09/15/2006 | K1WHS We started our multi multi effort from FN43MJ with N2CEI, W1SD, K1DY, WA1T, K9PW, WZ1V, N1DPM, KU2A, K0DI and visitors KA2LIM and WW1M all in attendance. N1LBI showed up and was the cook again and did a great job with his new propane fired griddle for a fantastic greasy breakfast! BA1LY was in charge of Kitchen cleanup.
After the first hour of contesting, 6 & 2 had 19 grids, but the Q rates were in the 50s. We could see that the bands were not great, but they were OK. We almost worked K2GE/R in FM28 on 10 GHz. We actually got him on everything up to 5.7 GHz! So the band was not in bad shape. We were working all the normal stuff with no trouble. There was no DX in there though. Nothing at all on any band. At around 2100 UT, a very bad weather front came through with lightning and high winds. We dodged a bullet as violent weather went just North of us. Downed trees and even a fatality occurred in the next town away! Looking at the logs after the front passage, it is remarkably bland, with just the typical contacts that you normally see with a dead band. The bright spots were rare grids like FN65 or FM28 provided by the rovers! Not far away, but rare. I did see that we worked Lenny, N3NGE up through 2304 around this time from his spot way off at the western edge of FN20. I guess 3456 did not have enough "goo" to get through. K3EAR in FM19 was worked thru 432. I guess they were limited multi this time. Pete, K9PW snagged FM25 at 2200 UT on 144. That was a nice catch with AA3ID. We were running guys between bands when they had the bands available. This was important to get all the QSOs you possibly could! There were plenty of rovers worked. We got most on just the lower bands. Calls like W1AUV/R, K2QO/R, N2LBT/R, VE3OIL/R. & WA2IID/R are prominent. We even worked KE3HT/R out to the west on the lower VHF bands. A few were worked on higher bands as they were closer to us. The bands were still productive after the front passed on Saturday. KO4YC in FM17 was worked on 144 at about 0030 UT That was grid #34 on 144. At this time we had 31 grids on 6, 24 on 222 and 432. We were on our way. Then stuff started happening. The 144 transverter crapped out. It had to be pulled and Pete went to plan B on 144, an FT-290 and a 100 watt brick! Hey it worked! I went to run the 222 station while Steve, N2CEI fixed the transverter, and noted that the rotor was hosed. The high winds had stripped it out. Good grief! Thank goodness we had an LVA on 222. I got the 4 bay antenna moving again, but it had a dead spot, and the indicator was basically gone. It was not very useable. Things went along fairly well with the gear until Sunday evening when Ron WZ1V announced that he had finally killed the six meter MOJ-1 amplifier. I don't know whether it was that darn Lithuanian brandy he had, or just Ron's "aura" but the amp went belly up and croaked, and we put in just the driver and finished up the night at 100 watts. (Last year Ron broke the toilet seat)
Our FM venture consisted of rigs for 144, 223.5, and 440 MHz. The 144 yagi was run from the 144 position by the 144 op. It was up about 50 ft on the microwave tower on a side arm mount. The same single FM yagis were used for 222 and 440. They were on a ring rotor on the new aux microwave tower and controlled from the 222 and 432 positions. They worked well, but there was not a lot of fm activity, and we did not hit it hard. I heard W2SZ often on 146. I even heard K3YTL on 440 FM. Not sure how many Qs, but most likely around 35-40. One QSO was a new grid!! I think we had about 100 watts per band. A very simple way to get some more QSO points. Our aux microwave system consisted of a simple rig and single antenna for 903 thru 3456 to help work local stations when the big station was working a difficult contact and the arrays were all pointing off somewhere else. It took us until Sunday morning before we got the second station running right. Too little too late!!
As Saturday night wore on, we started looking at each other in the microwave shack. The activity level was dropping to about nil. You could tell it was going to be a grind from here on out. The low VHF bands were switching over to running skeds, and we were not getting any more Q's passed up from six or two meters. Pete K9PW had set an ambitious schedule of WSJT and CW skeds. We had 38 WSJT skeds and 11 cw/ssb skeds on all bands up to 432. Including all the no shows, we ended up with over a 60% success rate on WSJT, which really helped our score with the lousy condx. We stayed competitive even though guys in the midwest and Florida had some great e skip on Sunday. (We had zip nada zilch!) Pete had set some 15 minute skeds which are very short for 144 MHz. It was great that we made many of them. We only struck out with a few on 144, and worked almost all on 50. We missed with N4UFP. There was a bad birdie on our sked frequency which hurt us. I think N4UFP was a victim of that birdie. Pete K9PW and Dave K0DI ran the 144 skeds while Ron, WZ1V and Dave did the 50 MHz stuff. They did a great job, and both laptops seemed to work just fine in that mode. The MS skeds ran from 0400 to about 10:30 or 11:00 UT.
Sunday was all grind. There was little in the way of propagation. If you could not brute force your way, the contact was not made. The atmosphere appeared to be out on strike!! By the time 11 PM rolled around, I was beat. The entire period could be best described as a grind with little exciting propagation to point to.
All in all, it was a real test of the gear, and a test of the operators. I'll bet there was more than one VHFer who gave up in disgust and did something more productive... like watching TV!! We all had a good time, and that is what counts. The following morning we all dragged ourselves out for breakfast at the local diner. K9PW ate a pancake breakfast that reminded me of a stack of manhole covers covered with whipped cream shaped and sized like a motorcycle tire. The hubcap was a pile of strawberries with another blob of whipped cream on top. My calorie counter caught on fire and exploded. Pete attacked the pancakes about as well as he attacked 144 on Saturday and Sunday. When it was all over, both knew they had been in a fight! -- K1WHS