2006 ARRL June VHF Contest
06/14/2006 |
KB7DQH/R
The pictures tell the story rather well. Needless to say, the planned unlimited band multiop from Lion Rock, CN97QG, with Ray, W7GLF, didn't happen. Efforts to free the vehicle without the aid of the tow truck did nothing in the way of putting calls in the log, either. The tree limbs fouling the antennas kept us off the bands above 222, and the antennas couldn't be rotated due to the tree the Bus was resting against. A check with a compass revealed we were pointed due north, with the 6 meter DX arriving from reflections off the mountainside we were pointed at. We could hear K1TOL at S-9+, but couldn't bust the QRM at his end. Still managed to squeeze some DX contacts into the log, along with some of the locals. Fortunately, W7HDD was listening on two meters, a quick CQ got his attention, and a tow truck heading up the hill. Put him in the log on 6 and 2 meters while we waited.
Still soaking wet and cold from the self-removal attempt, I fired up the heaters... both the RF and thermal... and settled into an awkward operating position to see what we could stick into the log while we waited for assistance.
With the arrival of the tow truck, the process of rigging began, so operations ceased once again. Another hour or so (and $650) later, we were solidly back on the road, and with 6 drying up, and wanting to do some microwave sometime that weekend, Ray and I decided to make a run for
Mt. Pilchuck in CN98, thus changing our status to Rover.
Along the way Ray worked what could be heard on our trek Westward thru the night. This meant scurrying about the interior from operating position to operating position to run bands with the stations so equipped. I managed to scare up a few extra points on the local FM simplex, which Ray was able to get logged as I drove thru CN87 and CN88 on our way to the hilltop in CN98.
Camped short of the logging road landing where we would operate from as the road in is a bit tedious, best travelled in daylight.
The usual 6 meter band "alarm clock" worked a bit early for us, gave us only about 2 hours sleep. The troposcatter seekers started up a couple hours early this year!!!
From Mt. Pilchuck much of the second 6 meter opening was somewhat obscured by the Cascade Range to our immediate East, but still produced a huge volume of Q's from that band. Which, like the rest of the country, kept the QSO volume down on the higher bands.
Worked some microwave stuff... had 3 stations running on 10368, mainly to see which was receiving the best. W7GLF has put considerable time and effort into his setup, which payed off with non-LOS path QSO's with W7LHL and KD7TS. Both my stations could barely receive what Ray's homebrew station was easily copying, and with only 10mW power from either of mine, I could only be received by Ernie and Mike with the use of Spectran. Two watts sure makes bouncing off of stuff viable. I gotta do some work on mine to get the receive gain up and noise figure down, and add some power!!!
Worked a couple stations on 2304, 3456, and 5760. The new loop yagi for 3456 really sucks in a signal compared to the 12dB horn!
The few stations worked on 903 and 1296 benefited greatly from new QRO acquisitions, now running 320W on 903 and 120W on 1296. No exciting DX up there, because everyone was working the DX on 6!
Had a connector go bad on 2 meters after arriving in CN98, but was only noticed when the 160W brick was on, causing nasty RF feedback thru the microphone. Didn't get that fixed until Tuesday after the contest. Amazing what can be worked on 2 meters with a short-circuited RF connector and 10Watts!
Only other "real" problem experienced was the lack of optional filters in the FT897 I was running on 6 meters. Being line-of-sight from several kilowatt level stations made receiving interesting.
Oddly enough, the receiver didn't desense like my TS 680S under these conditions, but the scratch from overdriven amplifiers would cover up weak signals around 20 kilohertz away, or roughly where the next "big gun" was running. Will have to try the FT 650 under similar conditions and see how it plays.
It was a lot of work, and once Ray gets the score calculated, we can see how well we did...
Eric
KB7DQH -- KB7DQH
Still soaking wet and cold from the self-removal attempt, I fired up the heaters... both the RF and thermal... and settled into an awkward operating position to see what we could stick into the log while we waited for assistance.
With the arrival of the tow truck, the process of rigging began, so operations ceased once again. Another hour or so (and $650) later, we were solidly back on the road, and with 6 drying up, and wanting to do some microwave sometime that weekend, Ray and I decided to make a run for
Mt. Pilchuck in CN98, thus changing our status to Rover.
Along the way Ray worked what could be heard on our trek Westward thru the night. This meant scurrying about the interior from operating position to operating position to run bands with the stations so equipped. I managed to scare up a few extra points on the local FM simplex, which Ray was able to get logged as I drove thru CN87 and CN88 on our way to the hilltop in CN98.
Camped short of the logging road landing where we would operate from as the road in is a bit tedious, best travelled in daylight.
The usual 6 meter band "alarm clock" worked a bit early for us, gave us only about 2 hours sleep. The troposcatter seekers started up a couple hours early this year!!!
From Mt. Pilchuck much of the second 6 meter opening was somewhat obscured by the Cascade Range to our immediate East, but still produced a huge volume of Q's from that band. Which, like the rest of the country, kept the QSO volume down on the higher bands.
Worked some microwave stuff... had 3 stations running on 10368, mainly to see which was receiving the best. W7GLF has put considerable time and effort into his setup, which payed off with non-LOS path QSO's with W7LHL and KD7TS. Both my stations could barely receive what Ray's homebrew station was easily copying, and with only 10mW power from either of mine, I could only be received by Ernie and Mike with the use of Spectran. Two watts sure makes bouncing off of stuff viable. I gotta do some work on mine to get the receive gain up and noise figure down, and add some power!!!
Worked a couple stations on 2304, 3456, and 5760. The new loop yagi for 3456 really sucks in a signal compared to the 12dB horn!
The few stations worked on 903 and 1296 benefited greatly from new QRO acquisitions, now running 320W on 903 and 120W on 1296. No exciting DX up there, because everyone was working the DX on 6!
Had a connector go bad on 2 meters after arriving in CN98, but was only noticed when the 160W brick was on, causing nasty RF feedback thru the microphone. Didn't get that fixed until Tuesday after the contest. Amazing what can be worked on 2 meters with a short-circuited RF connector and 10Watts!
Only other "real" problem experienced was the lack of optional filters in the FT897 I was running on 6 meters. Being line-of-sight from several kilowatt level stations made receiving interesting.
Oddly enough, the receiver didn't desense like my TS 680S under these conditions, but the scratch from overdriven amplifiers would cover up weak signals around 20 kilohertz away, or roughly where the next "big gun" was running. Will have to try the FT 650 under similar conditions and see how it plays.
It was a lot of work, and once Ray gets the score calculated, we can see how well we did...
Eric
KB7DQH -- KB7DQH
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