2005 ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes
01/28/2005 |
KC4PX
Having gone thru 4 hurricanes, (Charley- Ivan Francis Jeanne) most of the VHF/UHF antennas in Florida were torn down. This was the case for Gary, NW5E, and my self. Usually Gary and I fight (friendly that is) for top dog in Florida, but last September was a no-go due to Mother Nature. For the January Contest, Gary still did not have any antennas in the air. Fortunately I had some time to rebuilt my antenna farm (www.kc4px.com); So I invited Gary to come over for a Multi-Op contest effort.
Garys a die-hard when working scatter. He has the stamina to maintain focus to bring that contact into the Log. Thats all we had on 6 meters here in EL98, just Scatter. Up until the last two hours of the contest, propagation on 6 meters was next to nothing. To past the time, we tried EME getting one contact, IW5DHN (well its a multiplier)and a few WSJT contacts. We spent all night trying to work very weak scatter contacts with minimum results on 6. The other bands were semi-active for Florida and by 8PM Sunday, we only had 110 contacts logged on all bands. Gary called it a day and left well as you can expect, the band then opened up. At 8:00 PM Sunday, slowly 6 meters started to wake-up. Signals by 8:30 PM were VERY strong from FN00,01, 02, 03, 04 and the great lakes area. I had a run of VE3s , then a run from FN20, 21 followed by the grids around the great lakes. The stacked 6M7s were doing a great job. While working the NE a strong ?G9SO station was calling me, I thought it was a KG9 or AG9, but it turned out to be TG9SO from Guatemala. At that same time, contacts up north were telling me I had a distinct wobble to my strong S9 Signal (well it is a Magic Band right).
The band remained open for about an hour. I was glad to work N8UUP, VE3CRU, K8ROX and many other friends from Tims 6-meter Chat page. All in all, our total QSOs were 182 and 65 Grids. For a VHF contest with very poor propagation, it was acceptable because we enjoyed the challenge. As for the coming June 2005 VHF contest, I think Gary and I will be going head-to-head with one another a friendly competition once again. See you all in June. -- KC4PX
Garys a die-hard when working scatter. He has the stamina to maintain focus to bring that contact into the Log. Thats all we had on 6 meters here in EL98, just Scatter. Up until the last two hours of the contest, propagation on 6 meters was next to nothing. To past the time, we tried EME getting one contact, IW5DHN (well its a multiplier)and a few WSJT contacts. We spent all night trying to work very weak scatter contacts with minimum results on 6. The other bands were semi-active for Florida and by 8PM Sunday, we only had 110 contacts logged on all bands. Gary called it a day and left well as you can expect, the band then opened up. At 8:00 PM Sunday, slowly 6 meters started to wake-up. Signals by 8:30 PM were VERY strong from FN00,01, 02, 03, 04 and the great lakes area. I had a run of VE3s , then a run from FN20, 21 followed by the grids around the great lakes. The stacked 6M7s were doing a great job. While working the NE a strong ?G9SO station was calling me, I thought it was a KG9 or AG9, but it turned out to be TG9SO from Guatemala. At that same time, contacts up north were telling me I had a distinct wobble to my strong S9 Signal (well it is a Magic Band right).
The band remained open for about an hour. I was glad to work N8UUP, VE3CRU, K8ROX and many other friends from Tims 6-meter Chat page. All in all, our total QSOs were 182 and 65 Grids. For a VHF contest with very poor propagation, it was acceptable because we enjoyed the challenge. As for the coming June 2005 VHF contest, I think Gary and I will be going head-to-head with one another a friendly competition once again. See you all in June. -- KC4PX
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