10/30/2009 | KG6IYN Pop Quiz - What does the following sound like ?

300 + pounds of coax and heliax or almost 1000 feet of cable if all strung together end-to-end...

Vertical Omni's for 50, 146, 222, 432, 902, 927, 1296

Yagi's and or Loopers for 50, 144, 222, 432, 902, 927, 1295, 2304, and 3456 ..

Four foot dish for 10 Gig

Ten radios for "single band" operations and driving transverters

High power amplifiers for 50 thru 2304 (see my note later on this )

Two laptop computers for logging and digital mode operations

And four rotors to steer the directional antennas ....


If you guessed a "modest" to nice home station setup you'd be wrong :-)


I didn't mention packing and prep time of about six hours, driving time of three hours (to and from the hill), about sixteen hours of set up time before the contest and getting on the air, the actual contest itself and then about eight hours of tear down and packing for home, followed by unpacking of about two hours .... and oh, by the way, all done solo without any assistants or assistance.


All of this can only mean one thing - it's time for the June 2009 ARRL VHF QSO Party !!!


This was without question my longest contest to set up for to date, and a new high water mark with four rotors spinning the aluminum. It was also my goal to work on beating my score from two years ago (having missed all ARRL events last year due to work related obligations).


So, with 1800 Zulu approaching Saturday morning, I was listening and realizing that six meters was open and I wasn't close to being done with setup, although I had started Friday afternoon. I worked little traffic or other stations until later in the afternoon, with just the locals and rovers ad-hoc until everything was set up mid-Saturday afternoon... Antennas, rotors, switchboxes, radios, microphones, computers, rigblasters, footswitches, transverters and amplifiers ....

By the time I was on, six was winding down here in southern California. My last actions before sitting down for the next several hours to start working through the bands was to "dial down" all of the radios intended to drive the high power amplifiers to between 10 to 20 watts. Then it was off to the back of the vehicle to flip the switches on for the amplifiers I had set up in the trunk area of the Nissan.

I'll mention that the Nissan was parked as it usually is, with the tailgate facing the west, toward the setting sun ..

Back in to the front seat and then calling "CQ" begins in earnest ...

Six meters is still open, but now to San Francisco and points north in California, along with Oregon and Washington. I'm working stations, but the opening doesn't appear to be very good - although I'm hearing stations fine and with decent signal strength readings, I'm doing a lot more calling and repeating of my call than I'm typically used to. I'm working a fairly good number of stations, but the trend of lots more of me repeating my call and location prevails throughout the weekend ... Logging is fast and hectic - and I'm sure i probably got a few calls, locations and bands jumbled over the weekend. As best as I can recall this was my highest number of stations worked in any contest shy of Field Day.


As Saturday winds from daylight in to evening, six meters starts slipping away and more time and effort is spent on two meters and above. Everything works except for 3456 - I had something go awry and while I could receive fine, I couldn't get the transverter to key or go into transmit. 2304 was ad-hoc, I had an issue with the amplifier before the contest and while I hoped I would have time on the hill to work on it or figure out what was wrong Friday evening, that never worked out. Overnight weather each evening was 100% fog, 30 to 70 MPH blowing winds and while not cold, it wasn't practical to be working outside of the vehicle or with the doors open or ajar. So for the few I could and did work on 2304, it was two watts in to the 6' Looper ..


I had a blast, thoroughly enjoyed every minute of operating time (it's funny how working a contest completely erases all grief or doubts about why you go crazy and spend all of the time before and after these things!) and ended up with lots of memorable contacts (and even a few visitors on the hill Sunday morning) - including KC0ZXX in EN02, AK7AT, K7MAC, W7ID, WT7B and KF7CQ in DN13 (likely the whole ham population on six meters there, hi-hi) that poppped out of the proverbial woodwork while a strong run in to Texas and Louisiana was occuring and then ..... most notably and importantly, catching KR0VER/R, Eric in DN80 ...

I had sent Eric an email before the contest to see if he was planning to be on for the part or all of the contest. He replied back that he was indeed planning to be on over the weekend, roving in Colorado.

Eric and I met here in San Diego and shared a few hilltops during contests before he changed his QTH to Colorado a few years ago.
Since then we've remained in contact, in email and on the contest reflectors. We have had successful contacts on six meters during previous June ARRL Contests, with me on the hilltop and even running low power portable in the bleachers of my old High School a couple of years ago and Eric burning 4 and 5 dollar a gallon fuel while Roving the mountain ranges in and around Colorado.

An excerpt of an email I had sent him and his reply after the contest logs were already turned in follows :

(From KG6IYN to KR0VER/R) At 08:05 PM PST 7/14/2009, KG6IYN wrote:
> "So, I forgot to tell you I had you logged on 6 meters in DN80 - there was so much QRM I'm hoping that was right, otherwise it's a busted Q ...."

(From Eric, KR0VER/R to KG6IYN)

" Muhahahahah.. No..

DN80 was/is right! I think it was DN80AA to be exactly exact, but DN80 was the exchange. Normally I work a large pile of UHF+ there, but due to the HUGE thunderstorms all the local multiops were shut down. Nothing to do there, except work six, and then "Get the Heck Out" because those thunderstorms were headed my way. Nobody was on, I was slightly afraid I'd activated a grid only to work nobody, and then, out of the fog of DX, there you were! bahahaha. I was hopping up and down. Not only was it DX in the middle of a dry spot, but it was KG6IYN.. Nutzo. Six seconds after I worked you, it closed back down and I never heard you again. Magic! On a crappy loop, with ~160W. :) "

(End of message)


Bottom line here and for many other VHF affictionaidos - You just Gotta Love Six Meters !!!!



Oh, and back to the comments I made about the amplifiers a few times in this soapbox - during teardown and disconnecting all of the gear for the return trip home I discovered that while I had plugged in all of the amplifiers in the back of the vehicle, and connected the coax connectors to antenna switch boxes and radios respectively, I had never plugged in the 200 amp Anderson Power Pole plug for the main DC Bus in the Pathfinder. I had been using the Nissan for camping over the past several months and had taken out two of the three deep cycle batteries I usually carry to save on space and weight. When these went back in to the vehicle and then cabling buried under all of the other loose gear and equipment, I never reconnected the amplifier distribution main bus to the batteries. When I was running around Saturday afternoon wrapping up before getting in to serious contesting mode, I flipped all of the power switches on the TE Systems Amps and on the Demi Amps, but never noticed the "power" leds weren't on because the sun shining in to the back of the vehicle made them look like they were actually on !

Now the reality of why this contest "seemed much harder" and why all of the repeated contact info from my side made perfect sense - I had run the entire contest at power levels just above the QRP range with nothing coming out of the amplifiers because they weren't powered up !

One more darn thing to check off of my "Murphy" list in the future -

Thanks to all for a great weekend and for being there - local's and DX !

(comments and feedback always welcome - "mycallsign"@arrl.net)

'73 de KG6IYN -- KG6IYN