W4IY Ltd Multi-Op High Power

FM08 on top of Flag Pole Knob in central VA at 4,200 ft deep inside the national radio quiet zone (with permission).

Score:  51,667.  SSB on 6, 2, 432.  FT8 on 6 & 2, FM on 6, 2, 1.25 & 432. CW on 2 & 432.

Operators:  AA4SI, K0LB, KG4URW, KI4GSS, KJ4LR, KK4SNO, KM4KMU, K5VG, W4DAV, W7IY, WA0DYJ, KA4RRU and a surprise visit from N3WSO who cooked great pancakes.

The objective was fun with minimal work.  We definatley achieved maximum fun and a respectable score boot.  The food on a remote mountain top was amazing, Omletes, Steak, Spaghetti, Chicken fried steak, Pancakes, stuffed jalepeno's ... on and on all week.

For antenna's we use KM4KMU's Jeep mounted 12' boom Yagi-Uda's (never for get Uda) antenna's set at horizontal polarization and tuned across SSB and FM for under VSWR 1.5.  For radios we had a single KS3 with 1,500 Watt solid state amps on 6, 2 and 432 plus KM4KMU's ancient Kenwood for 223.5 FM with a TE100W brick.

The weather was pretty good, except for Thursday/Friday with the rain.  KK4SNO had a lot of fun settin up his new tent in the rain.  Sunday night have been the best daytime WX in years.  All week long the temps never dipped below 40 and never got abover the mid 80's.  Great camping weather.

Flagpole was crawling with 4 wheel drive vehicles on Saturday.  Most of the driver and PAX were inquisitive and excited to learn what we were doing.  Most had stories about Dad or Grampa being a Ham to tell us......All except one group which had nothing good to say.  They were incorrigable, looking to pick a fight and tensions were high.  A first time for everythihg.  This is a known problem, the most hostile (not surprisingly) was driving a Toyota 4X4 with a solid front axle, a real camp six crazy (east coast off roaders know what that means).

Several technical problems plagued us throughout the contest-I can still hear "where is Stu2?" echoing in my ears.  But like I told all, if they wanted to operate late into Saturday night, operate as long as you can, if it breaks - go to bed!!

As far as ops-Saturday go, it was nothing to get excited about BUT the band was great Sunday morning.  We experienced strong ducting, a pipeline to the NE and Canadian Maritime Provinces.  Signals were very loud from FN42 on up.  We did a 100W, 493 mile FM Q on 223.5 to K1KG with perfect clarity at S9 +.

Not much e-skip on 6m which kept us on FT8 most of the day Sunday.  During the football doldrums we went to FM with 750W on beams and got a nice high Q rate during what is normally dead time.  

Sunday we finally tackled the RF feedback problem on 6m that did not appear in precontest bench testing.  KJ4LR put K0LB's donated ferrites on every wire he could see.  That helped, but in desperation I touched the mic lead to the computer and the problem went away.  So 7IY and I decided that tin foil might help (see pic, ala W3LW field fix).   W4NF reported we sounded much better but still had an echo.  This caused KMU and W7IY to don tin foil hats (it didnt help) but every time we rubbed a ferrite between out fingers we got a new grid so that became our Sunday night good luck charm to please the RF gods (lower case intentional).

Obervations of KM4KMU (the FM guy)

1:  Steak an omletes as part of a multi-op team is way better than sea weed snacks and tuna lunch packs when running SOFM on the mountain.

2. Thank you KG4HOT and KM4OZH/R for your persistance on four bnad FM Q's and especially K1lKG for daring to move over to FM from SSB and attempt a long range FM Q on 223.5.

3. If you dont have a  220 rig, go get one at the next hamfest, even its just FM.  223.5FM rocks. 300+ miles in January with no enhacement, 493 mi with a duct.  Dont miss out on the multi's.  Lowest $/grid and $/Q you can buy.

What a great week of Elmering , Eating and Contesting.

73

John

W4IY Team member (KM4KMU)