2006 ARRL September VHF Contest
09/17/2006 |
KF
I see the scores in the more eastern parts of the US and have to think - gee those guys beat us by 10X or so ... do they really work that much harder than us here in the upper Midwest? Well probably not .. We work hard too with less population density out here ... lots of corn and many miles in between stations. Thats OK ... the main thing is we all get out and do what we can to activate grids and get as many bands on the air as time and budget permits! Some of us felt pretty fortunate benefitting from some great propagation this summer but as can happen this time of year; things change. With a cool dose of fall-like weather in 2006 it really seemed to me that the door slammed shut on propagation for the sept contest. I missed the contest last year, and hadn't roved for sept since 1999. As can happen this time of year I figured the bands may not hold up, and the weather may not be pleasant, (hate it when I'm right...) so I set my sights low. I also wanted to stay pretty close to home this year; I live within 20 miles of some famous grid corners and decided to focus doing the best I could with limited potential of four grids.
Attempting to out step Murphy I tested all my feedlines prior to placing them on the rover. In all I found 3 feedlines with issues that couldnt be used. Rover setup went pretty good as the rain held off and I was in position calling CQ within a half our of the contest start (maybe a first for me..). Trouble was I could not raise a soul on 144 or six until finally W9RM went in the log on 50. As we all know now conditions on 50Mhz were deplorable... I wasnt enjoying my spot at the farm either as I couldnt find a level place to park. After hearing nothing on 144 and the least action on six in years I decided to move on and check out my gear some more. The Gun Club is just a few miles away so I stopped and checked a few things out. I made a few qs on six and discovered that the 144 feedline connector failed at the connection to the brick (Guess Murphy is hard to defy...)
As home was only 10 miles away I decided to pick up a couple of things and try again. Within an hour I arrived back to EN43 with a new working feedline on 144 and my 180W brick for 50. Things became much better and I kept busy for a couple more hours in EN43 and then EN44. Next casualty for the weekend was my 902 transverter. I must have mis-qued the PTT switching and damaged the front end of the transverter. Good news was that 1296 seemed to be OK as was 3456. (2304 did offer some troubles most of the weekend that became impossible to use by mid Sunday). Saturday night I returned home to find that one more item failed (6M moxon) due to one of the many trees that I have to steer around on the way to the site Last equipment change was Sunday morning whereas I put the Mosley 3 element beam on the rover in place of the moxon.
Activity Sunday morning was pretty good. I found a nice looking rover spot SW of St Charles in EN33 and made some contacts. Almost worked Bruce, W9FZ/R from here while he was in EN46 He had a great signal but couldnt hear me. N8LIQ however; ended up in the log which was a nice surprise. The dirt road I was on ran North south but didnt have much room to pull over when confronted with a large volume of traffic (dirt road on a Sunday??) So I moved to the east to a spot that Jon, WQ had used before for the rest of my EN33 operation. The new spot was pretty good and I stayed there a couple more hours. Even through the trees I was able to work 7 bands with K2DRH from this spot. It was also during this time I learned that John, WAPJ and Mark, AI were near by (very near by...) across the freeway from me. Before the WAPJ rover team left the area we had a nice eyeball qso and exchanged a couple of quick rover stories ... was nice to visit with them and many thanks for all the qsos guys
After refueling in St Charles I meandered my way around Elba toward Wabasha. On the way I pulled over a couple of times for more qsos with WA0VPJ/R as I passed through 2 grids of some wonderful countryside here in southeast Minnesota. I finally arrived at the hill by Wabasha; EN33wj just after 3:00. A good friend of mine, Roger, KI lives up on this ridge and I thought it would be a good test to try the VHF test from here. I parked next to Rogers place and made quite a few qsos. I tried a couple of sites next to Rogers place that worked pretty good. By 8:00 I was back on the road headed for home. I set only one sched, K2DRH from EN44 on the way home. I arrived back at the gun club a few minutes before the sched with Bob and made a few more qsos. Sched was a success (all working band sweep..). Stopped on the road in EN43 and grabbed a few more qsos ... last with Gene, NQS before I pulled the switch.
Conclusions:
The bands pretty well stank around here... participation seemed moderate but it was a bit of work to make any qso as can happen in September. Many CW qs on six and some busted ones too. In total 13 percent of my qsos were on CW.... should have had more!
1296 and 3456 were pretty darn good ... several qsos with WQ as well as N9TTX on these 2 bands. Really missed 902... my all reliable transverter for the last 7 years finally gave me a problem!
No qs on 5.7 and 10G... had my gear warmed up all weekend but without prior scheduling no qso's would happen.
Seemed like deja vu while heading home Saturday night and hooking up with K2DRH at the same exact spot on the road in EN43 as the June Contest for a quick sweep
No problems with the law or land owners (usually stay in a tractor path) this time out... the ARRL sign on the door may help .. although the rover got lots of attention at the Kwik Trip in St Charles ... (I think adding the full-size Mosley on six really brought about the attention).
