 in weak signal modes. I ended up on a 2100 foot hill in grid square FM19aw, in Western Pennsylvania. I was only on for about 5 hours on Sunday afternoon and evening, due to another commitment on Saturday.

The antenna system was a bit out of date. On 6M I used a 30 year old, homebrew, 3 el Yagi. On 2M I had a Cushcraft 124b, 4 el Yagi. An old, broadband, KLM 14 el Yagi on a 5 foot boom did the honors on 432. The array was mounted on 15 feet of aluminum TV mast sections. The feedlines were 40 feet of Times LMR-240 on 2M and 432, while I pressed 50 feet of, shall we say, veteran RG-213 into service on 6M.

The FT-817 performed well, and I ended up with 17 QSOs in 8 grid squares on 6M, 28 QSOs in 12 squares on 2M and 8 QSOs in 7 grid squares on 432. Best DX was 309 miles with W2SZin FN32 on 6M, 264 miles with W1QK in FN31 on 2M and 184 miles with N2PA in FN12 on 432. That was 53 QSOs in 27 grid squares for 1647 points.

Conditions seemed pretty good, and at one point I heard K1WHS in Maine on 2M. I managed several contacts by transmitting on CW; such cross mode contacts are allowable in the VHF Contests, and thats a real aid to the QRP operator! The efforts on the part of the high power and multi-operator VHF/UHF contest stations to copy my peanut whistle made the contest a lot of fun for me! As a final nice touch, as I was preparing to tear down, WA3PTV/R drove up and we had an "eyeball" QSO. -- K4JSI