07/12/2012 | K9MU

This contest was operated from a cabin in Northern Wisconsin (Grid EN46). I had actually thought the contest was June 16-17. Good thing I brought my radio gear or I would have missed this one! Of course, I didn’t bring some of the contest luxuries like filters, a good CW key, and my computer interface. I had just the “barebones”; my IC-746 (100 watts), home laptop with a quick install of Win-test, headphones, a 5 element 6m yagi, and a 12 element 2m yagi. The 6m yagi was at 25 feet with a TV type rotator which never indicated the correct direction.

With only 100w and a 5 element, I felt loud at times. I believe that semi-rare
grid EN46 kept the callers calling! The pile-ups wouldn’t quit and I had some great rates. My best 10 QSO/Rate/Hour was 318 working 6 callsigns in a minute. I had several other minutes with 5 QSO’s worked. My best hour was near the end of the contest with 159 QSO’s/Hour.

My shortest Es contact was with N9LYE who is in EN51wg. The distance between us is only 377 miles. G3RAU’s MUF calculator shows that path to be around 110 Mhz! This contact took place at around 01:00z which correlates with the 2m Es opening that was reported. I was listening and calling on 2m around this time and never heard a peep.  On 6m, I worked several stations in southern IL, IN, OH, and MI all at around 400 to 500 miles!

My best DX was with K6MIO/KH6 in BK29 at around 23:00z.  Mr. Kennedy called while I was working some W6/W7’s in a SSB run.

The band was open in multiple directions at times. From 23:31z to 23: 36z, I worked these grids in a row: CM97,FM29,DN17,DN55,FM09,EM42,

EM12,FN00,DM88,CM87. Talk about all over the place! I didn’t know where to point! One good thing about my small yagi is that it was very broad banded and had a wide beam width. I was working stations way up to 50.300 from the back and sides of my antenna.

I apologize to any stations that were calling me and I didn’t hear them. I
had some new power line noise to the east which was intermittent on Saturday and Sunday morning.  The noise became solid S9 hash across 6m and 2m Sunday night. I ran with attenuation on most of the time and gave long pauses to hear partials callsign letters between the S9 arching pops.

Overall, this was my 3rd highest scoring contest but definitely the best from a small station! The other two higher scoring contests were from the W0UC/W0AIH contest station. Boy, would I have loved to have the high antenna stacks for this one!

I have some great audio recordings of the pile-ups. They will be available on my website after the contest results are out. Thanks for the contacts! My log will be on ARRL’s Logbook of the World for anyone who needs EN46 confirmed. I will also accept SASE’s direct.

73,

Justin, K9MU/P EN46 -- K9MU