In spite of rotten conditions serval almost sweeps with many of you: N9TTX, KWU, K2DRH, KB9TLV,NZJ, and WAPJ/R (7 times ) to name a few ... all the others tnx for following me around!
Having low expectations was the correct theme for me... with all the problems and ho-hum conditions it was nice to not have an aggressive schedule to keep up with. Coming back from the deficit of having only 1 q in the first two hours to the final result is very satisfying! -- KF
Attempting to out step Murphy I tested all my feedlines prior to placing them on the rover. In all I found 3 feedlines with issues that couldnt be used. Rover setup went pretty good as the rain held off and I was in position calling CQ within a half our of the contest start (maybe a first for me..). Trouble was I could not raise a soul on 144 or six until finally W9RM went in the log on 50. As we all know now conditions on 50Mhz were deplorable... I wasnt enjoying my spot at the farm either as I couldnt find a level place to park. After hearing nothing on 144 and the least action on six in years I decided to move on and check out my gear some more. The Gun Club is just a few miles away so I stopped and checked a few things out. I made a few qs on six and discovered that the 144 feedline connector failed at the connection to the brick (Guess Murphy is hard to defy...)
As home was only 10 miles away I decided to pick up a couple of things and try again. Within an hour I arrived back to EN43 with a new working feedline on 144 and my 180W brick for 50. Things became much better and I kept busy for a couple more hours in EN43 and then EN44. Next casualty for the weekend was my 902 transverter. I must have mis-qued the PTT switching and damaged the front end of the transverter. Good news was that 1296 seemed to be OK as was 3456. (2304 did offer some troubles most of the weekend that became impossible to use by mid Sunday). Saturday night I returned home to find that one more item failed (6M moxon) due to one of the many trees that I have to steer around on the way to the site Last equipment change was Sunday morning whereas I put the Mosley 3 element beam on the rover in place of the moxon.
Activity Sunday morning was pretty good. I found a nice looking rover spot SW of St Charles in EN33 and made some contacts. Almost worked Bruce, W9FZ/R from here while he was in EN46 He had a great signal but couldnt hear me. N8LIQ however; ended up in the log which was a nice surprise. The dirt road I was on ran North south but didnt have much room to pull over when confronted with a large volume of traffic (dirt road on a Sunday??) So I moved to the east to a spot that Jon, WQ had used before for the rest of my EN33 operation. The new spot was pretty good and I stayed there a couple more hours. Even through the trees I was able to work 7 bands with K2DRH from this spot. It was also during this time I learned that John, WAPJ and Mark, AI were near by (very near by...) across the freeway from me. Before the WAPJ rover team left the area we had a nice eyeball qso and exchanged a couple of quick rover stories ... was nice to visit with them and many thanks for all the qsos guys
After refueling in St Charles I meandered my way around Elba toward Wabasha. On the way I pulled over a couple of times for more qsos with WA0VPJ/R as I passed through 2 grids of some wonderful countryside here in southeast Minnesota. I finally arrived at the hill by Wabasha; EN33wj just after 3:00. A good friend of mine, Roger, KI lives up on this ridge and I thought it would be a good test to try the VHF test from here. I parked next to Rogers place and made quite a few qsos. I tried a couple of sites next to Rogers place that worked pretty good. By 8:00 I was back on the road headed for home. I set only one sched, K2DRH from EN44 on the way home. I arrived back at the gun club a few minutes before the sched with Bob and made a few more qsos. Sched was a success (all working band sweep..). Stopped on the road in EN43 and grabbed a few more qsos ... last with Gene, NQS before I pulled the switch.
Conclusions:
The bands pretty well stank around here... participation seemed moderate but it was a bit of work to make any qso as can happen in September. Many CW qs on six and some busted ones too. In total 13 percent of my qsos were on CW.... should have had more!
1296 and 3456 were pretty darn good ... several qsos with WQ as well as N9TTX on these 2 bands. Really missed 902... my all reliable transverter for the last 7 years finally gave me a problem!
No qs on 5.7 and 10G... had my gear warmed up all weekend but without prior scheduling no qso's would happen.
Seemed like deja vu while heading home Saturday night and hooking up with K2DRH at the same exact spot on the road in EN43 as the June Contest for a quick sweep
No problems with the law or land owners (usually stay in a tractor path) this time out... the ARRL sign on the door may help .. although the rover got lots of attention at the Kwik Trip in St Charles ... (I think adding the full-size Mosley on six really brought about the attention).
In spite of rotten conditions serval almost sweeps with many of you: N9TTX, KWU, K2DRH, KB9TLV,NZJ, and WAPJ/R (7 times ) to name a few ... all the others tnx for following me around!
Having low expectations was the correct theme for me... with all the problems and ho-hum conditions it was nice to not have an aggressive schedule to keep up with. Coming back from the deficit of having only 1 q in the first two hours to the final result is very satisfying! -- KF
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