2009 ARRL June VHF Contest
06/15/2009 |
N2YTF
What a contest from a cliff side park in the north west corner of FN30!
I started by hiking with some gear to my operating location (on a SOTA summit http://www.sota.org.uk/) so that I could also have a valid SOTA activation.
The contest gear proper came by car, but with the hiking contesting for me did not start until about 6:30 PM on Saturday.
What a contest it was! From about 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM Saturday I worked an endless flow of 6m contacts from Louisiana to Kansas. My 3 element 6m beam (a YP-3) and 6m preamp served me well, but I think it was mostly excellent conditions that made the day. Interestingly, during the height of the opening yagi direction did not seem to matter at all. It was only as the opening died that yagi direction seemed to have an influence on signal strength. This 6m opening was so much fun, I really did not care what happened in the rest of the contest.
2m and 220 filled the rest of my night to about 11 PM, with 2m being a bit of a disappointment from last year, with perhaps the best DX coming from Maine. 220 was extremely quietso quiet I checked my equipment for failures. I did manage to work into RI on 220 at least.
Sunday I started operations around 4:30 PM, and although 6m was productive in terms of raw numbers of contacts, the grid square multiples were few and far between after Saturdays marathon. I was particularly thrilled to work 6m royalty, WB2AMU of 6 Meters, the Magic Band fame as my first contact Sunday. Also exciting was working WA2CBS, the club station of CBS.
Sunday night I almost had a heart attack as a CT1 came back to my call on 6mI jumped to the mic and breathlessly exclaimed QRZ QRZ QRZ !! Then CT1GIF/W2 returned my call..
I have yet to work anything outside of the US and Canada on 6m, and did not get anything outside of the US this contest.
I switched to 70cm around 6:30 PM and picked up a few contacts, but 70cm was very disappointing compared to prop in past years. Best DX on 70cm was into NC.
During the contest my buddy Tom Golero, KC2CBA as well as Doug and his son Jesse stopped in. I really relished the chance to expose Jesse to contesting as he is studying for his first ticket. Jesse is a total radio addict by the way and had to be dragged away by his Dad at about 10:30 PM as Monday was a school day.
A good weekend of contesting was had by all involved and I hope to hear you all on the bands again in September.
73,
Tom-N2YTF -- N2YTF
I started by hiking with some gear to my operating location (on a SOTA summit http://www.sota.org.uk/) so that I could also have a valid SOTA activation.
The contest gear proper came by car, but with the hiking contesting for me did not start until about 6:30 PM on Saturday.
What a contest it was! From about 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM Saturday I worked an endless flow of 6m contacts from Louisiana to Kansas. My 3 element 6m beam (a YP-3) and 6m preamp served me well, but I think it was mostly excellent conditions that made the day. Interestingly, during the height of the opening yagi direction did not seem to matter at all. It was only as the opening died that yagi direction seemed to have an influence on signal strength. This 6m opening was so much fun, I really did not care what happened in the rest of the contest.
2m and 220 filled the rest of my night to about 11 PM, with 2m being a bit of a disappointment from last year, with perhaps the best DX coming from Maine. 220 was extremely quietso quiet I checked my equipment for failures. I did manage to work into RI on 220 at least.
Sunday I started operations around 4:30 PM, and although 6m was productive in terms of raw numbers of contacts, the grid square multiples were few and far between after Saturdays marathon. I was particularly thrilled to work 6m royalty, WB2AMU of 6 Meters, the Magic Band fame as my first contact Sunday. Also exciting was working WA2CBS, the club station of CBS.
Sunday night I almost had a heart attack as a CT1 came back to my call on 6mI jumped to the mic and breathlessly exclaimed QRZ QRZ QRZ !! Then CT1GIF/W2 returned my call..
I have yet to work anything outside of the US and Canada on 6m, and did not get anything outside of the US this contest.
I switched to 70cm around 6:30 PM and picked up a few contacts, but 70cm was very disappointing compared to prop in past years. Best DX on 70cm was into NC.
During the contest my buddy Tom Golero, KC2CBA as well as Doug and his son Jesse stopped in. I really relished the chance to expose Jesse to contesting as he is studying for his first ticket. Jesse is a total radio addict by the way and had to be dragged away by his Dad at about 10:30 PM as Monday was a school day.
A good weekend of contesting was had by all involved and I hope to hear you all on the bands again in September.
73,
Tom-N2YTF -- N2YTF
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