2005 ARRL June VHF Contest
06/16/2005 |
WA7PDC
Contest started out ( as usual ) about as busy as a Magtag repairman! I knew that there were stations on due to the pings off an occasional meteor. I suffered through the Memorial Day opening with my 2-4CX250s amp on the repair bench. Fortunately, got it up, smoke tested, and back on line two days before the contest
Mid afternoon, there was some limited pths opened up on Es into the Southwest, but (at least me) never heard anything into 4-land at all.
Then the Aurora hit. And it was crzy, wall-to-wall qsos! Ever try to run a pileup of excited guys talking too fast -garbled by aurora-? What a blast.
Montana is a very difficult state to cover alot of grid squares, what with the distance, continental divide, and very spare numbers of weak-signal stations. Aurora is about the only propagation that'll carry the water; however, it is seldom that the aruroa and the occasional weak signal station line up together! Well, this Contest was the magic fix for that situation. I got a couple Montana grids on the eastside that I wasn't sure if the area even had electricity! hihi.
Vast majority of operators were well skilled, capable and polite. Only had a couple folks trying to use a speech compressor on aurora (thank the lord!)
I ran 157 QSOs with 78 grids to calc a score of 12246. Best single band score I've had.
FYI: The third tower is now in place, and coax is run. by late this fall, I expect to have the W7HAH 8877 2 mtr station back up and running here in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana ( DN26 )
73s
Pat, WA7PDC -- WA7PDC
Mid afternoon, there was some limited pths opened up on Es into the Southwest, but (at least me) never heard anything into 4-land at all.
Then the Aurora hit. And it was crzy, wall-to-wall qsos! Ever try to run a pileup of excited guys talking too fast -garbled by aurora-? What a blast.
Montana is a very difficult state to cover alot of grid squares, what with the distance, continental divide, and very spare numbers of weak-signal stations. Aurora is about the only propagation that'll carry the water; however, it is seldom that the aruroa and the occasional weak signal station line up together! Well, this Contest was the magic fix for that situation. I got a couple Montana grids on the eastside that I wasn't sure if the area even had electricity! hihi.
Vast majority of operators were well skilled, capable and polite. Only had a couple folks trying to use a speech compressor on aurora (thank the lord!)
I ran 157 QSOs with 78 grids to calc a score of 12246. Best single band score I've had.
FYI: The third tower is now in place, and coax is run. by late this fall, I expect to have the W7HAH 8877 2 mtr station back up and running here in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana ( DN26 )
73s
Pat, WA7PDC -- WA7PDC
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