09/14/2005 | N8BMB This was my 3rd VHF contest. I did pretty well, I think, this time as I finished with 85 contacts as opposed to the last 2 of 30 and 40 contacts each time.

Equipment used this contest: Yeasu FT-857D, 2m home-brew beam, 6m home-brew "rotatable" di-pole

After almost a week of a dead 6m band I was hoping and praying for 6m to open up - AND IT DID! For January's contest I was not able to get any contacts outside of my grid - EN82 - until the last minute when I got one out of Florida.

Band conditions were pretty darn good for the entire contest. The only drawback was the home-brew 2m beam, that usually works on 70cm as well, now decided that it did NOT want to work on 70cm this weekend. Need to figure that out as nothing was changed.

I also apparently was the subject of a small pile-up from the Texas area going into the late stages of the contest on Sunday. This was according to another operator who was able to hear a little better than I could on that frequency since I had alot of atmospheric noise to deal with and couldn't hear everyone.

Carlo, VA3CSS, came by from Windsor, Ontario and stuck around for a bit, so I wasn't left talking to myself as my XYL and my 3yo daughter went out to her sisters place for the day on Saturday.

Overall, though, this was a better contest for me and I am looking forward to January's contest!

'73 - Dennis -- N8BMB