11/29/2005 | KG6IYN What an outstanding year ! From the January VHF Contest through the September event, things just kept getting better.

Every ARRL VHF Contest entered this year was conducted from the same hilltop in DM12, about 7 miles north of the US - Mexico Border, and approximately 50 miles east of the Pacific Ocean, Elevation 4900' ASL.

Going from the battle in January 2005 with the winds blowing non-stop at 50 MPH or better to a calm and mellow September 2005 "end of season" finale was quite the interesting run this year.

Scores for January were all over the map for setup and antenna problems. June paid off in a huge way with Southern California seemingly getting the better part of the Western States band openings on 6 Meters. September was the best effort for setup, operating and teardown - even allowing time for testing and tinkering with the DEMI and DB6NT transverters, along with a handful of completed QSO's on bands not normally explored.

Hopefully everything learned will make the efforts for 2006 that much better. Having done this as a "one man show" for about the past three years and really fine tuning operating efforts has paid off - certainly by being more organized and spending less time with set up and teardown.

Thanks for all of those who helped by passing out points and for the local rover efforts that helped tremendously with the scoring - especially in a time where gas per gallon in Southern California was close to three bucks a gallon for regular.

Goals for next year - more bands, a little more power on 900/1296/2304, getting two more transverters set up in the gap between 2304 and 10 gig, perhaps a first effort as a multi-op station (hopefully with my newly licensed Son, Bobby).

Cheers - see you all on the bands next January ! -- KG6IYN